Broome to Port Hedland

 

After a difficult start - we had trouble hitching the caravan due to the very high gutters on our site, then the hitch jammed, then the jockey wheel jammed. Once we were actually moving there was a car and boat blocking our exit and the owner was not terribly interested in moving - untill we gave him a bit of a " hurry along"

We finally said goodbye to Broome and headed south to begin our next adventure.

The destination for today was Barn Hill Station, we weren't travelling very far, around 150kms to the turnoff then 9kms of dirt road which wasn't too bad. A bit rough, but we took it easy and arrived in one piece.

9 kms of red dirt road!!!!

Barn Hill Station
Arrived at office around 12.30 and all the powered sites were gone, so we opted for two unpowered sites - we couldn't travel all the way down that dirt road and not get a site, then have to turn back - no way!  We were so surprised how many vans were here.

The vans on top of the red cliffs

While booking in we were told they were having a 'Sunday Roast' on tonight - 3 course dinner for $16pp, so we booked ourselves in.  There were 200 already booked in and they were expecting another 100 to turn up.


Our sites, on more re dirt

We were to bring our own table and chairs and set up on the community lawn overlooking the beach, we also had to bring our own cutlery, crockery, glasses and drinks - should be fun!

After setting up the vans we took a nice long walk on the beach - beautiful white sand, fantastic rock
formations, but unfortunately the water looked quite mirky. Lots of fishermen but no fish to be seen.

The fabulous swimming beach

Then it was time to head up to the lawn to set up for dinner.  We joined over 250 other campers for a really fun night. We got there early and as luck goes we picked a really good spot, as unbeknown to us there was a band coming on later and we were right up the front.

Enjoying the Sunday Roast

Dinner with the sun setting as a backdrop

The band was a local indigenous group called "The Bidyadanga Boys" and they were pretty good and had everyone up dancing till quite late.  A really unexpected fun night.  What a crazy fun place is this Barn Hill Station.

"The Bidyadanga Boys"

One of the things we really look forward to when we arrive at a caravan park is to have a nice hot shower, well the showers here were really something.  They were the real thing when it comes to 'outdoor bush showers', and the toilets - in the same block were no better.

The 'open air' toilet and shower block

Made of corrugated iron, only half walls - so you could chat to the person next door, no roof, concrete floors and really open to the elements - OH! and did I mention there was no hot water either, but as the weather was hot the water was kind of lukewarm. Another unusual experience for us.

The Showers - bush style

After a couple of days at Barn Hill enjoying the fantastic sunsets and the beautiful beach, we did manage a swim and we even caught a few waves , we moved on to 80 mile beach.

80 Mile Beach
A couple of hundred kms of highway and another 9kms of dirt road we arrived at another oasis on this amazing west coast.  At the end of a very dusty, but well graded dirt road we rounded the last turn and were surprised to see palm trees and a beautiful blue ocean stretching out in front of us.


Arriving at 80 mile beach



A palm tree oasis

We had heard so much about this beach we couldn't wait to get down and explore it.


Our first look at 80 mile beach

A short walk from our sites, over just one sand dune, and we were on the most amazing expanse of beach I have ever seen. This fantastic white sandy beach stretches for over 220 kms. Unfortunately it is not a beach to swim in, as we were warned there are not only the occasional crocodiles, but there are plenty of sharks and sea snakes seen very regularly. So no swimming for us!!!



Low tide - it was a long walk to the water

This stretch of beach is well known for it's shells, and unlike most of the other beaches along this
coast you are actually allowed to collect shells here. And it is no wonder, there are so many millions and millions of shells here that if every person took a bucket load each every day, it wouldn't even make a dent on them.


Shells, shells everywhere

There are lots of long term campers who stay for months on end. The men go off fishing every morning and the wives collect shells and make crafty things out of them.  I suppose you would need a hobby if you were staying in one place for so long.


More shells

Most of the long term campers have these little quad bikes that they use to get to their own special fishing spots, so you see these guys, young and old, tearing up and down the beach at all times of the day.  Sometimes you think they might need traffic lights there are so many of them.


Quad biking

It was a very friendly camping ground with a great community spirit. There was a communal lawn area where a market is held twice a week and luckily for us we were there for one of those days.They also have a 'Sunday Roast Night' as well as a 'Morning Tea' on Tuesday and a 'Hamburger Night' on Wednesday. The shop is well stocked but the prices were outrageous, as an example; the chocolate I bought in Broome for $2.40 was $7.00 here, and one litre of milk was $4.50!! I needed the milk but gave the chocolate a miss.

A lot of the campsites were lit up at night with fairy lights, like they do in Cable Beach, and one night there was an impromptu concert at one of the caravans. 



Happy Hour with entertainment

Three 'senior' gentlemen started up a three piece band and they soon had a quite a large audience. People were arriving with their chairs, drinks and snacks to have 'Happy Hour' and enjoy the entertainment. After a while another person got  That was a lot of fun.



Senior trio

We had lots of walks on the beach, Laurie tried to catch some fish for dinner - no luck, met a lot of nice people and had our first real '4wd experience' here.


An evening stroll

Laurie was very brave and decided he would take his vehicle down onto the sandy beach!  Why not, everyone else was taking their 4wd's down, but they were big Prado's, onto the sand and he didn't want to be left out.  So after checking the tides, to ensure we didn't get trapped with an incoming tide, the tides here are around 10-12 feet, off we went to see if we could make it 20 kms or so along to where all the good shells are - but after only 6kms the sand became very soft and we started slipping and sliding a bit more than we would have liked, plus we thought Jude was going to have a heart attack, we reluctantly decided to stop, collect whatever shells were there and turn around.  We decided that you really needed a proper 4wd vehicle to do this safely. 


Laurie's 4wd adventure

Anyway it was good fun and another new experience, plus we did get some good shells, so it was all worth it.


Some of the shells we collected

It had become extremely windy here over the last few days so we decided to continue on to another place everyone is talking about - De Grey river.

De Grey River
Wow! what a find this place was.  As we pulled into the rest area it looked just like a million other rest areas you pass along the way, very open, dry, dusty and with only one shelter and a couple of toilets, and lots of vans already here.



De Grey River

But after consulting my 'WikiCamps' App, it suggested to go further into the camp and turn down the narrow dirt road towards the river to lovely sheltered, treed and grassed areas running alongside the river, and that is where we found our fabulous site for the next couple of days.


Our campsite - we are really getting into this free camping business

Most campers wouldn't even know this section was here - but lots did, there were vans already hidden among the trees.  The uninitiated stayed up top in the dust, but us smarter campers with WikiCamps were enjoying beautiful lush trees, grass and the river at our front door.


Happy Hour at our campsite



Our beautiful golden trees

We shared our campsite with a huge variety of birds,  there was a great flock of Corellas there each morning and evening,


Our Corellas

and especially the little family of beautifully colored Kingfishers who came to rest in the tree right above our head each night.


Our Kingfishers



Another sunset, this time on the river

We enjoyed lots of walks, Laurie tried his hand at fishing - no luck,


Fish curry for dinner! (it's an 'in' joke)

we all had fun collecting firewood so we could have a roaring campfire each night. This place was a gem!


I found some kindling




Hunters and gathers



I'm just going to split this log



Mmmmm!!



This is how to build a fire




We had only planned to stay overnight but it was so good we stayed on an extra night.  We were sorry to leave this place but have lots more to see down the coast.


We have had such a busy day



Cheers to Free Camping

 

Port Hedland
But on to Port Hedland, a mining port and such a busy place. There are trains that appear to be miles long and the road trains that are constantly travelling between the mines and the port. There is a huge amount of road works going which surprised us as the population here wouldn't seem to warrant such an expensive program.

We drove directly to the Big 4 park on the beach which unfortunately was full and so they directed us to the only other caravan park in town. 




What a let down after our stay at De Grey River, Oh well on a trip like this you have to take the bad with the good, and we only need to stay overnight.

Tie anchors all over the park

It was a bit disconcerting to be in a caravan park which has several heavy duty anchor lines concreted into the ground around the van sites, to tie your van down in the event of a cyclone! Fortunately ther was no cyclone warning when we were there.

Whew! No Cyclones today

Train spotting was high on the list for Jude and she was excited to see these trains from 2-3kms long, 230+ carriages, each carrying in excess of 100 tonnes of iron ore.

Port Hedland is a BHP town, although Rio Tinto run the Salt Mine, and the iron ore is transported from Newman.

Rio Tinto Salt Mine

We spent some time at the port hoping to see some of the huge ships either coming in or going out, unfortunately the only ships we did see were still being loaded and were not ready to sail.  But it was interesting to see the huge conveyors loading the ore onto the ships.

Port Hedland is one of the busiest commodity ports in the world, and the largest in Australia.

Today's trivia - BHP Billiton exports more than 100 million tonnes of iron ore per year.

We did some sightseeing, there were some pretty places around the town along the waters edge.