With the Port Hedland disaster over, it was onwards to Eighty Mile Beach. This spot isn’t even a town, it’s basically an untouched beach spanning 220km (not sure why the name Eighty Mile Beach…).
A caravan park was setup here next to the beach and there are no shops or restaurants beyond the park. It’s about a 15 minute drive off the highway along a dirt road. We later learnt it’s not actually a beach, rather its a wetlands.
Saturday, July 15th – (Day 99)
Today we woke up around 8:30am. We had our breakfast, packed up our caravan and headed out of the caravan park without looking back. Finally we were off again!
We were both feeling much better now, so at least it was a good place to have a rest. Having the ensuite toilet was an absolute life saver.
Todays drive was 2h40m so we continued listening to our Alexander X audiobook and took in turns driving. We arrived at the Eighty Mile Beach turnoff, only to find it was a red dirt road for about 15 minutes.
If it weren’t for the Discover Park sign at the start of the road, we would have assumed we were going the wrong way.
After checking in and setting up, we went up to the beach lookout area for a little peek. This beach was stunning. Crystal clear, light blue water and white sand as far as the eye can see. The tide was out, so there were quite a few people out there driving their car on the sand as well.
During the afternoon Adam listened to the Carlton vs Port Adelaide game on the radio, then we went for a beach walk at sunset and saw one of the better sunsets we’ve seen.
Then we finished the night mucking around in the caravan. The internet here is pretty poor so we didn’t get up to much. We ended up watching the next episode of The Bear.
Sunday, JULY 16TH – (DAY 100)
Hard to believe we are at day 100 now, it’s going super fast. Today we woke up around 8am, it gets pretty hot here so the caravan is like a sauna at times.
After breakfast, we were chatting to Jamie and Rach on WhatsApp and decided to have a random boardgame session. This ended up going for a couple of hours and we planned to catch up and do it later in the evening as well.
The rest of the day was spent down at the beach and lounging around at the park. We planned to go for a swim and stuff, however the tide was out about 500 metres and the water here is weird.
It’s super shallow and the sand is like quicksand. We later learnt it’s actually a wetlands, rather than a beach, so that made sense. We kicked the footy for a while and read our books in the sun, then headed back and watched the sunset again.
After a shower and tea, we caught up with Jamie and Rach again for some games, and then did what we did last night and watched The Bear.
Monday, JULY 17TH – (DAY 101)
With not much to do at this place, especially with bad internet, the days start blending in to one another.
Today we just chilled out playing our games and reading books etc until lunch, then we headed back to the beach for another relax in the sun. Adam even went in for a swim, but it’s not exactly the best beach to go swimming in.
After that, we had a good shower and then continued chilling out at the caravan for the rest of the night.
Tonight we watched the finale of season 1 of The Bear. What a great show! Season 2 was just released recently, so we have that ready to go for the rest of the week.
Tuesday, JULY 18TH – (DAY 102)
Today was almost a mirror image of yesterday, except today we went for a beach walk instead of a lie down at the beach.
The scenery here is pretty incredible. This beach has such a beautiful colour and the water is so warm, it’s just a shame you cant really swim in there. You can swim, but you also have to deal with jellyfish, so today we just opted for a long beach walk.
We also got stuck talking to our new neighbours behind us. They were from Bunbury so it was good to have a chat to them about our adventures so far, including our Bunbury trip.
Later on we packed up our awning and packed up the rest of our outside stuff ready for our trip to Broome tomorrow. We were both real keen to get back to some civilisation after a slow couple of weeks in Karratha, Port Headland and now Eighty Mile Beach.
We finished the night by starting the new season of The Bear and then went to sleep. A 4 hour drive is on the agenda tomorrow. We’re super excited to get to Broome!