When we arrived in Broome we set up camp and headed straight for Cable Beach....it was breathtaking, without exaggeration. The colour of the Indian Ocean is so different to where we live...a real pale to deep turquoise.
Then on Monday we drove almost 400km south to Eighty Mile Beach. Once you leave the main road you drive along a 4wd track for 9km to the Caravan park....there is nothing else here except that! You can't book a site, it's first in best dressed for a powered site. We missed one, so we had a night 'roughing' it without power. To get a powered site we were told to go at 8am the next morning to try our luck...Andrew got there at 7.10am, first in the que and by 8am there were 30+ in the que. By 9am we had moved a set up again in a powered site.
It's a very funny place this caravan park. 97% of people here would be grey nomads and most of them stay for months and come up from their homes in southern WA. Some have Christmas lights all over their caravans and everyone has lots of shell mobiles hanging around. On Wednesdays and Saturday's there is a market where they all sell what they have been making while here at the park! Lucky for us we got to go today!!!
The beach is really what it's all about though and it is superb. It does stretch for miles. When the tide is out it is approx 1km from the sand dune and when it is high only about 50m. The sand is covered in millions of different shells and the sea full of all sort of fish...ESP sharks. Nobody swims here. At high tide the beach is like Burke St with people lined up on the shore fishing. There is plenty to catch.
On our first day as we were exploring the beach we noticed a guy who had hooked something big. We watched and waited for nearly an hour as he reeled it in. It was a 7ft shovel nose shark! He had just arrived that day. Phil is his name..."lucky Phil" to Andrew! We have made friends with lucky Phil and his family...Louise and I have enjoyed each others company and their children, Evie and Josh have played with ours for the past two days. Tomorrow they head south while we head north again. So nice to meet a lovely family out here, mostly it's grey nomads.
Anyway the main part I'm sure Andrew would want me to mention is that he caught a Bronze Whaler shark (not 7ft!) and a lovely salmon. He has had a ball and fished with lucky Phil both days. He could stay for months and suggested we cancel our five nights of five star starting tomorrow...you could imagine how that went down with moi. Something he probably could do without me mentioning is that we did get stuck in our car in some VERY soft sand...after lots of digging, swearing and pushing we did not get out and an hour later some people went past in their 4wd and toed us out! Funny now but not at the time!
To top it off Wednesday night is $6 hamburger night here which everyone goes to so we joined in with our new friends. There were 3 young families there to about 200 GN's! The money goes to the Flying Doctors...there was a raffle too which Auds was chosen to draw the tickets for.
I have loved this place, loved the beach, loved seeing the kids so happy and loved meeting a lovely family,however that said, it doesn't mean That I CAN'T WAIT for some real living space at Cable Beach Resort and a few showers without thongs!
Sorry for so many photos but hard to choose which ones.
Xx
