A Million Miles From Here: Broome to Karratha

We pulled into Broome around 12:00 and stopped at the tourist information centre for a break and to pick up leaflets on things to see in the area. Helpfully, outside the centre was a list of the camp sites and their current status…all full except for 2 which were further out of town. This was disappointing as we were hoping to be able to sample a bit of the nightlife in Broome. So, without having much choice we took directions and raced to the first camp site, where upon the sign said “Office closed until 3pm”! This left us a campsite called the Pistol Club which was around 10 km out of town. The campsite was not a pleasant place and you won’t be surprised to hear that in the day time it also doubled up as a gun club with a very active (as we found out) shooting range. This was made more unappealing by the fact it was expensive by our standards, but it was either this or a 40 km drive back out of town on the road we had just come in on to free camp. We picked a spot, marked our territory (with our camp chairs, not by going animal) and went back into town for a look around and to do our jobs.

Broome the biggest place for nearly 1000 km and a beach bums heaven. Cable beach is the main reason to come here and is one of the best beaches in Australia. Relatively underdeveloped apart from a few resorts and a few nice restaurants and one very long beach where at certain times of the year you can come and watch the turtles lay their eggs.

The architecture of the towns in this part of Australia are pretty much the same and Broome isn’t much different. Most buildings are only one storey (I’m guessing this is to help against them being damaged in typhoon season) and are mainly made of metal giving everything quite a functional rather than stylish look.

Whilst we were in Broome we were also hoping to catch the natural phenomenon called staircase to the moon, this being an optical illusion only visible at full moon, low tide and only certain times of the year. This was probably why the camp sites were so full. We had arrived on the Saturday with the first “showing” due for Monday. Neither of us fancied waiting two days at a shooting range to see the moon play tricks with our eyes and the book suggested we may be able to catch it in other places down the coast so we decided that we would continue our journey south.

The next day we made our way south and 150 km down the coast to a campsite recommended in the book. Barnhill was a cattle station around 10 km off the main highway and which had branched out into a caravan park due to its commanding location on the beach. The main highway was straight and with few turn off’s, however missing the sign was still not difficult to do. So with the un-written rule in place (don’t be gentle with a rental) we turned off onto our first un-sealed road (editors comment - if anyone from Apollo Campervans is reading this, the characters and events in this blog are purely fictitious and is hereby not admitting any liability whatsoever and in no way invalidates our rental contract with you). We accelerated to 60km/hr to try and gently glide over the rumble strip affect created by the 4x4’s powering up and down the dirt road creating a corrugated hell hole of a road.

Not having done this before and worrying about the rather large indemnity bond we had paid, I would slow when the vibration got to the “losing my fillings” point, at which point my side seat driver would scream at the top of her voice like a co-driver in the RAC rally “Faster….more gas!”. It was fair to say that the vibration did seem slightly less at a faster speed.

After what seemed like an eternity we finally pulled into the car park and could see the sea and an amazing beach, with both of us deciding at the same time to stay for a few nights rather than just the one we had planned. As we walked up to book a camp spot, we saw an advert saying that tonight was Sunday Roast night on the bowling green! We signed up without hesitation - the first Sunday dinner in 4 months. So at 18:00 everyone made their way to the bowling green with their own cutlery, plates, drinks, table and chairs and they proceeded to serve up a cracking 3 course meal (the main being Roast Beef) to 150 people whilst we sat under the stars and listened to an aboriginal family band singing songs about the past and their people. Have to say, one of the best Sunday dinners ever.

After 2 days of beach, sun and a much needed rest we left Barnhill the way we came and headed south on Highway 1. Now an expert in driving on unsealed roads we tried another small (12km) detour to see the world famous 80 mile beach. I’m not sure why it is called this but it seemed to go on for a very long way (I would hazard a guess at about 80 miles!) and the sight of it made us want to stop do nothing again for a while, but alas the tarmac beckoned.

The highway trundles for nearly 570 km from Broome to Port Headland and is set back from the coast with only a handful of access points (mainly 4x4 only) taking you there to very isolated and untouched places even by Australian standards.

So, with such massive distances to travel don’t you get bored? Well, yes you do at times but we have developed all sorts of games to while away the hours. Our favourites are: who can save the most fuel per qtr of a tank, who can keep it dead on 100km per hr the longest and of course the obvious but never boring, Ipod Shuffle game of guess the song and artist.

The next big town we would pass on our journey was Port Headland and long before we arrived the scenery changed to much more flat desert with low grass and bush. Along the road you can start to see the signs of the major industry in these parts, mining. Australia is blessed with massive deposits of coal, gold, uranium and one of their biggest exports, iron ore. As we drove towards Port Headland you could see in the distance the massive piles of ore ready to be loaded onto ships. And how do the mines get all their ore to the docks? By road trains, lots and lots of big heavy road trains making the road on this part of the journey far busier. After reading the info in the book we decided not to make the 30 km detour actually into the centre of Port Headland, not wanting to share our evening with dock workers and truck drivers (not there is anything wrong with either group) and opted instead to stay 80 km south in a free rest area.

After a good nights rest, we made our way to Karratha and hopefully another chance to see the staircase to the moon. Karratha is another large town but this time services the large oil and gas fields just off the coast. We found a McDonalds (because they have free wifi not because of the superlative chocolate milkshakes) and checked our email and posted some blogs and after a re-supply (Emma had drunk the last box of wine and she was in need of some more) we made our way to Hersons Cove which was where we would have a final chance to see the stairway to the moon.

The beach was a fair way out of town not far from a very large gas processing plant but it was very secluded and hoping we would not get moved on in the middle of the night we decided to camp here as this place had a toilet (pure luxury).

The staircase to the moon was due to be at its height at 20:15 and as the moon slowly rose over the horizon we had had the beach to ourselves, but within minutes of commenting on how lucky we were to be having our own personal viewing, about 20 cars turned up and a coach party joining us for the spectacle. The illusion only works with a full moon and when the tide has gone out and thus the moons light reflects on the rippled mudflats looking like steps up to the moon. We had finally got to see it and it did not disappoint.

The sunrise the next morning was equally impressive and due our campsite essential being the beach, we only had to open the curtains in the van to enjoy the display.