Tuesday 18th August –Leaving Broome

Well the day has finally arrived to leave. We feel quite sad at going but move on we must. We have really enjoyed our stay here and have said that we hope to return some day and maybe even visit the area in the wet season as it must be awesome to see the rivers flowing and to experience the steamy heat and the pouring rain.

Departure time is 10am and there are people lined up outside waiting to take our spot as nearly all the caravan parks are still full and will be so until at least the middle of September. Then they say that the parks can be full one day and then heading towards October empty out in a couple of weeks as everyone heads back down south again before the wet and cyclone season kicks in.

Our destination was Eighty Mile Beach about 330 kms to travel.From the turn off at Roebuck Roadhouse and heading south there really was not much to see. The country was just flat and mostly scrub/bush. We didn’t see much wildlife at all and practically no road kill. We thought this was probably due to the fact that they discourage anybody driving this Great Northern Road at night and we know that’s when most of the road kill occurs.We saw the flat salt plains in the distance that shimmered and looked like water but not much else. The roads are very good and very well maintained and very straight. Mostly we watched the fuel needle just going down and listened to the Pilbara ABC  to keep us amused. We passed Anna Plains Station 240 kms out of Broome and saw some cattle by the roadside. By now we were really looking forward to reaching the Sandfire Roadhouse so we could maybe have a coffee and a walk about as this was the first and only place for fuel for 300 odd kms. Imagine how we  felt that when we finally arrived to find that the only part remaining was the petrol pumps as the whole place had burnt to the ground in 2007. As no doubt they must get asked a thousand times what happened etc they had a notice board up saying that a new Roadhouse/restaurant/shop etc was currently being built in Perth and would be dismantled and transported up in October and reassembled in situ. So all that was left was the caravan park a few toilets and an old shipping container with a window in it so you could pay for your fuel and that was it!. We filled up as our tank was nearly empty though we do carry a spare 20ltrs just in case.

It was then another 50 kms for the turn off down to the caravan park which was a red dirt road for 10 kms.

As we turned onto  it and drove over the cattle grid we saw on the side of the track the burnt out remains of what once must have been a large caravan. After we had checked in and parked the Jayco we were chatting to our new neighbours who told us that it had happened a couple of days ago and it seems that people  must have been travelling with their frig operating on the gas system and the ignition must have sparked the fire. Anyhow ,whatever it was the caravan was totally destroyed and they were lucky that had been able to detach it from their car before that too would have caught fire. They were now with their friends for a couple of days before heading home early minus their caravan! We settled in and heard the bugle of the Viet Nam veterans having a memorial service to mark the 40 years since Long Tan. I was sorry we missed it as we still setting up at the time.

We walked down to the beach which was just over the sand dune to see that the tide was way out. It would have been at least a km to reach the water, as here the tidal range was still huge. That night we heard the crashing of waves when the tide came back in.

Eighty Mile beach is known for it shells so we walked quite a way looking for suitable ones that Beatrice wanted to collect and perhaps make something with.

We walked back with our pockets full to make dinner and have a game of scrabble under our battery lights as we were on an unpowered site.