Blue Blue Sea

As we drove into Broome our attention was taken by the turquoise colour of the sea (Indian Ocean). We settled into a camp on the shores of Roebuck Bay and while we didn’t have a beachfront site (just one row back) we did have a nice view of the sea. It was a very short walk to take our chairs and coffee and sit in the shade of a tree to have an uninterrupted view. The view changed dramatically with the tide which varies by up to 9 metres. At full tide the sea was a brilliant blue stretching from the grassy bank as far as the eye could see but at low tide there was a kilometre or more of sand flat before the blue sea started. When we arrived we wondered why the boats were moored so far off shore but at the first low tide the reason was obvious. At the caravan park was a nice swimming beach that we used around high tide each day. We didn’t come across any stingers (jellyfish) and the locals say they don’t get crocodiles around the town beaches. When we first arrived in Broome the daytime temperatures were around 29C, which was a pleasant relief from the 38 to 39C we had been experiencing for the previous fortnight or so. As the week went on the temperatures climbed back to 38C but with a sea breeze and a refreshing sea to swim in at our door it was very nice.
A visit to Broome isn’t complete without a visit to Cable Beach (2 photos) so we went there one afternoon and had a swim (water temp 28C) and also took in a sunset at the beach. We drove down the beach and found a spot to observe the sun dip into the ocean as several trains of camels (carrying tourists) wandered by.

After about a week in Broome we travelled 150km down the coast and camped at a camping area on Barn Hill cattle station. The property has 350,000 acres and runs 8,000 head of cattle. It stretches for 85km along the coast situated between Port Hedland and Broome. With that ratio of acres to cattle it’s no surprise that we didn’t see any cattle on our 9km drive from the highway to the camping area. The camping ground was at a beautiful beach and we had a lovely view of the sea from our campsite. It was a five minute walk down a track to the beach (photo) – white sand, blue sea, interesting rocks, red cliffs, lovely shells and few other people. It was a lovely swimming spot and you didn’t need to go out very far for it to be deep enough to swim.

Having enjoyed our stay at this beach spot our next camp was further down the coast at 80 Mile Beach. Like NZ’s 90 Mile Beach the beach wasn’t as long as it’s name implied. Here the coastline was very different; a long flat beach with a low sand dune running along it’s length and behind the sand dune was very barren looking land. On the day we arrived we went out to the beach for a look and in both directions, almost as far as the eye could see, there were fishermen (and women) standing in the surf. We saw a few catching fish and saw one guy with a 700mm white threadfin salmon, a lovely fish. On seeing this we knew what we would be doing the next day, or at least trying to do! The next morning after we had been to the camp shop to buy some bait we ventured out to the sea, a 200 metre walk from the caravan. We stood about knee deep in the water and as the beach was very flat our cast didn’t end up much deeper but there were plenty of fish biting. We caught our daily limit (4 each) of blue threadfin salmon, not very big but they gave us enough fillets for 3 good meals. The sea was nice and warm so it was no problem to be standing knee deep in water and getting an occasional splash from the surf. The next day we planned to go fishing again with the hope of catching a big fish but we woke to a stiff breeze coming off the sea. Al tried a couple of casts but as his line was being washed along the beach and inshore he gave up. As the day wore on the situation didn’t improve so the idea of fishing was abandoned.
At 80 Mile we were camped with a group of people that we had met earlier on our travels. One couple we first met back in Northern Territory when we camped at Gregory National Park and three other couples we met at Derby, all four couples were on our Horizontal Falls trip. From Derby we all went to Barn Hill then 80 Mile where we met another couple, from Whangaparaoa, who we first met at Kununurra. We are all travelling in the same direction but taking different detours along the way. It will be interesting to see if and where we meet up again.

We stopped at Port Hedland for a night so we could stock up on food for our trip inland to Karijini National Park. Port Hedland is a centre for BHP Billiton’s iron ore operations and their facilities dominate the town. Ore is loaded onto ships on both sides of an inlet and a huge processing plant flanks the road into town. Everything has a rusty brown hue so it isn’t a pretty town but it did supply us with all that we needed.

Not far out of Port Hedland, on the road to Karijini, we stopped for a couple of nights at Indee Station, another cattle station that gets income on the side from tourists. The camp area was rather rustic, that is find a spot in the back yard preferably with some shade from a tree, if there is one that doesn’t have another camper there or not filled with junk (dead cars and machinery and the like). We did find a spot by a tree and were welcomed each evening by the owners who put on nibbles for the campers in their spacious breeze-way dining room, BYO drinks. While at the station we went for a drive for about 10km through the property to “Red Rock”, a large weathered granite dome in the middle of nowhere. Here there were aboriginal rock carvings and the rock had lots of hollows (photo) on its surface, two of which were deep and still held water. We spent time walking over the rock looking at it’s formation and the many rock carvings. Near the rock was a memorial to 26 people who lost their lives in 1968 when a Vickers Viscount plane crashed nearby, after a wing failed due to poor maintenance methods. The owner of the station was the first to the scene, finding no survivors. Indee Station covers 400,000 acres and runs 1,600 head of cattle (could stock up to 3,000 head) although no cattle were spotted on our drive across the station. The country is semi-arid desert and the cattle seem to survive by eating the abundant Spinifex grass and foliage from the scattered scrub.

We are currently in Karijini NP and I will post a blog about our visit here in a few days time once we get back to the coast.

Current stats: total travelled 21,316km. 14,487 of this towing the caravan. 81 campsites to date 7/10