80 MILE BEACH

Caravan park at 80 Mile Beach
Looking north on 80 Mile Beach
Looking south on 80 Mile Beach
November 6, 2010 Saturday

The trip back to Broome was uneventful except that we took the time to drive the dirt road that pointed to “80 Mile Beach.” As we drove down the road, there was a section on both sides of the road where every tree (they were the relatively small “bush” trees) had been uprooted. It looked like someone was planning to build there and had gone through with a bulldozer to take down all the vegetation. Then we remembered we had heard that last year a category 5 cyclone had hit 80 mile beach and just “camped” over it for two or three days. The palm trees down the road were in good shape.
At the end of the road was a pretty little RV/campers park and big tall sand dunes. We walked thru the gap in the dunes and were just amazed at the beautiful sight. The sky was cloudless so the ocean was at its best blue. The white beach stretched as far as we could see on both sides of us. The biggest surprise came as we looked down. Instead of sand, the beach was covered with sea shells, broken sea shells, and more sea shells! It was just amazing! Of course you can’t walk on a beach and not pick up sea shells, so we have a bunch on our counter. The hard part is figuring out how to send them home to the grandkids without breaking. Every grandchild should be thrilled with a sea shell from the Indian Ocean, right?
We talked to an old guy who was sitting in the life guards’ tent. He lives in the trailer park and has a quad runner he uses to run up and down the beach. He said if you walked up or down the beach 15 kilometers you’d be able to find big sea shells like you see in peoples’ gardens around Broome. There aren’t any by the park because all the tourists get them. It was fun to talk to him. He said he’d lived all over the world and 80 Mile Beach was the best place to live. His skin gave evidence of where he lives—he was a beautiful shade of brown although he is Caucasian.