26^th July: Eighty Mile Beach

I didn't write yesterday. No time! Washing, grocery shopping,cooking. I made several meals for the future when we are travelling. Then I organised myself for Amanda & Jason's visit. I had invited them for dinner to have Massaman Curry. Interesting logistics, given the size of my stove and the need to use two frypans and two big saucepans.

It was a lovely night and I hated saying goodbye at the end of it. Amanda is so missing family and I think our visit emphasised that. She was quite teary!

This morning we packed up. Because we had stayed 8 nights, we had really spread out and it took a while to get things back into order. Then Larry and Gail came up to say goodbye. We probably won't see them again on this trip as we will be out-running them.

The road here was very boring: straight, flat, no rivers and lots of caravans! We had lunch at Sandfire Roadhouse. Now, there is a vibrant place – not! In the middle of nowhere, no available shade or tables to eat at, and very expensive petrol. Gail paid $2.08 a litre. Fortunately, we didn't need any as diesel nearly $2 a litre! But because it is the only roadhouse for 400 kms, there were grey nomads everywhere.

We came to the 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park. It is on a beautiful stretch of beach that goes on for 100 kms. This is a very well set up park and enormously popular!! Dozens of vans and tents, some obviously families on holidays and some others permanently ensconced. Glen took the X-trail onto the beach because it is hard packed, much to my disgust! Environmentally, it is a bad idea as the cars kill all sorts of marine life on the beach and birds and fish depend on these organisms. And of course,there are fewer fish and the fishermen, who are often the culprits, complain bitterly. It is also unhealthy for the car! He didn't go very far! There are lots of sensible rules about driving on the beach but, as per usual, there are always idiots who don't read the rule book! As this is a turtle rookery,the times driving on the beach is possible are very limited.

We go to Port Hedland tomorrow and we are beginning to know that it is winter. It is rather chilly here tonight.