When I look back on the time in the trip so far, and think "where was I most relaxed?" it's an easy answer.
For the best part of a week we pulled up stumps in possibly one of the most relaxed, chilled, beautiful and peaceful places we've ever known. Our time there consisted of doing the same thing pretty much every day and not once did we even remotely get close to being sick of it. Our day pretty much went:
1. Lazy sleep in and cruisy breakfast
2. Schoolwork of some description and potter around van/car
3. Grab fishing gear at high tide and jump in the truck to find a piece of beach
4. Fish
5. Come back and kick the footy/potter/read/play with friends
6.Go get the awesome $4 ice creams from the shop
7. Go watch the sunset over the water
8. Dinner
9. Movie night or Harry Potter Reading
Rinse and repeat.
Seriously... it was just brilliant. A holiday within our adventure where thoughts of "what shall we do today?" didn't ever really enter our minds.
With the Butchers there for the first part, the kids even had mates to play with.
I can see why, after talking to some of the regulars there, who come from far and wide, there is such a strong repeat custom. The staff were brilliant, services and amenities what was required and sites shady and large. The front shop did different dinners and 'specials' depending on the night, and there was a market twice a week where the Nomads shopped their wares.
So without further ado, please allow me to take you through a pictorial adventure of our time at 80 Mile Beach, in chronological order....
Firstly lets head to Port Hedland on the way through from Whim Creek.
Firstly lets head to Port Hedland on the way through from Whim Creek.
We found this "outdoor museum" in Port Hedland full of old machinery from mining yesteryear. In a way it was cool. In a way it was creepy and looked like they couldn't be bothered moving stuff so put a fence around it and made it an "attraction". Kind of like when someone tries to explain impressionist art or contemporary dance to me. Still, big metal is pretty much always cool to me...
I don't recall seeing "Ron the Rustbucket" in Thomas and Friends...
...but I wish they'd included "Sherman the Converted Tank" (see what I did there?). Loved a farmers ingenuity of converting an unwanted tank to bulldozer to help grade his roads...
The harbour was cool and the size of machinery was immense.
We got lucky enough to see an ore ship head on it's way out of port. As you can imagine they aren't setting any water speed records, so here it is sped up.
Down to a lookout to spot turtles... which we did.
To be honest, I'd been told not to expect much from Port Hedland and that was pretty accurate. Despite a cool playground and an interesting museum about the history of the area, I just couldn't connect with it. Perhaps it was the immense amount of red ore dust everywhere. And I mean everywhere. On the cars. The roof of every house. The footpaths. I can only imagine people are breathing this stuff in. Buggar that.
On the way out, I pointed out to B a huge pile of salt. Yep... that's salt. Perfect salt harvesting conditions this way. I can only imagine it's upwind of the ore stacks...
We actually stopped in for a night at Pardoo Station before 80 Mile. We'd heard mixed reviews, with the Butchers leaving earlier that day to find elsewhere. We should have trusted them. It was jam packed and felt more like a caravan park than a 'station stay' it promotes itself as. Still, some potty calves were fed by some resident nomads which the kids loved.
Still we'd travelled the 10km of dirt in so decided to stay.
Next morning we decided to move on, but thankfully with only a short jaunt up the road we had some time for a morning swim. Well, some of us did.
So on to 80 Mile Beach...
Here is our campground. One of the things we loved was the size and the ability to get shade in the afternoon but a dash of sun in the middle of the day when you wanted to warm up!
When I referred to pottering, on occasions it was to sort out the fishing bag, and rig up some lures and jigs to allow quick change over of gear on the beach. It was strangely therapeutic, until you got a hook through your finger!
We have a million of these type of shots. 80 Mile Beach certainly lives up to its name. Sand as far as the eye can see.
And yep, it's trafficable. At times it was down right peak hour, particularly around high tide. As you can see here though, we had this section to ourselves...
Footprints in the sand
Sitting watching the sunset playing with friends on the first night. Fell in love almost straight away.
Sigh... the sunset never failed to disappoint. It made you feel very small at times.
Fishing with the Butchers. The two Colorado's hanging out above the high tide line. Ol' Mate just down the way had to move his car a few times.
It is a really tough life sometimes.
Sam was the only one to catch anything on the first day. And from what we heard, that was the case all the way up the beach. Due to some chopping water in the winds, it was quite churned up. Still, he had every reason to be very proud of his shovel-nose ray.
Even the girls got in the action.
On one of the market days the kids found a face painter. As such, she did a roaring trade.
Yeah, as I said, struggling.
Evie at times wasn't interested in fishing given she had a "totally awesome book Dad!".
Not sure if it comes out, but at high tide, it was 4WDs as far as the eye can see...
But still, we couldn't persuade Evie down to the water...
This could have been any of the days we were there. Such a brilliant, pure spot.
Movie night!! After finishing the first Harry Potter novel as a family, we busted out the TV and watched the movie of it. And such is our tradition. We're a third of a way through the third book now. It's a great tradition I love as much as any of them.
We even managed to video chat Sam's class for the first time on the trip, albeit on my phone. It was a great experience which we've managed to do a couple of times. The marvels of modern technology.
Sam in the action again, this time with an undersize threadfin. These guys needed to be around 450mm apparently...
B in on the action with a legal size blue nose. She was pretty chuffed!
Back at the table and Sam getting his hands dirty with B's fish, when we look over at the other table...
...and this guy lumps this metre long threadfin on the table. A VERY handy size fish.
After a couple of poor days by yours truly, the wind dropped and the fish started coming in. And then we were told a few shark were chasing them... They were right. This guy, coming in at 87cm, was certainly very very bitey! Watched my fingers and toes getting him off the line.
One of my favourite shots during our time. Happiness personified.
To round it off I found these two shots. Eventually Evie did fish again, with gusto and enthusiasm. However at times I caught her imagination wandering and she'd be off in some imaginary adventure.
And it wouldn't be right without another beach cartwheel.
80 Mile Beach... we simply love you. Please don't change. We'll be back. I promise.
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