80 Mile Beach

Craig's baby shark

The beach at low tide

Kids playing in water pools formed at low tide

tide was out 9km that day

Shells

A bit of driving in the sand

This is a place that we weren’t actually going to visit, but decided last minute to stop and have a look. I’m glad we did!

There is nothing at 80 Mile beach apart from the caravan park, which we booked into for two nights. The facilities were very clean and the sites were huge and grassy. There was a shop for essential items, but like all the other isolated parks on the west coast it was mega expensive. I paid $4.30 for ONE litre of milk. And Craig paid $27 for two litre gas bottle to be refilled. The park would be at least half full of oldies that stay there for 6 months of the year. But they were very friendly and were happy to stop and chat with us and the children.

The beach is a short walk from the park over a sand dune. We all went for a walk shortly after setting up and on first look it was one of those WOW moments.

The kids spent the afternoon collecting shells and we had to drag them away with the promise of returning tomorrow. We cooked up dinner that night and sat and chatted with a fellow camper who was travelling alone.

The next morning Craig went fishing and was happy to catch a baby shark! He threw it back though! I spent the morning catch up on schoolwork with the kids and doing some washing. We then went four wheel driving on the beach in the afternoon and had a good walk around and play in the sand.

Its funny travelling up the coast as we have got to know people who are travelling at similar speed to us. As we were eating lunch we saw a familiar ute pull in and were pleased to see our friend Barry who we had camped next to in Dampier.

(Barry also has a blog http://livingthedreaminoz.blogspot.com.au)

Unfortunately there is no swimming at 80 Mile beach as there are sharks, stingers and even the occasional crocodile in the water. A local told me that he had seen a shark the day before as big as his car and the sharks come into knee-deep water looking for fish so not to go swimming. On saying that there were some backpackers who were swimming and they never got eaten, but I wouldn’t like to chance it!