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Published: September 6th 2012
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Days on the Road = 48 Days (6 Weeks & 6 Days)
After a great night’s sleep we head off to ensure that we get a powered site at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park as its first in best dressed, so I don't feel like going off the battery for three nights especially when you can't swim in the ocean there!
We turn off the Great Northern Highway down a 10km dirt corregated road to Eighty Mile Beach and we were very lucky to get a fantastic site. After we setup, we head down to look at the beach which is just amazing, the tide is in and the sand is pristine white. We look left them right and all we can see up and down the beach is people fishing, what an amazing picture. This is what the beach is renowned for as well as being a turtle breading ground. We see heaps of fish and sharks! being caught. There's no swimming, or be it at your own risk, due to the area being a nursing ground for sharks as well. Where there's a baby shark there is a mamma lurking close by! Think I will just stick to the showers but will definitely try my hand at fishing.
Our neighbours to the side and behind us are just beautiful, extremely welcoming and loved our girls. What a great posy to be in. There's a statement on the Eighty Mile Beach website that is so true that I will share with you and this is how we felt whilst being there:
There are no strangers at Eighty Mile Beach, just friends you haven't met yet!
We meet Ranger Pete who is just a lovely character. He's been working at the park and the local council for nine years only to be leaving at the end of the season to work away. The Department of Environment and Conservation is taking over the marine park and locals and regulars to the area are scared that this will change how and what they can do.
The first night we were there Ranger Pete was showing our neighbours what he has caught not far from the park, a Death Adder Snake. Just in case you are not aware this snake is the most venomous land snake in Australia and the world and there it was on the floor just feet away from me and the family. Ranger Pete is however, extremely careful and skilful holding his snake rod in close proximity so as to
catch it in case it decides to make a run for it! Pete had promised the girls to drop off some shells in the morning which they were so excited about and they were certainly on the lookout for him the next morning and he didn't disappoint as he arrived on his quad bike with a box full of them. They were beautiful and massive, I now had to find a secure place to store them whilst we travel the rest of our way around Australia.
The girls just loved Ranger Pete and spent a morning riding around on his quad bike working in the park and for their hard efforts they were rewarded with a double scoop ice-cream cone! They were over the moon. Big thanks to Ranger Pete for looking after our girls and your wonderful stories.
Fishing at Eighty Mile Beach is a given, so we decide to take our hand to our rod and head down to the beach at high tide. There are masses of people on the beach and we find our spot and cast off. Fingers crossed we will have blue nose salmon tonight for dinner, yum. Something bit my line
but as I'm calling Charles for some assistance the bloody thing let go and that was about the extent of our fishing expedition, nothing, niente. There was this shark fin however, that appeared a couple of feet away from us!! I was just standing in that spot casting off not long before. Lucky, I could have been on the menu! I took a walk up the beach to check out everyone else’s catch for the day and I saw that they'd been luckier than we had with quite a few sharks being caught. Oh well maybe another time, surely I've got to catch one fish on this trip.
Eighty Mile Beach unfortunately has been hit and totally devastated by cyclones in the passed the most recent devastating one being Cyclone Laurence in 2009 (category 5) with wind gusts up to 285km/h. Ranger Pete even stayed behind to ride out the storm and look after the park. I've included in this blog a picture taken from this cyclone.
Even though we couldn't swim at Eighty Mile Beach we had an absolutely fantastic time and received a warm goodbye from our neighbours. Tomorrow onto our next destination Broome.
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