Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 55 - Broome to 80 Mile Beach

One might be forgiven for thinking 80 Mile Beach, which runs away from the Broome area south towards Perth might be around 130 kilometres long. One would be wrong, its almost 250 kilometres long and the road to it goes into the countryside and back out again, making the trip almost 400 kilometres for today.

With all the red dirt we have encountered, the majority feel its time for a can and van wash. There is a such a facility on our way out and we decide to treat our vehicles and vans to a lather of soap and a high-pressure spray of the wheels etc, to remove some (we will never get rid of it all) of the red dirt we have accumulated. The directions Silver Leader and Forbsy give me a re flawed, they think because I have a new Cruiser with GPS built in, it will have an up to date map in it. We have found already this not to be the case, in fact the map in the system is quite old – very disappointing Toyota.

The street they say the car wash is in, is not in our GPS, when you go to the street access. Robyn resorts to the Google Maps option on her phone and finds, what she thinks is the spot, although it says car and dog wash. We turn up to see Forbsy just leaving the wash are and Silver Leader hard at it. We cannot access the area as a driver (from Halls Creek) has parked, in the access lane and walked away to the supermarket.

He returns and goes to a spot which I could have just about finished our washing at, and goes about his business, without as much as a wave of acknowledgement. We only have 400 kilometres to drive today, what matter is it to him. The Halls Creek regalia all over his dirty 4WD is a dead giveaway as to his origins.

I eventually get a spot and wash the car, red dirt goes down the drain by the kilo ?. The Cruiser is somewhat cleaner, now for the van, first the wheels, to clean off the grease and see if we have a problem when we get to the next stop, and then a pressure clean of the entire van, focussing on the metal grids. It wont matter much as they don’t show up the dirt that badly, or do they? When I am done the van looks new and decidedly cleaner than when I started.

Out to the road we head off, back down the road we came in, and then south. The road here is almost encroached by the mangroves and other vegetation, so thick you cannot see far into it. Camels will be hard to see today wont they Forbsy.

Suddenly it looks like we are about to drive along beside the ocean as there appears to be water ahead. All of a sudden, the trees disappear, and we are on a large plain with water on the left. To me that is the wrong side of the road, as we are heading south, here the water if anything should be on the right. Holy Mirage Batman comes the call over the radio, and indeed the Roebuck Plains were playing with our minds. What appeared to be water was in fact a mirage and I fell for it.

The Roebuck Plains are a large expanse, treeless on a base of grey soil. As we traverse the plains we notice concrete pylons along the road, about 20 metres to the right of the road. The radio is agog with what are they, and Forbsy gives the most plausible idea, they were telegraph poles that have had the metal posts removed. Holy Angle Grinder I retort, the Batman talk has been going on for a while this morning, problem solved, and we continue.

Approaching the edge of the plains the trees are about to start as quickly as they vanished. There is a line of that alluvial red dirt, along which the trees begin to takeover the topography again. From time to time the trees are somewhat thinned by an old fire and you can see the red dirt, the termite nests and the returning grasses in the landscape. The trees go from thick to sparse and back again and then almost as if the trees were at their thickest, another plain of grey spoil denudes the landscape of trees again.

We are joined on the radio by a van just in front of us. He has been listening to the banter and enquires whether he is going fast enough for us, which he is and for a while, he joins in the conversations. He talks about how he is turning off shortly to wait for friends who have broken down (sound familiar). He talks about accessibility at our destination given it’s a long weekend in WA this weekend (Queens Birthday), but we believe we are OK. It makes Silver Leader ring through and check, but all is OK.

Our new found friend turns off and as soon as he does, Silver Leader recognises the van from Spring Creek, and bids him a hearty good bye.

Two hours down and Forbsy calls for a lunch break. There are no towns between Broome and 80 Mile Beach, save a roadhouse much closer to our destination. We pull into one of the many parking bays along the road and break out some spinach pie and drinks for lunch and I have a lay down as I have been struggling the last few miles.

It feels like I am awoken immediately, in fact I have been asleep for half an hour, and it’s time to head off on the last half of todays journey. 170 odd kilometres to travel, 160 before we have to turn off the highway.

Off again and refreshed, the remainder of the drive is uneventful, until we hit the turn off. What’s this dirt road, why did we clean our vehicles and vans this morning if they were only going to be subjected to the same old red dirt again. I hang back, trying not to get caught in the dust and thankfully there is a cross breeze taking the dust away. Its only a short drive on the dirt road, but it is corrugated, the driving lights will be getting depressed again.

All of a sudden we come over a crest and the scene that greets us makes Robyn jump for the camera to take pictures. The azure water is most picturesque against the red dirt. We pull into the caravan park and register. The sites here are wide, but there is very little room to manoeuvre. It takes us several goes to get it right and then I have left a lot of useless space on the non-door side of the van. We can live with that.

After set up the first order of business is to check out the internet connection as Robyn has some urgent work to do. Unfortunately, there is not enough to run the Google Suites she needs, she will need to fire up the satellite dish, no worries we bought it for just such an occasion. We had been told the Telstra coverage here was quite good – not good enough.

Time for a walk on the beach. The campers behind us have caught fish here on the full tide, but it is low tide at the moment, so we expect to see a little more beach than 6 hours ago. There is a Vietnam Memorial at the gate to the beach, a stark reminder of the folly of wars, or police actions or whatever you want to call them.

Over the dune, and your breath is taken away by the expanse of beach, not just the length but the distance to the water’s edge at this time. We decide to walk to the edge, across the “sand”, onto the mudflats, and out to the water’s edge. The beach is long, yes, but the mudflats give a walk of length, over shells and mud, both firm and soft.

When we get to the edge, we are amazed by how quickly the tide is coming in. I video 45 seconds of the water passing by Robyn and leaving her ankle deep. There are no waves to speak of just the relentless movement of water towards the beach. In time this area will be several metres under water, and we may very well be fishing a lot further back than I can hurl a lure, looking to hook something pelagic like the large threadfin, a four-year-old managed to snare on the morning tide.

For now its Silver Leader Beer Garden time and then dinner. High tide is not until 10.00pm of thereabouts, and I am unsure if I will make it to then. Rosalie walks past and suggests she is off to capture sunset shots, and unable to resist taking pictures of the sun sinking into the ocean, we join her. A very pleasant detour to a viewing platform on the dune adjacent to the beach. Here, I suspect most of the park visitors are perched watching the sunset.

There are two from Mt Tom Price, they are miners on their six days off, and have driven the 600 kilometres with their families. They talk of doing this sort of thing every time off, and visiting a different park each time, especially in the school holidays. The older one suggests it has been 2 years since he was in this park whereas the younger, much longer. According to them there are a myriad of opportunities for van parking, both free and commercial between here and Perth. Some are already closed but enough to make the trip memorable.

For the first time in a long time, I go searching for a jumper. The wind here is quite cool and coming straight off the ocean. We have not been unpleasantly hot at any time but now the effects of the sea breeze is significant. Silver Leader has returned from a reconnoitre of the incoming tide and suggests, that once you get over the dune protecting the park from the ocean it is pitch black.

One of the things we have wanted to do whilst on this trip is take pictures of the Milky Way, but because of light pollution either from the moon or surrounding human intervention, it has not been optimum. Now with the ability to get right away from it, it presents a perfect opportunity to take some pictures.

First I need to remember the settings our astrophysicist daughter suggested are required on my phone to make the shot possible, then because the aperture of the lens stays open for quite some time I need to build a resting spot for the phone while it takes the picture or simply lay it on the ground or deck and shoot straight up. A beach, hmmm, yes sand to build a mound that will allow me to take photos in any direction. The results are spectacular to say the least, almost immediately I get a shot of what appears to be a nebula like cluster from the sky.

I eagerly take more. I send a couple to Kirsten who sends them back with pointers, telling us of certain stars she can identify, like Jupiter, one of the brightest in the sky. Robyn, with a earlier version of the phone I am using also manages to get some great shots.

With a jumper on I am comfortable, but I suspect Robyn is not, so we head back after capturing the night sky, clean up from the dinner repast and head off to bed.