Broome to Port Hedland

August 6 to August 14

  

Between Broome and Port Hedland there are no towns, for 600 kilometres! The highway follows the coastline, roughly 10 to 20 kilometres from the beach, and it is along this stretch that a lot of the “Southerners” in Western Australia come for holidays to get away from the cold. Even though WA’s north is very remotely populated, the mining boom has made a real difference to the Kimberly region (and all of WA). In Western QLD and Northern Territory’s large remote regions, you can go hundreds of kilometres without phone coverage, meaning you need a CB radio or satellite phone if you need to communicate. In WA the entire major highway system is covered by Telstra mobile coverage. Amazing!

We decided to first stop at Barn Hill Station, about 140 kilometres south of Broome, a huge working cattle station which spans 85 kilometres of coastline along Roebuck Bay. The 10 km’s of dirt road into Barn Hill was corrugated. Cars and four wheel drives don’t feel corrugates too much, but motorhomes and caravans do.

Rock Formations at Barn Hill (background, not me!!)

The uncomfortable drive was worth it, this basic camp was very well equipped given its remoteness. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and initially booked for two nights.

The coastline with its interesting eroded rock formations was spectacular. A number of campers bring boats to launch from the shore, as the fishing on the reefs a couple of kilometres off shore is very productive. I would have launched the kayak but the sandy, windy, one kilometre track to the beach (the only wheeled access due to the low cliffs) turned me off. I did eventually rig up and tried lure fishing from the beach. I landed a 60cm barracuda on my first outing which was excellent eating. No further success but plenty of exercise.

Barn Hill beach, quiet and spectacular

They do a three course roast dinner on Sunday night, with a local indigenous band (Family Shoveller Band) as entertainment. It’s a BYO affair, BYO chairs, table, drinks, nibblies, cutlery, crockery, everything except the meal. They served 160 odd people, down from more than 300 the week before. The meal was reasonable, the band and entertainment was very good. It was a pleasure to see these talented local artists from a nearby community, all from the same family, entertaining and interacting with the audience the way they did.

Barn Hill Camp, view from our cliff site

We decided to stay another two nights as it was very relaxing and we had secured a cliff-side spot on the second day (and I was in no rush to drive the dirt road out). We are enjoying switching from tourist in the “attraction” type areas like Broome, to holidaymakers when we get the quiet coastal places. Given how cold and wet it is Perth, we are in no rush southward.

Staying at the camp on Census night was easy as the managers were registered collectors, so we had hard copy forms “delivered” and collected from us the next day.

Barn Hill Barracuda

We departed Barn Hill on Wednesday, and drove a couple of hundred kilometres to reach the Sandfire Roadhouse. Given it is the first stop for hundreds of k’s, there isn’t much there except fuel. I would have thought they would have some reasonable groceries and fruit and veg, but not to be.

We had considered stopping at Port Smith as recommended by Bert and Di, but feedback from campers who had just been there told us the midges/sand-flies were horrendous. They had been fogging the camp each night but to no avail.

80 Mile Beach, a lot of people for no fish

We headed to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, about 250 kilometres from Barn Hill, highly recommended by many people. Again 10 kilometres of corrugated dirt road, but again well worth the effort. A very different coastline being sand dunes and not cliffs, and a very different breed of camper. Here it is all about shells and salmon fishing. Low tide exposes about 300 metres of beach as the drop off is very gradual. The low tide sand is littered with all manner of shells. Many people collect the shells and turn them into jewelry, ornaments, collections, etc.

80 Mile Beach Turtle Hatching, way out of season

High tide brings out the fisher-persons. For kilometres either direction along the beach from the camp you will see four wheel drives, quad bikes, trailers, motorbikes, golf buggies, set up for fishing. They cast into one metre deep water and wait. Usually there is plenty of action (like tailor fishing on Frazer I’m told), but while we were there we saw no one catch anything until the last afternoon, a baby shark and two small blue salmon. No one knows why, but the salmon aren’t there this year.

The Park is very well run and maintained, and they have a small but well stocked shop and even do cooked food on the weekends. We stayed for three nights, each day walking the beach at each tide, watching the shell collectors and fishers at their chosen pastime. Leah did her part for the environment, loggerhead turtles nest here and one (early or late) hatchling was flailing on the beach at 9 in the morning, 300 metres from the water. Leah picked it up and carried it to the water, it was a bit disoriented for a while but soon headed out to the ocean.

De Grey River Cattle,  looks like he needs a feed

Saturday we departed late morning (after a beach walk and coffee) and travelled only 150 kilometres and stopped at De Grey River camp spot, 80 kilometres out of Port Hedland. As you can see from the photo the camp and roads are shared with cattle. The roadside from Broome to Port Hedland are littered with cattle carcasses, like kangaroos in Queensland they get hit by the road trains at night.