Territory to Territory Tour: 80 Mile Beach and possible disasters averted!

We stayed at a couple of places along 80 mile beach which is just south of Broome - Port Smith and 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park. We chose Port Smith over Barn Hill station which had been recommended as Phil decided he wanted to try the lagoon fishing and we thought it might be a good place for the kids to swim.

We had a lovely time practicing our snorkelling in the lagoon while Phil was fishing the outgoing tides. He also had a go at fishing off the nearby cliffs where the water was crystal clear and we saw a couple of massive turtles swimming past. No luck with the fish at either place! We got bogged in the thick sand near the cliffs for a short time until Phil dug us out and he has been whinging about wanting a Landcruiser ever since as it has a higher clearance than the Pajero apparently!

We had a fun play with a gorgeous labrador puppy named 'Salty' at the lagoon and then got to pat a baby kangaroo named 'Ollie' that was being hand reared by the managers of the van park. This was, of course, the highlight for the kids, especially Jess who is animal mad!

Phil has been driven mad by the frequent little voice (Jess) from the backseat saying "Wee Wee" about every 20 minutes at times it seems! However this did save us from a possible fire in the caravan as we turned off the highway to Port Smith. As he got out of the car, Phil smelt a funny smell and found it was coming from the passenger side tire on the caravan. He poured some water on it and it sizzled!! It kept sizzling for the next half dozen bottles of water and took ages more before it was cool enough to drive again! Once at the caravan park, Phil took the wheel apart and found it was due to the brake magnets jamming on as they were full of dust. All good now, but Phil doesn't complain as much about the frequent wee stops!

Love these photos - taken about 3 minutes apart!
I can't remember why we were the worst parents in the world at the time of the first photo but all seems forgotten rather quickly...

Low tide at Port Smith Lagoon

Jack's casting is getting really good!

Another lovely sunset...

Salty the puppy

Cliffs near Port Smith - the water was amazingly clear, we saw huge turtles below

A 'bluey' on the road out

Next we stayed at 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park as we had heard it was a great place to collect shells. We had a ball doing this and Jack got really into it so we will have to figure out how to best display them when we get to Canberra.

The beach is the other side of the sand dunes at the top of the picture....

The kids made some friends there as it was WA school holidays and Riley's family had brought their own quad bikes from Broome to ride on the beach and they let the kids have a go which they thought was great! There was also a group of locals at the van park that have their quad bikes all set up with fishing rods, esky's and flags which they take down to the beach to fish the incoming tides. It's hilarious, they all drive out within about 10 minutes of each other each day and then line up on the beach!