Broome / 80 Mile Beach 18/9/2013

We both decided that there had to be more to Cable Beach, so did a bit more research. Turns out that you can drive on the beach, just on the other side of the rocks, 22km of beach waiting to be explored. We packed up and headed down to the beach, now this was more like it, really beautiful and worth taking the time. We drove down, found our spot and spent the morning, walking, collecting shells and relaxing. Heavenly.

Our next destination was 80 mile beach, renowned for the amazing shells on the beach. As we were now travelling on asphalt roads, the camping opportunities are quite limited. There are a number of spots designated for camping, we stopped at some of them but they were full of Grey Nomads, in motorhomes with massive aircon units. These were definitely not an option for us, so we carried on looking for a gravel pit. All the side roads were gated, so as it was getting dark, the first ungated road we found we turned into. We have excellent maps, so could see it was heading to a bore. We drove about 3km down, and set up for the night.

Bully's Camp / Broome 17/9/2013

We had to leave Bully’s camp by 6am as we had booked the car in for a warranty service in Broome. We arrived in Broome at around 9.30, so had time to give the car a quick wash to get some of the red dirt off it. We didn’t think the mechanics would be impressed by a very dirty car. The service was being done by a mechanic at a servo, we booked the car in, told him what was needed and asked where we could wait for the hour or so it would take. He looked baffled and informed us they didn’t have anywhere. We certainly were not going to stand in the forecourt of a servo for an hour, so we got our chairs out the back and set them up around the side. We got some strange looks, but hey I was not standing.

Service finished, we went to Chinatown to have a look around. There were certainly some very quirky shops. I discovered that all the pearl farms had shops in Chinatown, there were also numerous jewellers. I had said that I would love pearls from Broome, but the first shop we went into, apparently the best in Broome, was so expensive it put me off entirely. We wandered around, and had another look in one of the Pearl farm shops, the pearls were beautiful and reasonably priced. They had a necklace I really liked, but couldn’t size it for me, they sent us to the jeweller 2 doors down to have a look. That is where Iain found the perfect necklace, and with a jeweller in residence, they could alter it the same day.

Deal done, we went to book into our cabin for the night. I really wanted to see sunset over Cable Beach, and caravan parks are not an option, so cabin it was. We settled in, did our washing, then went to pick up my necklace. A bit of grocery shopping was required, which we quickly di and then headed out to Cable Beach. I had heard and read so much about it, but at the end of the day it was just another tourist beach, we were both disappointed, but the sunset was pretty.

Cape Leveque 14/9/2013 - 16/9/2013

This is our rest spot so I’m doing it all in one.

We got up at sunrise and packed up, by 7.30 we were on the road and heading North. We weren’t quite sure where we were going to stay, so decided to find somewhere nice and stop there. We went all the way to the top to Cape Leveque, we had read that it was a very nice place with beach shacks that you could camp next to. When we arrived we soon realised that this was not our cup of tea – very touristy, with campers lined up like bullets! We had a cup of coffee and cake while we did some research. Iain found a campground that had very basic facilities and was difficult to find without instructions or knowledge, so we decided that might just be our best option.

It was certainly very obscure, and we weren’t even sure that we were on the right road, it was very sandy with deep ruts. As we rounded a corner, there was a car in front of us – stuck – he wasn’t going anywhere. We managed to get around him and Iain snatched him out, he was very pleased that a Land Rover had to rescue a Landcruiser!

 It was a local man and he confirmed that we were definitely on the right track. We pulled into Bully’s camp and it was empty, and we had internet, we were very happy. Jeff the caretaker got us set up in a beautiful spot, and the relaxing began.

For the next couple of days we caught up on blog, went for walks on the beach, took loads of photos and generally just relaxed. It was bliss.

There have to be a few honourable mentions. First would be the toilet/ shower block. Now Jeff obviously gets no funding so everything is pretty basic, the problem is that the floor of the elevated amenities block is rotting! I was seriously scared every time I went in there. I did however discover that there was a separate building that had a shower in it, I felt a lot safer in there. The other thing would be, being woken up at 1.30am by some campers that had to relocate from another campsite because of a bush fire. I felt sorry for them, but was not impressed that we got very little sleep with a big day of driving ahead of us.

Tunnel Creek / Broome 13/9/2013

As usual we were up with the sunrise, we purposely only unpacked a few things, so it didn’t take us long to get back on the road. Our next stop was Tunnel Creek, and we were there by 7am. The car park was deserted except for a couple of hippies, camped for the night. We made our way to the tunnel entrance and discovered it was quite a long tunnel and we would need torches.

 Back to the car we went to get geared up. The creek was amazing, it has basically carved itself through a mountain, the water was very low, so walking through was pretty easy. We came across and small inlet/waterfall and walked over towards it to have a look. Suddenly Iain said ‘wow look at that’, tucked in along the rocks was a very large freshwater crocodile. There were certainly no warning signs out the front! We walked about 50m and realised we would have to wade through water to continue on – being a big sissy I protested, but as usual Iain convinced me to do it. I walked very swiftly across. Just on the other side there was a partial collapse that let the light in, a magnificent spot for a photo shoot. We got quite a few photos in before we heard voices – it was a mad dash to get dressed before the tourists arrived. 

It was a couple around our age, and when we asked if they had seen the croc their eyes were as big as saucers. We had a group chat and decided that there was safety in numbers so we would push on. We rounded another corner and suddenly Iain stopped dead and there was movement in front of us. A few crocs lying on the bank, hurriedly getting out of our way and into the water. We had a few more water crossings to get across, so we made sure we made as much noise as possible, to let the crocs know we were there. They are pretty shy creatures so will get out of your way. When we got to the other side we had a bit of a walk around and found some rock art – fascinating.

The tourists were coming through in droves now, so we made our way back through the tunnel to the car. It was only 8.30, and the parking lot was very busy, we were really glad we made the effort to get there early. This was the end of our Gibb River Road experience, and we were headed towards the coast. I must say I do enjoy the desert, but at I seem to be in my element when I am near the sea. We got to Broome around lunch time and went and booked the car in for its warranty service the following week. We stopped at a few tyre places to see if we could get replacement back tyres, but they are an unusual size so no luck. Next stop was shopping centre to replenish our stocks. Iain bought a wifi hub – sharing a dongle was becoming a pain, everything takes twice as long.

All the shopping done we went north to find a place to camp for the night. The camps 5 book and maps showed some free camping spots around 40km away. It was getting late by the time we arrived, we were hoping it wouldn’t be busy, but much to our disappointment there were crowds of people – it suddenly dawned on us it was Friday, all the weekend campers were here. We eventually found a spot and set up for the night, not ideal but we were leaving early.

Mornington Wildlife Camp / Winjana Gorge 12/9/2013

As usual we were awake with the birds as the sun was coming up, with the tent being right on the creek there was a lot of animal activity close to us. Now we are not bird watchers, but we learned about some threatened birds that had been brought back from the brink at Mornington. Standing on our balcony we were watching these little finches flit around – then it dawned on us what we were looking art – Iain got his camera out and managed to capture this little fellow.

As this was our last morning here, we started getting everything packed up – we had every appliance and rechargeable battery in the car charging before we left. You just have to take advantage of whatever facilities are available to you at the time! We went for another glorious breakfast and then spent another hour or so finishing the pack up and taking photos.

By 10 we were on the road, we had hoped to go to Bell Gorge, but there was an enormous bushfire burning out of control so it had been closed. We changed our route a little and decided to go down to Windjana Gorge National Park and then Tunnel Creek and then onto Broome. We were about half an hour from Mornington when guess what – another puncture, in the same tyre! I don’t know why but that tyre has serious bad karma! 

We had an idea that the repair done in Gove had failed, so Iain put the spare on. We pushed on to the Iminji community store as we knew that there was a tyre repair place there – funny the Gibb River Road has an abundance of tyre repair places, couldn’t imagine why! We got to Iminji and a lovely guy by the name of Gavin had a tyre shop next to the store. He was extremely welcoming and we sat in the nicest workshop area I have ever been in. When he got the tyre off the rim we discovered that the puncture was new – right next to the old patch. He repaired it for us and we were on our way. By now we realised that we were going to have to replace the 2 back tyres, they have taken a real hammering. The problem is that they are a really odd size so we are more than likely going to have to order them and get them sent to Carnarvon.

With a now viable spare, we pushed on towards Windjana Gorge, the area we were now driving in, was the area that the fire was burning in. The fire scar was enormous and just kept going for kilometre after kilometre, we could see smoke and realised that there was definitely more than one fire. When we got closer to where the fires were still burning, there was a plane circling overhead, and local fire authority trucks. The only thing they could do was monitor where it was going. 

We were quite worried about the fires and decided that we would not bush camp, but go to the National Park as they would be monitoring, and would let us know if we needed to move.We had hoped that as it was getting so hot there would not be many people. Wishful thinking, the camp ground was full and we managed to get the last spot. It was still early so after setting up we thought we would go for a look around and see what was worth looking at. We expected a long walk as we had seen quite a few people driving back in their cars. It wasn’t even 500m down the road and we were at the entrance to the gorge! We realised that we were back in tourist country and away from the rugged outback.

The gorge was really beautiful, with soaring cliffs on either side. We were not very far in when finally we spotted crocs, fresh water crocs, but crocs nonetheless. We waited around until all the tourists had left and did some more photos. I find it amazing that people leave before the best time of the day, just as the sun is going down, a very special part of the day.