Day 77 – Broome to Eighty Mile Beach

We leave Broome around 10, today will be a fair bit of driving, Port Hedland is about 615km, and really the only thing between the two is a caravan park at Eighty Mile beach, it is about 350 odd km.


In fact the only thing between these two points is a roadhouse.

Justine seems to have caught the cold that the other three of us have had for weeks now. We really hoped she had missed it. Now there are the four of us coughing and blowing our noses… More tissues.

Getting from Broome back to the main highway is a pretty easy run, but from there we fight a headwind pretty much all the way. The road follows the coastline, but is about 20km inland so we don’t see any of it. Most of the side of the roads are cattle stations, so there really doesn’t seem to be any places you could just drive down to see the coast either.  

We stop at the roadhouse to fill up with fuel, with a 65l tank, we stop at just about everyone of them out here.

After a long and rather boring drive, we reach the turnoff to Eighty Mile and drive the 10km on dirt road down to the park.

At checkin they advise us some park rangers are giving talks down at the beach on the Turtles as apparently it is Turtle nesting season. One of the guys shows us what is mostly likely a nest, it is a raised mound, beside a slight indentation. It’s surprisingly interesting, and it’s these small pieces of information that really bring places like this to life. We take a walk down the beach and as per normal is it is looks like low tide. We’re told we might see hatching turtles at night, then we’re told that they generally hatch around an hour before high tide….High tide is due at 2am, I’m afraid the turtles will need to find their own way.

Apparently there is an old jeep buried in the sand somewhere here, a 4×4 trip that went wrong years ago, but I couldn’t find it.

Again it is a huge van park, with what must be a couple of hundred sites, but today there are maybe 15 campers.

There is an amazing breeze off the beach and for the first time in a month we voluntarily have the AC off and the windows open. Bliss.

2 Replies to “Day 77 – Broome to Eighty Mile Beach”

  1. Hope all went well at the funeral…….funny things they are, there are usually a few laughs, R.I.P Ken.
    Must be nice to all be back together again…..& finally back on the road. Enjoy!

  2. Turtle hatchings…turtlettes racing down the beach…wouldn’t miss it for the world!!! 2am…woulda been worth it!! What is cuter than a baby turtle??? Flatbacks?? Ridleys??

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