Pilbara Coast

Monday 21st and time for us to leave the beautiful Broome area and head southwards.  Our destination is just over 100 k's away at Barn Hill Station.  This is another huge cattle station that has found a lucrative side line in the tourist season with a caravan park.  This one is very popular as it is right on the beach. In the 600 k's between Broome and Port Hedland there are very few places on the water where you can stay,  in fact there is very little of anything.

They generate their own power here, and have an unusual way of charging for sites.  For non-powered it is $22 but for power you can choose 4, 6 or 10 amp which go up in $5 increments.  As none of these are enough to run a kettle or toaster, non powered in the solar section was the best option for us, and a bargain price to boot.  This section also has more room and is the closest to the beach as well.  The park looked large until we went for a walk the next morning and discovered the generator section is as big as the park again.  There are many semi permanents here, some come for up to six months and we see them watering their patches of lawn and vegetable gardens (yes, really).  I heard one say he has been coming here for fifteen years. 

A vegie garden - and he had another one out the back

Probably 98% of those here are "oldies", 1% families travelling with children and another one percent backpackers who stay for a night after thinking they have stumbled into a retirement village.

The station bakes a few loaves of bread each day, and we lined up one morning to claim ours.  They also do a very nice vanilla slice as well as lamingtons.  There are also some special nights such as a three course roast dinner on Sundays, and a BYO BBQ on Wednesdays. 

Station fresh bread

There is really nothing here but the beach and beautiful weather, but what else do you need.  We've gone for walks on the beach, Jim's tried fishing but only got throw backs, and we've generally had a lovely, quiet relaxing time, as everyone else here seems to have.  

Rock features on the beach

Red cliffs

From the pathway.  Our van in front.  The treed area behind are the powered sites

The generator area with cliff top views

From the beach at Barn Hill

But it is time to move on again as the fish aren't biting.  Next stop is Eighty Mile Beach.  This is a very popular place and they don't take bookings.  If you want power you may have to take an unpowered for a night and then queue up at 8 the next morning.  Our timing was good and our luck with good sites continued as we got a very good powered site.  We thought Barn Hill was good, but it is quite ramshackle compared to here.  It's beautifully set out, spacious sites and good amenities.  There are some places that just have a good feel about them, and we both thought this place did.  So we very soon added another two nights to the original two I had paid for.  The beach here stretches for miles with pure white sand.  Breathtaking when you first walk over the dune.  

White sand of Eighty Mile Beach

We have seen a lot of sunsets and have thought we have seen as spectacular as you can get.  That is until we went to the beach here.  We headed down about fifteen minutes before, and our first shock was the number of people already there.  They were on the beach and also tucked up in the dune with their drinks and nibbles waiting for the show.  And what a show.  The beach here isn't direct west as most of the ones lately have been, but more south westerly.  This produced not just the usual beautiful red/orange sunset, but when we turned around and looked along the beach, we discovered that the miles of white sand had turned pink as had the sky in that direction.  There was colour in very direction we looked.

Unbelievable sunsets

This is the first time we have had power in nearly ten days, so Friday morning was spent catching up on lots of washing.  Very few fish are being caught at the moment, but it has been very windy which would have affected it.  The other thing the beach is famous for is shell collecting.  The beach is just littered with shells and there are always people walking around picking them up.  Unfortunately the lovely big ones are few and far between.  Jim picked up a beautiful large conch shell on Cable Beach which we have wrapped in bubble wrap.  This has spoilt me for anything I might want to keep.

Part of the park from the walkway to the beach

Saturday morning high tide was around ten, so a good time to fish (supposedly).  After a few chores I walked down about 11 to see how Jim was doing.  I came over the sand dune, and just stopped dead.  It was wall to wall fisherman what ever direction you looked.  I tried ringing him to see what direction he was, but fortunately he spotted me and gave a wave.  Like all the others, he was having no luck.  We also realised why there were so many cars missing this morning - the smart people had driven much further down the beach.  

The view in either direction from where Jim was

Sunday morning was supposed to be optimum for fishing and this time we took the car further down the beach.  However, that still didn't do us any good, and it was even more frustrating when someone about 70 metres away brought in a huge fish, it looked like a salmon.  

The tides are amazing here.  When we parked on the beach there was just over an hour to high tide and we were probably 70-80 metres back from the water line.  We couldn't believe the speed the tide moved in.  In one wave the water would be two metres behind where Jim had been standing.  We ended up moving the car back twice, probably another 50 metres.  And just as fast as it came in, it went back out again.

Back at the park after our unsuccessful fishing foray, it was time for the Sunday market.  They also have it on Wednesdays.  The stalls are from the long termers here, I guess they need to do something to fill in their time.  I had noticed an annex set up with sewing machines the day before.  As well as the sewing items there was jewellery and fishing gear and lots of second hand books.  There was live music as well.

The music seems very popular here and entertainment happens frequently.  On Friday afternoon we started to think that someone was a bit rude playing their country and music so loudly, then we realised it was live.  On walking over to the beach, we saw lots of people with their chairs lined up to listen and enjoy.  Then mid Saturday afternoon someone else set up just behind us with their music.  But come evening, and the place is dead quiet.  All those oldies go to bed early.