The nomads of the west aren’t using Camels.

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Barn Hill and Eighty Mile Beach for those that need a translation, this is Grey Nomad country!
Barn Hill is a station stay accommodation on the beach, about 150ks south of Broome. You travel 10km off the main road and hit the station, then keep driving for a few hundred metres to the camp ground. We thought it would be a nice quiet place to spend a few days and try out the new beaut fishing gear….but….not in this retirement lifetime baby!! There are about 150 caravans here for around 3 months that someone forgot to tell us about - you know who you are! We got a camp site in the un-powered section so it was away from everyone, which was nice enough, although some of the walks to the loos, past the oldies in their established sites (complete with gardens, satellite TV dishes, the dog, etc) was a bit daunting. After a while, we contemplated carrying a stick.
The place looks like it was set up as a small place for people to camp, and exploded without much planning or foresight. The caravans are packed into sprawling corners with dead-ends and ‘no entry’ signs. If you were looking for a perverse example of the ‘grey nomad’ sprawl - accept no substitute. People regularly stay for 3 months, but up to 6 and spend their time fishing in their tinnies and doing lawn bowls (yes they have a lawn bowls green but watch out for the bumps). The place in itself is nice and was a good place for the 1 night we decided to stay. Did not try the fishing here, but it was pretty obvious that there was little to be had off the beach with the 18+ tinnies, all launching at the same time, all heading out to their well guarded and jealously kept secret fishing spots. A positive note was that they appeared to be catching squat as well! 😊

On to Eighty Mile Beach, which is about half way between Broome and Pt Hedland, but closer to Pt Hedland. This is an actual ‘thought out’ camp ground and has over 200 powered sites, all of them full - all of the time, but the showers are fantastic! The beach as the name suggest is 80 miles long and is meant to be great for fishing, which is pretty much all we did except knock off a few books and improve the dark skin tanning, that we just know all the people in Adelaide will appreciate when we get back. Bruce tested out his surf caster, and after some practice and some cursing, a little rage, and a few injuries, Amanda offering careful advice (“turn the bloody rod over because it casts better” - it did, who knew?), some more cursing, and then some patient watching of the more experienced casters, got pretty good range on it. So the use of the equipment was expert, pity that he did not catch any fish (refer repeated cursing above). To be fair, the weather has been a bit blustery and unusually rough on the seas, so the locals (Grey Nomads that stay for 3 months or more as well) say. They have not seen it this windy in July before and although there had been a 38lb. Mulloway caught on our first day out, there has been little in the way decent catches for a while across the camp, although it apparently gets better latter in the season. Lucky us, although we are both confident the Mulloway was lost on a long journey and in losing its way, decided to pop in for directions and got hooked on the way through. Must have been a chick fish asking for directions like that, a bloke fish, after all, would still be free! 😊

For entertainment there are various concerts and shows, with a craft market on weekends, which are all good. Five-zzes is a novel concept where they all get together for drinks and sing songs (oddly proceeded by four-zzes if the fishing is crap). We chose a wide berth for this part of the experience although we suggested eight-zzes (PM) but everyone round us was in bed asleep by then. They also have a dial-up internet kiosk here, but the speed is woeful.

We are headed to Pt Hedland to post this before heading down to Karijini National Park. For those that are interested we plan to be back in Adelaide around 6th August (too soon for us) and we hear it is bloody cold and not worth staying.

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