We are leaving Broome today and decided to head into Barn Hill (a few people have suggested we stay here…so beautiful. We drive to the turn off and take the 10km into the station. There are lots of travelers arriving this morning and we line the car up and I walk over to book in but I have to wait my turn. I call Steve over and while we wait we walk around and the place doesn’t impress us much, ok to stay but it's early in the day and we couldn't be bothered waiting so we get in the car and drive to 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park. We did find out later that unpowered at Barn Hill if $22/night, so that may be why it is so busy. 80 Mile Beach is lovely, big grass spaces and we found a spot for 3 nights unpowered $34/night. Very windy so we went and hand picked a site to suit the van in the wind but at least the sun is out and the temps are not too high and we are under the doona again at night. Thursday we went down on the beach for a walk and I’ve never seen so many shells on a beach.
The beach is not patrolled and swimming is at your own risk and the sand is quite silty so the water close to shore is a milky colour and you can’t see into the water so we stay on the sand. Lots of things on the beach to look at…shells, broken off corals soft and hard and other things we could not recognize.
The tide was coming in so the lots of activity on the beach with cars, and quad bikes and fishermen/women. After lunch back to the beach to see if there were any big catches and the beach was covered up and down the beach with people fishing, so we sat on the sand and watched for a while and watched a few fish being caught but still pretty windy, we would need bigger tackle. We went to the water’s edge and had a blokes catch of a threadfin and catfish and a big star sinker and line big enough to tow a boat!!! Steve and I were wading in the shallows and we saw a shark fin only a couple of metres off the beach…ahhhh that’s why swimming is not recommended. We went up to the kiosk/shop (well stocked) and bought pilchards, star sinkers, and heavier line and got organized to fish tomorrow. Feeling all hot and sticky I decided to have an early shower and looking in the mirror I realized I got a bit too much sun today and I had bandicoot eyes from wearing my sunglasses…I looked like Rhonda in the AAMI commercial on tv (haha sorry no photos).
An older couple camped behind us on our second night (sleeping in the back of their suburu) from Carina in Brissy and they were bird watches and they were completing their travels around Australia (Broome to Perth). Lovely couple the gentleman was up to 630 different species of bird sightings!!! We have met so many different people. Another night under the doona, we got news the temps in Perth are 16-22 and lots of rain in the south west. So we are enjoying the sunshine while we have it. Friday it is 16C when we wake but half hour later it is up to 19C, doesn’t take long to warm up. The wind is still with us and worse than yesterday…no fishing today, pillies will have to stay on ice for now. I got up this morning and people have got jumpers on…what the! It’s not that cold. Well no fishing so the van gets an airing out and the bed gets stripped and turns into a day of domestic chores. The wind doesn’t change, SW and not good for fishing for me any way; I’d probably hit someone in the back of the head while casting and knock someone out with the star sinkers we bought…safer for all if I stay off the beach. So we sit in the shade all day and do a lot of nothing. Steve cooked an awesome roast beef for dinner and it was ready early so I made a no bake lemon slice…yum. Blew a gale all night had a shocking sleep. Canvas shook, zip toogles rattles and the whole Tvan was moving through the night.
Being on the roads we have travelled it certainly takes a toll on the car and the Tvan. Steve has discovered the bushes on the tvan have had it after being replaced back in April by Track Trailer. Steve is back on the forum and finds a guy uses bushes that come in two pieces that can be bought at Repco (ie 4 pieces per shocky) so off to Port Hedland after our stay at 80 Mile. We are driving into a head wind all the way down the coast and we stopped at Pardoo Roadhouse for a snack and a cuppa. I came out to the car and a huge gust of orange dust came in off the road and totally engulfed everyone outside including myself, all I could do was close my eyes with my back to the wind and stay clear of the cars coming in off the highway. Then Steve comes out and says, ”did you see that big gust of dust come through, I stayed inside until it passed”. “Oh really”, I say as I’m spitting dust and my hair looks like I just stuck my finger in a power socket. This is one of the joys of travelling.
We rang Repco Port Hedland from here and found they had the bushes Steve was after, so we refuelled and we were off. After our visit to Repco, refuelling again and bought some groceries we were making our way to a free camp on our way to Marble Bar. I worked out the mileage to the turn off for the free camps, we were getting close so I told Steve to slow down and there goes one free camp, slow down so we don’t miss the next one…vrrroooom…there goes the next turn off and there is the last turn off to the last free camp. Straight into Marble Bar and into the caravan park…I am not happy to be staying in another caravan park but at least we can have a hot shower and the place is so small we are not bothered by anybody, but I did then have a night of Steve snoring and to top it off we forget to put the rubbish away and I was jumping up at midnight to find something had clawed into the rubbish bag…another one of those joys of travelling…it’s all good Sunday morning Steve replaced the bushes on the Tvan and we were off to see the sights of Marble Bar, a few historical buildings in town,
out to Chinaman’s Pool
and Marble Bar Pool where the Jasper (rock) is...very impressive piece of rock
and then to the Jasper Deposit where we could did up our own little piece of jasper.
while Steve was digging I took some pics of the wild flowers and found this little bloke in the spinifex (spinifex pigeon)
Next was Flying Fox Lookout with a view over Marble Bar Pool
and then to comet Gold Mine ($3 entry) which is full of history and gemstones and jewellery for sale.
Then a 2 hour off road drive back to the Great Northern Hwy, there are plenty of mines around here
so all we pass are a few workers in their utes and crossed the BHP rail and waited at the rail crossing for the longest train I’ve ever seen. Back on the highway about 2pm…ahhhhh bitumen….and we pulled over to have some lunch and we drive toward Karijini National Park, many people have told us not to miss this park but it was getting late and on the hwy it is road trains non stop and Steve pulls off to Albert Tognalini Lookout and we find a huge area of free camping on the ridge of a gorge, a bit breezy but beautiful so we stayed. 6pm the sun has disappeared over the Hammersley Ranges and we have to dig out the flanny shirts.
Cold again!!!
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