Beaches…and finally some fish!

With the excitement of birthday week in Broome done and dusted, it was time to move on. After saying we were turning south, we changed our minds and decided to squeeze in a few days to the north, to the top of Cape Leveque.  This was about a 2.5-3hr drive from Broome but saw us arrive at a great little beach camp where we could put up the tent right on the water.

Apparently the fishing was ok there, and we had a quick go off the rocks but the snags annoy us too much, and the ever present threat of crocs was always in the back of our minds. It did mark the start of a slightly different way of travelling for us though. Because the distances between things are so big in this area of Australia, we’re having to move more often rather than base ourselves somewhere for a week and see the nearby sights. That’s because the “nearby sights” are actually three, four, five or even six hours drive away, so we’re better off just packing up and moving to them instead.

So, on that basis, this stay was the first of three, three-night stays in a row. The good thing is though, that once we’re there, we’re there and there’s little to do but relax and enjoy it. We did a bit of work and school on each day, and on our last day we drove the few minutes over to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm to have a Friday afternoon drink in their bar, but other than that we stayed in our waterfront home watching the world go by.

On the way from there to our next spot we stopped off in Broome again to fill up with diesel, water and food then headed south (for real this time) to a place called Port Smith. Port Smith is in the middle of nowhere and is nothing but a caravan park and a spectacular lagoon. The caravan park was one of the more expensive we’d stayed at, and was a bit over-priced in my opinion, but sometimes you don’t have a choice as you can’t just keep driving and driving. It was worth it for the proximity to the lagoon, but the trade-off was that Hamish and I were eaten alive by sandflies every day (whereas the other two seemed to make it through unscathed).

Because of the huge tide changes in the Kimberley’s this lagoon fills and empties completely twice a day. When it is empty you can drive on it out to the beach, when it is full you can swim in it. It’s quite incredible to see the speed that the tide comes in and out. We went down each day to swim on the high tide, then came back later in the day to fish on the outgoing tide, basically just walking out with it as it retreated. It was interesting fishing – normally when you find a spot where you’re getting bites you hang around there, but with the tide changes, that spot might not have water in it just a few minutes later.

We did get millions of bites but were really just feeding them. We did catch a couple of whiting, a garfish and a longtom, and another fish that we couldn’t identify (and threw back because it wasn’t big enough).

After three days of hanging out in the lagoon I was certainly ready to move on, mainly because the itching and scratching from the sandfly bites was driving me insane. So we packed up and moved out, further south to another beach spot called Cape Keraudren. This is a reserve, at the end of a dirt road and is basically a cape at the end of 80 Mile Beach. The camping area was extensive and consisted of four different areas. For some reason, some people like being packed in like sardines, and had jammed themselves into one area, so we went well away from that to a quieter, larger area near the end, where once again we had a spectacular waterfront site.

We’d heard that the oysters were good, so the kids learned how to gather them off the rocks. A very useful skill for them to have if you ask me. We also walked out towards the end of the cape and spotted quite a few whales frolicking out in the Indian Ocean, and on another day a pod of dolphins as well. If we thought Port Smith was in the middle of nowhere, this place is even further towards the middle of nowhere. The closest thing is the Pardoo Roadhouse, which is currently closed after being wiped out by the cyclone that came through a few months ago. So that meant we had another spot where we could get some downtime. We got into a routine of work and school in the morning while the tide was out, then drove the 1km or so to the other side of the campground to the beach for an afternoon of fishing. Conditions weren’t great, but we managed to catch a couple of whiting for a snack and the kids had fun swimming.

I have to mention the Sandfire Roadhouse which is about 1.5 hours north of where we were staying. With Pardoo out of action it’s the only roadhouse between Cape Karaudren and Broome so the queues for fuel were pretty long. Luckily we didn’t need any as we’d stocked up at our last campground, but we still had to stop there due to Hamish’s ridiculously good memory. About six months earlier I’d mentioned something to him about the Sandfire Roadhouse having some of the best sausage rolls in the country (according to people in the Facebook travelling groups I’m in). I can’t remember where we were but it was a long way away (maybe Coober Pedy?). He banked that bit of information in his brain, so we really had no choice but to stop there and drop $28 on four homemade sausage rolls. They were excellent though.

After our three nights at Cape Karaudren, we moved on again, this time choosing a four night stay at our current spot, which is 30 minutes north of Karratha. We initially thought we might have to stay at Port Hedland, but thankfully decided to drive on. We did pop into Port Hedland on the way to do some laundry, shopping, get water, diesel etc, but were pretty keen to leave as it is quite a depressing place. Obviously heavily reliant on mining, but for some reason they’re making no effort to make it a nice place for all the other people who aren’t FIFO and who actually have to live there.

Luckily though, Karratha is a little gem in the desert and we really like this town. We’re staying on the beach again at a place called Cleaverville. We have a site with lovely sea views where we can’t see another camp.

We drove into Karratha for a look around town, and also out to Dampier which is another nice town. Both have a heavy mining presence, but unlike Port Hedland, seem to be making an effort to have a bit of a community feel with some really nice sporting facilities, an arts centre, great playgrounds etc. We even stopped to watch a bit of a local soccer game, mainly because one team was wearing UQFC colours so we were both feeling a bit nostalgic for our teams at home.

Dampier, of course, is the home of Red Dog. Months ago, when we were in Yulara, Red Dog was the free movie playing in the cinema there. Despite having both read the book and seen the movie before, I’d somehow forgotten how sad it was until both kids started bawling in the cinema. I’d thought they were scarred for life, until they found out it was a true story, and, we’d be swinging past Dampier at some point. So we stopped off to see the Red Dog statue and read a bit more about his adventures in the Pilbara.

Just outside Dampier is a little national park that has some amazing Aboriginal rock art. There’s a huge hill of rocks (it looks like a spoil pile actually) and on these rocks there is various art that has been put there up to 40,000 years (or more?) ago. They estimate there could be up to 1 million pictures throughout the area. We had a look at that, then drove back to Karratha, where we ended the day at the North West Brewery, trying a selection of their own beers, most of which were quite good.

Today we drove in the other direction to the ghost town of Cossack. This town is now a museum and consists of half a dozen or so stone buildings. It’s heyday was from the 1870’s onwards when they had a pearling industry, then later a pastoral industry and a port. It seemed to be slammed by cyclones on a pretty regular basis though, so eventually the town died out, and the port moved to nearby Port Samson. It was quite interesting to walk through the old buildings and the museum – been a while since we’ve seen some “old stuff”.

We then drove 10 minutes further down the road to Point Samson (not to be confused with Port Samson) which is a lovely little seaside town. The kids had a good play on the playground while we ate lunch on the waterfront, then we came home for a lazy afternoon on the beach.

Tomorrow Jim and the kids are back to Karratha to do all the “life admin” while I do the paid work, then we’re off again, this time detouring inland to Tom Price and Karijini National Park for six nights or so. Looking forward to that as we’ve heard good things from a lot of people about Karijini.