5-18 June 2023

We said goodbye to Karratha after 3 nights, which allowed us to do all those bits you need a decent sized town to do. It was a big day on the road for us with a huge 400km clocked up. We drove through Roebourne, Whim Creek, South Headland and De Grey (a lovely lunch stop I must say). We drove past quite a few remote Communities and over big, wide rivers. We were passed by massive road trains, cars of all sizes and a few caravans and finally arrive at Cape Keraudren mid afternoon. Cape Keraudren is 150km north east of Port Headland and the facilities are basic but great with drop toilets, dump points, rubbish bins, bore water access and a boat ramp. This is a new area to us and one we didn’t visit on our last trip up here some 11 years ago. The northern section is the start of the 80 Mile Beach, so has a good stretch white beach sand to walk along. Pardoo and the Cape Kerauderen area was badly damaged during cyclone Ilsa in April this year. There are many trees that are snapped in half and the Pardoo roadhouse was completely destroyed. Travelers now need to be a little more prepared for the lack of fuel (roughly 300km between fuel stops) and supplies between Broome and Port Headland. Hopefully they are able to rebuild the roadhouse over time. Even though we were quite remote there is better internet and phone reception here than a lot of places we have visited so far.

There are several spots to camp, be it along the creek, high on the cliffs, near the boat ramp or at the beach. We had hoped to get a site at the ‘beach camp’ and luckily for us, we found a spot just big enough. The views from this part of the camp look out over the rocks. We’re still not sure why it’s called the beach camp as there isn’t a beach here (maybe Ilsa changed the landscape). In any event the view of the water coming and going with the tides are amazing. The pale blues and turquoise greens of the water are the best we’ve seen yet. The sunsets are phenomenal and something I’ll never get sick of watching.

We met many travelers (mostly from VIC) who were stopping for a rest, usually on their way to Broome and beyond. Most only stayed for 2 nights so we had a constant stream of new people to chat to each night. We met a lovely couple Barbara and Jeff from Bunbury who where here for a week and coincidentally have a hut at Windy Harbour (we sold our hut about 10 years ago). Some dedicated campers were clearly set up for for their full 28 days with boats at the ready, waiting for the tide to come in. We went fishing most days in different spots and on most days caught enough fish for dinner. We caught garfish, trevally, whiting, longtom and bream. We enjoyed camp fires and the usual weekend footy games, beach driving and walking the mangroves and rock pools at low tide looking for mud crabs (god knows what we would have done if we actually found one and then managed to catch it). We saw a few baby muddies, but armies of bright blue soldier crabs were everywhere. The rock pools had beautiful coral which we certainly didn’t expect to see, along with a few stranded octopus. We swam in the fast tidal waters of the creeks and at the boat ramp, we played games, and of course we did plenty of relaxing. We are getting quite good at trying to avoid the midgies and mosquitos, but some persistent ones always get you.

From here we move on further north to the (very remote) tip of Cape Leveque, 200km north of Broome. The next stretch is a big one at 650km which we will do over a few days.

Until next time…