July 2012

It was 17 degrees when we awoke this morning, but Shock Horror! – clouds in the sky. The forecast maximum for today was 26 degrees, but by about midday it was over 30 degrees in the shade of our awning. A light sea-breeze brought the temperature back down to 28 degrees. We checked out the beach before lunch but the tide was well out and no-one was fishing.

Clouds over the Caravan Park

Low Tide at 80 Mile Beach

By 3:00 pm there were plenty of people fishing on the beach, so David took his rod and chair down to join the fray. Later on Di came down with some chilled refreshers and we spent a very relaxing couple of hours on the beach – however no fish! Apparently a kayaker paddling up and down the beach behind the surf reported no fish at all – not even bait fish. So it was no wonder everyone left the beach empty handed.

Fishers in action on the beach

David trying to catch a fish

Di reading a book at the Beach

As there were no fish for dinner we settled for chicken Tacos instead, As I write this it is still 20 degrees at 8:00 pm, with the humidity at 79%.

We had another beautiful day at Eighty Mile Beach with a forecast maximum of 26 degrees. We spent the morning sitting in the sun finishing reading the weekend papers. After lunch we walked up to the “oval” for the market – they have a market here on Wednesdays and Sundays. On the way we walked past the Coast Watch depot or was that Ghost Watch? At the market they had about 20 stalls selling crafts, home-made jams and books, with live music all in aid of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Ghost Watch

The Wednesday Market

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk on the beach to check out the fishing action – lots of fishers but not many fish. Apparently 9 fish were caught yesterday but only 2 today. The experts say it is too early in the year and the water is not warm enough. David is going to try his luck tomorrow – the usual catch at Eighty Mile Beach is Thread Fin Salmon, Mulloway and Catfish.

Action on the Beach

Later in the day we went to the Hamburger night on the lawns in front of Reception Office/Shop where Hamburgers with onion and salad in a bread roll were being sold for a very reasonable $6.00 – bring your own drinks, plate and chair. The Hamburger night was also a RFDS fundraiser. We joined Arlene and Allen, and Jenny and Kevin from Boronia in Melbourne and exchanged notes on our respective trips. They came up the centre and are now travelling down the west coast, while we are travelling in the opposite direction. They gave us some good tips for Kununurra and the Bungle Bungles.

Sunset

Hamburger Night

We had to be up early this morning to line up for a powered caravan site. As reception opened at 8:00 am, David went up at 7:45 am to line up but found himself number 6 in the queue. Number 1 had taken up his position at 6:30 am, while others had joined him at 7:00 am and 7:30 am. They had it all worked out as they had partners running around the park working out which sites had been vacated and selecting the best.

The first five had sites allocated immediately, and two of us were left to see if the other two due to vacate actually left. At about 9:15 am we got the good news that we had been allocated powered site 128 – quite a good site as it turned out – so we are happy. Just before 10:00am we were able to move onto the site and spent the rest of the morning doing a full set-up of our camp as we are here until Monday morning 16 July.

Our camp site in the powered area of the Caravan Park

View of the Caravan Park

After lunch we went for a walk along the beach to check out the fishing action – there were dozens of 4WDs on the beach and hundreds of people fishing. On the way to the beach we walked past the fish cleaning station where a lucky fisherman was cleaning 2 thread fin salmon that were each about 4 feet long (that’s 1.2 metres Michelle). It seemed that pilchards were the bait of choice so on the way back to our site we purchased a bag of frozen pilchards at the shop for bait. Tomorrow we will try our luck.

Fish Cleaning Station

Fishers on the beach

Fishers on the beach with their 4WDs

The camp ground has a small War Memorial for Vietnam Veterans that is well tended.

Vietnam War Memorial at the Caravan Park

Back at our camp we settled back for a few drinks until another beautiful sunset.

Sunset at Eighty Mile Beach CP

We were rudely awoken this morning at 7:00 am while we were enjoying a sleep-in by Chappy, who had rung to tell us that Nick and Christine Tall could be in our area soon. Apparently they are at Kununurra and heading towards Broome so we may catch up with them soon. The phone signal had been very problematic with only one bar occasionally – But Chappy managed to get through!

We were packed up and were on the road at about 9:00 am this morning. We decided to go into Port Hedland as they had a Windscreens O’Brien outlet to see if they could do a quick repair on our windscreen – however they were too busy to do the repair, so we will try again in Broome where they have a Novus outlet.

Almost everything of any importance in Port Hedland is located on Robinsons Road, including Windscreens O’Brien, Woollies Supermarket and Woollies/Caltex Petrol. We made a final visit to the supermarket and filled up with diesel before moving on. We noticed that the Don Rhodes Mining Museum was located next to the Shopping Centre so went around the block for a couple of photos of early Hamersley Iron Locomotives.

Retired Hammersly Iron Locomtive

Another Retired HI Locomotive

We stopped at Pardoo Roadhouse to refuel and also bought a couple of chicken rolls for lunch. We have noticed that the road-trains have been getting longer the further we come north. Near Perth the road-trains had two trailers, around Karratha it was 3 trailers, and now around Port Hedland they are 4 trailers.

We turned off the Highway and travelled about 10 kms on a dusty gravel road to the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park. They do not take bookings and they had no powered sites available, so we are on an unpowered site with generators allowed for the night, and we will try for a powered site at 8:00 am in the morning. After setting up we went for a walk up onto the sand dunes to check out the Eighty Mile Beach. The beach goes on forever in both directions, and apparently the fish are biting – so we shall see!

Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park - Generator area

Eighty Mile Beach looking south

We packed up and were on our way at about 9:30 am and headed for Karratha as it was only a few kms off the main highway. On the way we got a nasty stone chip in our windscreen that might be repairable as Windscreens O'Brien say that if it is smaller than a ten cent piece they can do a repair - so here's hoping.

Stone chip on our windscreen

On the way into Karratha we were stopped at a level crossing for an Iron Ore Train – it must have been a couple of miles long and took forever to go by. We drove into Karratha looking for the town centre and somewhere to park our rig – no trouble – we found a Refugee Island with plenty of room just near the town centre. We headed for the Centro Shopping Centre for the weekend papers - $4.30 for the Weekend Australian and $4.50 for the Weekend Financial Review.

Refugee Island in Karratha

Sturt's Desert Pea

Downtown Karratha

Seeing as it was lunch time we had a coffee with some toasted sandwiches. Also bought some fresh bread rolls at Brumbies Bakery, as we don’t expect to see fresh bread for a while. Final port of call was the Servo for diesel and we also bought a 10 litre petrol container and filled it up as we may be running the generator a bit before we get to Broome.

We arrived at the West Peawah River Rest Area at about 2:30 pm and set up with the generator and the satellite dish. We had a wander around the rest area chatting to other campers, most of whom were going south.

No water under the Peawah River Bridge

Camp Area at Peawah River

Late afternoon sun in the gum trees

Sunset at West Peawah River Rest Area