Cape Keraudren (Friday 23rd May - Sunday 25th May)

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Another pack up, another day in the car and another set up and we are at Cape Keraudren Reserve. Cape Keraudren sits at the southern tip of 80 Mile Beach. Now this is more like it!! We have found the perfect campsite on the beach. No other campers, perfect solitude and a calm bay with a lake inlet for the girls to swim. The girls were straight into exploring the rock pools and were delighted to find that the pools were overflowing with hermit crabs. A nightly exploration to the camp toilets led us to the discovery of millions of hermit crabs everywhere. You needed to use the torch when walking to avoid stepping on them. We soon had a hermit crab farm outside of our van who’s number kept growing and growing.

This reserve provides a stark contrast to our afternoon stopover at Port Headland. A town defined by its ochre red dirt and its Iron Ore Mining. Everywhere you go is evidence of its mining origins. Huge trains span the length of the road transporting the ore to the harbour where massive tankers like waiting as the iron ore conveys onto them. A quick stop over is certainly enough time spent in this industrious town. I’m not ready to swap my tank top and skirt for the King G’s just yet!!

On our second day at Cape Karaudren we launched the Tintanic for another attempt at family fishing. After dropping a few lines and trekking along the coast we hit the jackpot trawling our lines along the rocky outcrops. Matt hooked four huge Trevally. There was much excitement as he fought them to the boat and Carrie captured them in the net. Yeah!!! We have finally gotten some fishing luck. Our freezer will definitely be stocked up. Carrie even reeled in a big one, after much complaint that she couldn’t do it. I thought that my arms were going to drop off, but I eventually got it to the boat - what a fighter - me or the fish, I’m not sure which, but I did win in the end. As the saying goes, ‘It doesn’t rain it pours’ and as we only have a very small freezer we released Carrie’s fish back to the wild.
Upon returning to shore the girls and I had a swim while Matt filleted our catch. The ocean up this way has that real turquoise colour and with its warm temperature is very inviting. Whilst swimming the girls and I were treated to another sight, a massive turtle being caught and brought to shore by an aboriginal family. The girls were able to get up close and pat the massive creature. Thank goodness the man’s wife talked the catcher into releasing it back into the ocean; there was much talk of keeping it for dinner. The killing of that magnificent creature was not something that I wanted the girls to witness. Thankfully they were able to wave goodbye as he swum back out to sea.

Another beautiful location to remember! We packed up camp, released our hermit crabs and farewelled Cape Keraudren to continue on our trek.

Matt’s Eye View

So after a hasty exit from the dust at Forty Mile we trekked east of Port Headland to the start of 80 Mile Beach. A quick stop in Headland revealed the true extent of the great Aussie mining boom, with huge bulk ore carriers lined up and continuous trains feeding the port, I can see why BHP Billiton shares are worth a bit! A quick couple of hours on the black strip to the east of Headland brought us to Cape Keraudren, hard to pronounce...great to stay at. We drove the van onto the beach until we were thoroughly bogged and well it looked like a good spot, after a quick check we were above the high tide mark we went through the now automatic basic setup. Another Matt and Caz beach launch in the morning, followed by a short wait for the tide to do its thing and we were off into the Indian Ocean again. We cruised around looking for the elusive Threadfin Salmon, the prize catch in these parts...but no luck. We switched tactics and trolled a lure along the rocks with near instant results in terms of a hook up with old mate GT. The GT were pretty thick, with each run producing a hit. Caz decided it was all too hard half way through fighting a good specimen, only to be shouted down by the crew, to the call from Tahlia, “no way Mum I thought you had muscles from pump classes”. It seemed that Cape Keraudren was Hermit Crab heaven and any walk at night involved dodging hundreds of the little critters. Ella set up a Hermit Crab farm/concentration camp, fortunately all the detainees were released on good behaviour on our departure.

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