Off to See the Wizard - Broome to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park

Time to start heading south and on our way home….eventually.

South of Broome it is a long way to the next stop and the landscape was rather flat.

Sandfire Roadhouse is the most remote roadhouse if you are driving the circumference of Australia, being 323 kms south of Broome and 282 kms from Port Hedland.

About 80kms further south, we turned onto a dirt road and travelled for 9 kms.

To what would be one of the more remote caravan parks in the country, and one of the best laid out and maintained.

It still has dirt roads, but a water truck goes around to suppress any dust.

They even have a little war memorial.

So why is it here?

This is why.  A beach that is eighty miles long, gorgeous blue water that takes your breath away each time you see it, great fishing, you can drive on the beach, lots of shells and a tide that goes out over a kilometre! The one thing you don’t do is go swimming, as there are too many bitey things and a strong current.  As you can guess, it is a rather popular place, with quite a lot of people coming here to spend most of the winter.  The park has a well stocked mini mart, so there is no real need to leave, despite being so far from anywhere.  They even have a little market twice a week.

There was a cookbook for sale in the reception area to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. At the back there was a little history of the park.  When they built the highway in the 1970s they created a gravel area here as a work camp, so the blokes could go fishing, and as there was a well for water.  Gradually a few people would stop here to go fishing.  Once the highway was sealed in 1986 hundreds of people were camping here and they damaged the dunes, drove everywhere on the beach and left lots of rubbish.  Something had to be done, so a formal camp site with basic amenities was created.  They were able to sink a bore, which has provided a very plentiful supply of potable water.  It has very gradually grown from those humble beginnings to the beautiful park it is today.  

Apparently, the park has just been sold and the regulars are hoping that nothing much is changed.

We weren’t interested in partaking in driving on the beach or going fishing (Mick reckons if you were to catch a fish you would have to clean it, so too much effort).  However, he did enjoy watching others and chatting to them.  One fellow had been fishing the previous night and caught a couple of good sized sharks.  You only fish at high tide.

As I said there are lots of shells.

We did pick up a few, but my favourites were the sand dollars.

In the afternoon we were just back at the van and I prepped some more EPP shapes for the Blue Quilt.  I even stitched the first unit.  By the way, the two missing pieces of fabric were there all along, just stuck to the back of another piece of fabric.  Oh well, my new fabric will be used, as a little souvenir of our holiday.

As the tide started to go out in the late afternoon we walked out on the sand as the tide retreated.  We time it.  It was going out at about 25 metres per minute!  This photo was early in the piece.

The further we went out the more evidence of life was seen.  

There were no shells, but lots of little holes where crabs, or sea worms or other things that I have no knowledge of live.

It is so hard to show it in photos, but is just an incredible sight.  The wet sand went on forever.  We never did get right out to the lowest point before the tide turned.

Something we will never forget.

We can understand why people stay so long and we could have very easily stayed here for a few days longer, but we had places to be.  We just enjoyed the two nights that we had.

The highlight of each day was the low tide at sunset.  Stunning.