June 7th: On the road by 8:35AM, we’re getting good at this! We were aiming for Eighty Mile Beach which is between Port Hedland and Broome. But whilst we were packing up, a woman told us that a few days earlier people were being towed out of the campsite after some unusually wet weather. We decided to stick with our plan however and set off in good spirits (c’mon, how bad can it be?).
Port Hedland
We stopped in Port Hedland for lunch and watched a ship being guided into the port by a flotilla of tugs. My former employer, BHP Billiton, ships iron from Port Hedland, I used regularly to fly up from Perth to work with BHP’s Port Operations teams. It was nice to show the children the ships and ore trains, and we could see the huge ore Reclaimers and Stackers at work as we drove by. Reminiscences of “Car Dumper Performance Reports”, “Equipment Downtime Analysis”, and “Rake Spotting” came flooding back. Aaahh the memories!
As we headed away from Port Hedland the Pilbarra landscape changed from flat floodplain to hilly outcrops then flat prairie. It was very green due to the recent rain and the rivers had plenty of water – the Yule River and De Grey River were particularly impressive with lots of bird life. They must be amazing to see during the wet season, the floodplains stretched out a long way from the river banks.
Pardoo Roadhouse refueling
After refueling at the Pardoo Roadhouse we reached the turnoff for Eighty Mile Beach but the road was closed. The dirt track looked in pretty bad shape and we could see where vehicles had been dragged out. We initially decided to head onto Barn Hill campsite which was just over 200 kilometres further on. However, as it got dark and because we knew the Barn Hill road was accessed via another dirt road, we changed our minds and went straight to Broome. As it got dark the drive was made interesting by drizzle and a few Kangaroos loitering on the roadside. We arrived at the Cable Beach Caravan Park at 8PM, set up the Trailer in about 25 minutes then had dinner (Charlotte’s world-famous Spag-Bol!).
Saturday 8th: We’ve realised that we like being able to setup and take down the Trailer quickly. So we’ve come up with a cunning plan and bought some PVC drain pipes. Since you’ve asked I’ll tell you what we’re going to use them for. We will put the Awning tent poles in them! This will free up the space under the Camper seats for the plastic boxes that we are always having to move when we are setting up/decamping. The boxes contain the children’s school books, some toys, and sundries such as toiletries and spare first aid kit.
Cable Beach Sunset
The morning was spent buying the pipes and bits. Lunch was followed by an afternoon by the pool. then we walked to Cable Beach to watch a very beautiful Sunset.