Thursday, 4 June 2026
After five nights in one spot, it was time to get back on the road today. We started the southern leg of our journey by travelling east on Broome Road to return to the Great Northern Highway about 40 kilometres out of town. We turned right onto the highway, driving south towards Perth.
We soon found ourselves driving across the flat and grassy Roebuck Plains. We learnt about the Roebuck Plains watching the video on the bus yesterday afternoon. This flat area was once the delta of the Fitzroy River before it changed its course to flow into King Sound, rather than Roebuck Bay. I’m sure that’s what the video told us, but Googling it now to verify, Google says that it not the case.
Anyway it was very, very flat and rather barren apart from grasses. The grasses are good for grazing and we saw cattle on both sides of the road. Nearer to Roebuck Bay sits the Broome Bird Observatory, established in 1988 by scientists who recognized the importance of the bay as a migratory shorebird area. Many species of birds migrate from the northern hemisphere, some from as far away as the Arctic Circle, to overwinter south of the equator where the weather is milder.
This part of the Great Northern Highway was very boring. The road does not hug the coast, so we couldn’t see the Indian Ocean on our right and on our left was the great expanse of the Great Sandy Desert. This near to the coast it wasn’t a terribly harsh looking environment, but nor was it lush!
We made a comfort stop at the Goldwire Rest Area near Shamrock Station, before pulling in to the Sandfire Roadhouse at about 1.00pm. We were greeted by peacocks strutting around the car park which was … surprising. As has often been the case, the roadhouse was better on the inside than on the outside. After all the food we consumed yesterday, today we resumed our lunchtime diet of white bread sandwiches. The corned silverside, with cheese and pickle was much better than the ham and salad. Such a shame we shared the silverside sandwich first before going on to the bland salad.
About half an hour later we turned off the highway to drive out to the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, which shares its driveway with the Wallal Downs Station. Although Bernie booked with G’Day Parks, the park was branded Summerstar Tourist Parks. I think they’re all the same these days whether you book G’Day, Discovery …
Check-in is available from 2.00pm so we timed our arrival to perfection pulling in to the car park adjacent to Reception at 2.01pm. We gave them various booking details that had not been passed onto them by G’Day and received the keys to Cabin 11. When we parked the truck beside it, It didn’t look much from the outside, but was much better on the inside. This stop is for one night only so, even if it had been a bit basic on the inside too, we only had to put up with it a single sleep.
We lugged our gear into the cabin and collected ingredients from the fridge and freezer to make fried rice for dinner later this evening. With the Splits in our freezer finished, it was time to reinstate Splice o’clock, before setting out to explore the beach. We walked through the park to the walking beach access closest to our cabin. We had to walk past the fish cleaning station situated conveniently for all the fishers right at the end of the access path!
The Eighty Mile Beach is primarily a fishing paradise. Swimming is not recommended due to the risk of crocodiles, sharks and stingers! Although we are now outside the Kimberley, crocodiles are sighted here often enough for it to be a concern. In fact, I read somewhere that Crocs can still be seen as far south as Port Hedland. Despite all the potential dangers, we continued to the beach and turned left/south.
So, we hiked all over the Kimberley, through Savannah woodland and in and out of gorges and we didn’t see a snake. We were strolling along the beach, mildly concerned about crocodiles, when I spied an effing snake/sea snake? WHATEVER! It was a snake and I wasn’t getting close enough to determine what type. We veered around it with Bernie trying to convince me it was nothing to worry about, if we didn’t annoy it, it wouldn’t annoy us. I know that, it just doesn’t make me any less terrified. Ugh!
Of course, we should have turned around and started walking back because I spent the rest of the walk worrying about having to eventually walk past the damn snake again. Or worse, walk back past where we saw it and not be able to see it, to then have to worry about where it had moved to!!
Despite this coast being renowned for its healthy bird population we were not seeing much wildlife of the feathered variety. A few lapwings and a couple of oyster catchers and one whistling kite. Bernie put the drone up and finally worked out how to get it to track, having it film us walking along the beach. Aww.
It was time to walk back to the park … with great trepidation. I spent the whole walk pointing at lumps of sand and shadows asking whether it was THE SNAKE. We eventually reached the dreaded slithery thing, still lazing in exactly the same spot. I walked past quickly, Bernie stopped to take a photo.
We reached the walkway to the caravan park, but decided to walk a short way north, before returning to the cabin. We had planned to go back to the cabin and then come out again closer to sunset. However, we got chatting to people on the beach, on a beautiful balmy evening, and ended up just staying on the beach to watch the sun descending into the ocean. There were some fantastic clouds tonight to make the sky more interesting.
We whipped up a pretty good batch of fried rice for dinner. We’ve been told we should check out Rays Port Hedland for dinner tomorrow night.
Steps: 9,246 (5.71kms)
