One of the most important sites for migratory shorebirds or waders in Australia
The Great Northern Highway skirts the remote north western edge of the Great Sandy Desert for more than 600 km between Port Hedland and Broome. It’s a long and unavoidable haul and, for all the spectacular beauty of the inland Pilbara, this coastal leg is one of the most boring drives in Australia. It’s not so much that it’s straight and flat (though it’s assuredly that in spades) but whatever scenery there may be is screened behind a 3-metre wall of pindan scrub that grows right up to the shoulder of the road, tunnelling your view to the strip of tarmac that stretches ahead for mile after unrelenting mile.
Travellers on this route basically have two options: make an early start and do it with a long day in the saddle or break the journey about half way at the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park. If you have the time, the latter is by far the better alternative, and an increasing number of sojourners are discovering that it’s not just a waypoint but a fantastic destination in its own right.
About 236 km north of Port Hedland, an unsealed road leaves the highway and heads directly to the coast, emerging 6 km later at the caravan park sprawling across a swath of lawn among the littoral dunes of Wallal Downs Station. They don’t take bookings here but it’s a very hospitable place and no one is turned away. If, during the balmy winter peak season (July-August), you don’t score one of the 150 powered sites on arrival, you’ll be accommodated on an unpowered one overnight and allocated a powered one when it becomes available next morning. Management’s ethos is: “there are no strangers here, just friends you haven’t met before.” And if you don’t find them in the surrounding sites you’ll be sure to see them at the Sunday market, when the park takes on something of a village atmosphere. Here, you can browse displays of wares – including arts and crafts, second-hand books, automotive accessories and camping equipment – accompanied by music played by travelling minstrels.