Day 49: 17 July – Planning the next month’s adventures

Author: Mrs A

Being a bit of a organisation geek I felt somewhat uncomfortable not knowing what our plans were for the coming weeks, so insisted we spend the morning using our mapping resources, Dr Google and travel books to make plans. Mr A purchased brain food from the camp shop (a pie for him and a dairy-free sausage roll for me) and we set about our research.

Our rough plan from here is as follows:

  • Karijini National Park (6 nights)
  • Millstream National Park (3 nights)
  • Karratha – Point Samson (2 nights)
  • Ashburton River (2 nights)
  • Exmouth/Cape Range National Park (8 nights)
  • Coral Bay/Carnarvon area (5 nights)
  • Kennedy Range (2 nights)
  • Gladstone (1 night – our 15 year wedding anniversary!)
  • Denham (3 nights)
  • And the lovely named Prickly Point on Useless Circuit (2 nights)

There will be a few nights coming up where we will be offline (up to about 6) after which you will likely be bombarded with information!

The map below shows where we are now. Our plan is to head south, then inland for a few days:



We did a short 5km hike along the coast this afternoon, enjoying the final bit of coast for a couple of weeks and then enjoyed the stunning sunset.


Now we are semi packed up in preparation for our next adventure from tomorrow.

Day 47: Eighty Mile Beach (which is actually 140 miles long…ah-hem)

Author: Mrs A

From: Barn Hill Station

To: Eighty Mile Beach

Distance driven: 256km

Time: 3 hours

Distance hiked: 10km

We started the day with an early walk along the beach at Barn Hill Station to make up for arriving so late yesterday. The beach continued to enthrall us in the other direction, giving more views and interesting rock formations. 


After a hot shower we hitched up and set off back on the road south.

They call this part of Australia ‘The Big Empty’. There are no towns, and the one main road (National Highway 1) runs about 10-20km inland away from the coast, offering a view of nothing more than a dead straight road, bordered by flat, hot, featureless scrubland. It makes for a boring drive, and the podcasts got another workout on the way.

We arrived at the Eighty Mile Beach caravan park at around 2pm. We were originally hoping to bushcamp for the next two nights, but alas, there is no bushcamping along here – the land bordering the coast either privately owned cattle stations or Aboriginal country. So it was back into a campground for us. This camp is much nicer than last night’s – large campspots with grass, clean toilets and showers, and we are a short walk from the beach.

And wow, what a beach – we were immediately enthralled.


We walked up the beach, paddling our feet in the champagne-like water’s edge, the extremely fine sand feeling like velvet underfoot. One of the things this beach is famous for is its shells. Beautiful shells of every colour, size and shape deposited with every wave – just stunning. The other main claim to fame is its attraction to migratory shore birds – hundreds of thousands flock here to feed, and turtles which lay their eggs here (later on in the year – from October onwards).

We finished our walk as the sun set, before returning to our mobile apartment to shower, cook dinner and relax. We’re here for at least another night, if not two, so we can slow down a bit now!