Eighty Mile Beach - Broome

The drive from Newman to Port Hedland took around 6hrs and the only civilisation along the way was one Roadhouse and some mine workers dongers, over here in WA it is certainly a long way between towns. This time when we passed through Port Hedland the mud had turned to dust, but there was still evidence with water laying alongside the road from the rains that they received nearly two weeks ago. Once again we had a stop over for the night at De Grae River before heading onto Eighty Mile Beach.

We cut our speed back to 40klms to negotiate the dusty corrugated road into Eighty Mile Beach luckily it was only a 10klm stretch but it only takes a few meters for your vehicles to be covered in the red dust. Pulling into the Caravan Park reception Baz was advised by a driver from the vehicle that was following us, that we had lost our sullage hose out of the tube on the back of the van. It would have been nice if he had retrieved it for us as Baz had to then back track with van, and then find somewhere he was able to turn to head back to the park again. Eighty Mile Beach lived up to all that we had heard about it, Baz even said it was worth the red dust, beautiful aqua blue water, lovely white course sand and dozens of people fishing off the beach. Jason, Anita & Olivia arrived later that afternoon and certainly enjoyed their fix of sand & water after the rocks and red dust of Newman. We sat on the beach until the sun had set and witnessed another stunning sunset over the Indian Ocean.

Tuesday it was on the road early as we wanted to be in Broome by lunch time, this would then give us time to set up, have lunch and clean ourselves up to be on the foreshore at Cable Beach to meet Grant, his family and his friends from Broome to remember his son Adam, who tragically died 12 months ago pursuing his dream of flying.

Road into Eighty Mile Beach

Eighty Mile Beaach

Mulloway or Jewfish caught off the beach

Reflections

Jason & Oliva

Sunset Eighty Mile Beach

Newman cont.....

Anita had great plans for a Dora cake for Olivia, but after the third unsuccessful attempt of trying to get the cake out of the tin, it was time to think of plan B! After some discussion on how best to use the cake that had already been cooked we came up with the idea of a Caterpillar Cake, Gran was assigned the grass while Anita constructed the Caterpillar. Many hours later we had the finished product much to Livvies delight, as all she wanted for her birthday was cake. Anita wishes she had spent more time with her grandmother when she was younger, as she has not inherited her abilities. I was given the important task of nursing the cake as we drove to the park, Anita did not want to put the cake on the table with the other party food so it was left sitting on top of the Waco in the back of the Pajero. Baz had the sudden need for a toilet so off he goes back to the house, forgetting that the cake that took hours & hours to make was perched in the back, on his return I was unable to look and too scared to tell Anita, but he was lucky, very lucky as the cake had not moved.

Newman social life is very busy as the next day we went out to the Capricorn Road House about 10klm out of Newman as Isla a little friend of Livvies was turning 1, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours sitting outside the Tavern while the children played in the playground.

Thursday it was time for big people stuff, we packed a picnic lunch and headed off in Jason’s vehicle to Weeli Wollie, Baz was not taking the Pajero on the 40klms of dirt road and numerous water crossings, seven in total. Weeli Wollie Spring and Creek are very popular with the families from Newman for day trips and camping as it provides a day of four wheel driving for the big boys and when you arrive the kids are able to swim in the pools. Lucky we did not get stuck in any of the water crossings as we were the only ones out there, we had only passed a couple of vehicles that were heading out as we were going in. We asked Jase “did you tell anyone where we were going?”  He answered “yes, YOU.”  It was a very enjoyable day the weather was lovely but not hot enough for us to be tempted in a swim, Olivia thought it was OK and had a lovely time in the water.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we leave Newman and head towards Eighty Mile Beach, where we will wait for Jason, Anita & Olivia to arrive on Wednesday, they will stop there for a night then we will all head for Broome on Thursday.

Olivia with her pressie from Gran & Grandad

Birthday girl with mum & dad

 Baz at Weeli Wolli

Jase & Olivia at Weeli Wolli