Category Archives: The Grand Tour

Our retirement trip around Australia

Nanutarra Roadhouse

Van Site – Nanutarra Roadhouse
All to ourselves – Nanutarra Roadhouse
Bridge over the Ashburton River at Nanutarra
The old bridge over the Ashburton River at Nanutarra
Ashburton River – Nanutarra
Ashburton River – Nanutarra
All to ourselves – Nanutarra Roadhouse

Given that it 380km from Onslow to Exmouth we decided to break the drive up with an overnighter at the Nanutarra Roadhouse, which is an easy 125km from Onslow and situated beside the bridge at Nanutarra. We got there fairly early and had our choice of sites so we snaffled the easiest, flattest site and hooked up to get the air-conditioner on as quickly as possible.

There’s not much at Nanutarra other than the roadhouse and the bridge(s) over the Ashburton River that we visited back at the Old Onslow ruins. So we hunkered down in the cool of the van’s air-conditioning and had a lazy day resting up before the drive to Exmouth the following day.

The old bridge over the Ashburton River at Nanutarra

Towards sunset we wandered down to the bridge(s) to watch the sunset before dinner at the roadhouse. Whilst it wasn’t blowing a gale the wind was strong and constant but the views were stunning. I say bridge(s) because there is an old and new bridge at Nanutarra. The old traffic bridge has been retained as a viewing platform over the Ashburton River and has a cute little shade structure with a seat beneath it for those who want to just sit and take in the views.

Whilst the river itself is fairly shallow it did have a reasonable amount of water in it. The steep bank on the roadhouse side was tree-lined and the bank on shallow side was lined with boulders sitting on a red sand base. With the bridge being quite high we were treated to a stunning landscape especially with the golden light of the setting sun.

Ashburton River – Nanutarra

A ghost gum on the roadhouse side provided a photo reminiscent of an Albert Namatjira lanscape painting… albeit nowhere near the Northern Territory. The wind seemed quite fitting as we stood there on the bridge and we braved it until the sun dipped over the horizon. Then back to the roadhouse for some roadhouse cuisine before a quiet night to rest up for the 250km drive to Exmouth the next day.

Onslow

Onslow Van Site View
Onslow van site
Rosella bud
Rosella bush
Derelict hose locker and jetty
Boardwalk panorama
Loading salt onto bulk carrier
Onslow Community Garden
Onslow Machinery Relics

A long tow of 353km from Point Samson to Onslow. Thankfully it went smoothly and reasonably quickly. We decided to bypass Karatha based on other peoples recommendation. Despite being a larger town it is off the highway and we weren’t in any need of the facilities offered in larger towns.

Onslow Machinery Relics

Onslow turned out to be a little bigger than Point Samson with one hotel, one resort, a decent supermarket with small hardware store and a couple of fuel station. The information centre also had a small museum and an array of old machinery on display.

Onslow van site

Onslow Ocean View Caravan Park is located at the end of the main street, next to the Memorial Park and has full beach frontage. The park itself is immaculate and well laid out with gravel sites, each with an artificial grass area to sit under your awning. It was quite windy most of the time we were there so we were glad that our site was in a back corner where we got a bit more shelter.

Rosella bud

The park has a small herb garden that is being regenerated where you can pick some basil, snake beans or mini eggplants if you wish. The garden also had some roselle bushes so we picked a dozen or so of the flower buds to make a rosella infusion. Two buds in a mug of boiling water results in a tangy, tart red infusion that’s quite refreshing and a change from tea.

Onslow Memorial Park

Onslow Memorial Park is located next to the caravan park and is noteworthy for the rising sun archway that is situated so the sun rises and sets directly in the centre of it. There is also a very tasteful stone bench near it that has a bronze sculpture of a pair of army boots sitting on it.

Paparazzi Dogs capturing The Stairway To The Moon

There are sculptures along the foreshore of the beach with the most striking of them being the ‘Paparazzi Dogs’. Onslow is another place in Western Australia where you can view the Staircase To The Moon. The Paparazzi Dogs represent the media pack vying to get the best photograph of it.

Derelict hose locker and jetty

The main street of Onslow is set back a short distance from the waters edge and you can follow it from one end of town to the caravan park and up to the Memorial Park. From the Memorial Park you can walk along a boardwalk for about 1.5kms, which takes you over the dunes, past a derelict World War 2 Hose Locker and jety and down to the newer salt loading jetty.

Loading salt onto bulk carrier

Onslow has a salt producing facility (Shark Bay Salt) that exports 300 million tonnes of salt per year from Onslow. The salt loading jetty is very similar to the iron ore loading jetties in Port Hedland and Point Samson. The ships are towed in by tug boats and the salt is loaded directly into them via a conveyor belt that runs along the jetty. It’s quite staggering to think how much salt is used around the world since there a quite a few salt fields in operation between Port Hedland and Onslow . And each of the salt fields we saw contain hills of salt that you would struggle to walk up…

We had a bit of an attack of the ‘lazies’ whilst we were in Onslow. Settling in for seven nights we mainly stayed around Onslow town except for a half-day trip to ‘Old Onslow‘, another derelict township that was the original site for the town.

Beadon Bay Hotel Steak Sandwich

We did two pub nights at the Beadon Bay Hotel because the steak sandwiches were both cheap and fully loaded with betroot, egg and all the food groups! Speaking of which… if you accept that beer is a food group (who doesn’t?)… we were utterly flabbergasted to see a woman at one of the tables near us drinking a pint (NSW Schooner) of beer through a straw… Wonders will never cease!

Ashburton River Crossing
Ashburton River
Ashburton River
Ashburton River
Old Onslow Town Site
Bird Bush Flower
Bird Bush
Birdbush
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Town Site
Old Onslow Police Station and Cells
Old Onslow Gaol Cells
Old Onslow Police Station
Old Onslow Police Station and Cells
Old Onslow Gaol Cells
Old Onslow Derelict Machinery
Ashburton River Crossing

Our only sightseeing trip in Onslow was to take a drive out to the derelict ruins of Old Onslow, the original town site. It’s a 40km dirt road drive even though it’s only about 15km as the crow flies. The drive takes you past termite mounds and over the semi-dry Ashburton River. The crossing is a concrete causeway with shallow pools either side until you travel a bit further down towards the mouth where it has constant depth and tidal flow.

Ashburton River

The river is quite picturesque regardless of whether it is a dry section or deep section because of the arid landscape and the big deep blue sky above it. The deeper section looks like it would be a decent fishing spot and there are free camp sites dotted along it that would be brilliant for a lazy weekend in a camper trailer. The local fishermen reckon they still see the odd saltwater crocodile but that may also be a tall tale to keep people away from their fishing spots.

Bird Bush Flower

The road is a graded dirt road that has the usual corrugations and lumpy bits but nothing that requires any serious 4WD skills. It could be done in a 2WD car as long as you’re careful and dont mind getting shaken around. One distinctive feature of the area, and this applies to new Onslow as well, is the ever-present Green Birdbush (or Birdflower). It is a stunningly beautiful, soft and delicate green flower in the shape of a bird that grows in bunches around a central stem. It’s a quirky and fascinating plant that grows wild in the region. Indigenous people used the flowers and bark of the bush to treat eye infections and swelling of limbs.

Old Onslow Police Station

There is not much left of the old town save for the ruins of the Police Station and Gaol Cells. The whole site is marked out with number signs describing what was there and you can often see the odd bit of rusting machinery or what’s left of the fence around the tennis courts. The old Community Hall was dismantled some while back, transported to new Onslow and re-constructed in the main street where it serves as the Information Office and museum.

Old Onslow Jetty ruins

The rotting pylons of the original jetty still poke up out of the ground. It must have been a long jetty because it looked to us to be a long way from any water. Old Onslow was abandoned due to cyclone damage so perhaps the river channel has altered as well.

Old Onslow Derelict Machinery

Old Onslow gets a bit of a bum wrap in a lot of the traveller reviews that your read but we think that’s a bit unfair. The whole site is dotted with numbered signs that correspond to a map that gives information about the town as it was. If you take the time then your mind builds the picture for you and it is a good way to spend a couple of hours. Too many people seem to want force-fed, Disneyland experiences these days where everything is laid out without the need to think or work to hard.

Onslow Gas Plant

As you head towards the west side of the site you can see the massive gas plant in the distance with it holding tanks and tall flare tower burning off excess gas… If you look around in Onslow you can see that there is a fair bit industry in the region from the salt and gas export facilities. Despite the heat and flies it was well worth the drive to see a bit more hidden history from tougher times…

Point Samson

Van Site at Night
Turtle Scultpure
Whale Sculpture
Fish Sculpture
Cocktail Hour – Point Samson Tavern
Sturt Desert Pea – Point Samson
Historic Jetty – Point Samson
Mangroves at the Boat Harbour
Point Samson Boat Harbour
Point Samson Boat Harbour
Van Site – Point Samson
Point Samson Coastline
Point Samson – Coastline
Historic Rail Carts – Point Samson
Historic Rail Carts – Point Samson
Historic Jetty – Point Samson

After the industrial landscape of Port Hedland we continued south to Point Samson, a small township on the coast with a tavern, a general store, a small marina and some light industry. It is a holiday/getaway township close to Wickham and Roebourne.

Approaching and driving through Roebourne caused us a little bit of anxiety as a retired police officer we met in Lake Argyle said it was another place with indigenous issues and kids were known to throw rocks at passing cars. Thankfully the town was very quiet as we passed through.

Van Site – Point Samson

Our campsite was The Cove Holiday Village, one of two van parks in Point Samson. This park is one of the cleanest, newest looking parks we’ve stayed at. Sites are lined up in rows but are quite spacious with concrete pads, gravel and grass.

Historic Jetty – Point Samson

The park was only a short walk to the tavern, shop and the historic jetty, which looks like it was rebuilt at some point back from the water. The historic jetty looks out over the beach to the ocean and has a viewing platform at the end with a free binocular mounted for public use.

Whale Sculpture

There is a small park area behind the tavern with some beautiful rock sculptures based on the sea life along the coast including whales, a turtle and fish reinforcing the township as a recreational destination as opposed to a nearby Wickham, which is a service center and residential town.

The tides at Point Samson are stil quite dramatic as are the sunsets. We spent a couple of evenings on the tavern verandah looking out over the bay area enjoying the happy hour and watching the sky change colour over dinner.

Point Samson Boat Harbour

We thought we were in for another fishing bonanza because everywhere we looked there were school fish being chased by predator fish and being dive bombed by seagulls. We even saw this at Cossack, a restored historical ghost town nearby. Alas, after getting no bites off the beach, losing a rig in the creek and getting no bites with a soft lure in the creek we decided that fresh fish was not on the menu at Point Samson.

Cocktail Hour – Point Samson Tavern

The Point Samson Tavern is the focal point of the township and do $10 cocktails between 2:00 and 3:00, a happy hour hour between 5:00 and 6:00 and pretty good pub meals. Friday night is ‘Chase The Ace‘ night with extended happy hour. Despite the small size of Point Samson the tavern seems to attract a good crowd from Wickham especially on Friday afternoon.

Sturt Desert Pea – Point Samson

We also saw some Sturt Desert Peas growing wild along one of the Point Samson backstreets. Despite being the floral emblem of South Australia, here in Western Australia was the only time we had seen them growing wild. The only others we had seen were some that had been planted on the streets of Alice Springs back in the Northern Territory.

After the isolation of Barn Hill Station and Eighty Mile Beach, and the ‘industrialness’ of Port Hedland it was nice to be back in a more normal town setting abeit a very small one.

Tram and Telegraph Station – Cossack
Tram Line – Cossack
Historic Store – Cossack
Behind Cafe – Cossack
Cafe Garden – Cossack
Cafe Garden – Cossack
Jail Cells – Cossack
Courthouse – Cossack
Courthouse – Cossack
Customs House & Bond Store – Cossack
Settlers Beach – Cossack
Rusted Rock – Cossack
Rusted Rock – Cossack
Jarman Island – Cossack
Reader Head Lookout – Cossack
Reader Head Lookout – Cossack
Tram Station/School – Cossack
Tien Tsin Lookout – Cossack
Tien Tsin Lookout – Cossack
Tien Tsin Lookout – Cossack
Tien Tsin Lookout – Cossack

Cossack is an historic ghost town about 30km from Point Samson. It is the original home of the pearling industry until a cyclone wiped out the fleet and the industry was moved to Broome.

Customs House & Bond Store – Cossack

The town itself is situated at the mouth of the Harding River, which empties into Butcher’s Inlet. There is a very pretty wharf area across from the Customs House & Bond Store where the water is very blue and also filled with bait fish being chased by bigger fish and gulls.

Tram Station/School – Cossack

We drove up to the Tien Tsin Lookout (Tien Tsin was the original name of the town). The lookout provides a commanding view of the area and inlet. From there you could see the entire town and the surrounding scrubby landscape.

Courthouse – Cossack

The standout features are the courthouse, which contains a small museum, the Customs House & Bond Store, the school,/tram, post and telegraph station, Galbraith’s Store, the Police Station and Bakehouse. Unfortunately for us the coffee shop wasn’t open while we there but it was still well worth the drive to be able to wander around the various buildings, which have been extremely well restored and preserved.

The Courthouse/museum was sparse in terms of content but had enough items of interest to paint a picture of the early days of the town, especially it’s beginnings with pearling. The pearling industry meant that there was a sizable Chinese community at the time and there is Chinese cemetery located near Reader Head lookout that is still in good repair.

Settlers Beach – Cossack

Reader Head lookout was a good place to scout the beaches for a fishing spot and we located a nice beach nearby that had a long strip of sand and water that had a reasonable depth at casting distance. Alas it turn out to be so but the sand was the interesting feature here. The sand up to the tide line was super soft and you would sink to your ankles with every step making it quite tiring to walk along.

Cossack, being a ghost town, was all the more eerie for the fact that there was hardly anybody else there apart from two or three other sightseers and a couple people fishing from the wharf area. Everything is open to view but the lack of people really hits home the desolation and harshness of living in a remote place like this in the 1800’s.

Tien Tsin Lookout – Cossack
Wickham Gateway
Outdoor Movie Screen – Wickham
Tank Hill Lookout – Wickham
Diesel Locomotive – Wickham
Big Tonka Toy – Wickham
Diesel Locomotive – Wickham

Whilst the General Store in Point Samson is quite well stocked, Wickham (15km away) is the service town for the area and has a Woolworths supermarket and a handful of other shops. It’s an industrial service town like a mini-Port Headland.

The entrance to the town is denoted by a gateway area housing a Diesel Locomotive and an Ore Carrier truck like a giant Tonka Toy. It adds a bit of character to what is otherwise a very utilitarian and stark little town.

Outdoor Movie Screen – Wickham

We took a drive up to the Tank Hill Lookout from which you could the starkness of the surrounding landscape and a quirky feature of the town, the open air cinema. Similar to the Picture Garden in Broome. From the lookout we first thought it was a drive-in theatre by the size of the screen but it was in fact an outdoor cinema with deck chairs and space to bring your own seat… Unfortunately we weren’t in Point Samson long enough to see the next feature.

Other than that Wickham was just a chance to get some fresh veges and re-stock on some the essentials you need when travelling. Interestingly… diesel was slightly more expensive in Wickham, which is substantially larger than Point Samson.

Port Walcott is another iron ore loading port, similar to Port Hedland, that operates 24 hours per day with massive ore loaders continually scooping iron ore onto conveyor belts which dump the iron ore directly into ship’s holds.

Unlike Port Hedland you could drive along the fence at Port Walcott and see one of the loaders up close. It is unbelievable how much iron ore is being dug up, transported to the coast and loaded onto ore ships for export. The scale of these machines and the non-stop operation of them just boggles the mind…

From the tavern and the historic jetty in Point Samson we could see nine or ten bulk iron ore ships lined up to horizon waiting their turn to dock and be filled with iron ore. We were told that there are probably more lined up over the horizon that we couldn’t see.

Bulk Ore Carriers – Point Samson
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon
Staircase to the Moon

Point Samson is one of the places on the North Coast of Western Australia where you can view the phenomenon known as the ‘Staircase to the Moon‘. When conditions are right the full moon rises above the horizon and the light reflected on the ocean surface creates the illusion of a set of steps rising up to meet the moon.

Historic Jetty – Point Samson

We trapsed down to the Historic Jetty on two evenings to witness the event but both were not as good as they could have been and we put this down to the light pollution from the string of iron ore carriers waiting to come into Port Walcott, the relative calmness of the water surface and the fact that it was the last opportunity of the year before conditions become suitable again the following year.

Unfortunately the moon rose too high in the sky before the reflection appeared and it the reflections were not quite as banded ( stair-like ) as the best commercial photos show it. Still… watching the moon rise over the water is a nice way to spend a quiet evening in a beautiful place like Point Samson.

The really nice thing about our two evenings spent watching the Staircase to the Moon was that we met Sandy and Gary (Seagull), who were also staying at The Cove Holiday Village and were also trying to capture the moment. We got to know them a little and they invited us over to their van for happy hour on their last night. They’re good folks and have a very similar outlook on life and travel to us.

Staircase to the Moon

It turned out that they are from Coffs Harbour, which is Rob’s happy place in terms of a potential retirement place in the future. We were destined to keep catching up with them as our trip progresses as their plans and route are quite similar to ours heading onwards to Perth.

Coincidentally, they are rally enthusiasts who know the Bates (of Australian Rally fame and we have links with) and have very probably met our brother-in-law Trevor at some point as a result of the rally scene. Not only that but Sandy knows of Rob’s cousin who lives in Coffs Harbour as well from work associations.

We spent a very enjoyable and fairly long evening with them over nibbles (which ended up sufficing as dinner), beer, alcoholic ginger beer and more than sufficient bottles of red wine. We agreed to catch up with them again at Onslow, our next port of call.

Port Hedland

Port Hedland Van Site
Port Hedland Van Site
View from back of van site
South Hedland at night
View behind van site
Bulk Ore Carrier
Bulk Ore Carrier
Dome Cafe Visitors
Dome Cafe
Dome Cafe
Port Hedland Boat Ramp
Ore Loader
Public Wharf
Public Wharf Panorama
Loading a bulk ore carrier
Ore loading docks
The Esplanade Hotel window
Port Hedlan Control Tower
The Esplanade Hotel
Port Hedland Memorial

After nearly 250km from Eighty Mile Beach we were about 10km from Port Hedland and were pulled up behind a wide load truck transporting the most massive piece of equipment we have ever seen. The load on the truck looked like a gigantic steel rectangular swimming pool and was probably close to 3 stories high. It was immense… Luckily for us we came up on it at exactly the right moment to be waved past as we approached a wide intersection area.

Safely past the wide load we immediately noticed three things about Port Hedland:

  • Every fourth or fifth vehicle is a road train carrying ore or fuel;
  • Almost every vehicle that isn’t a road train is a white Toyota Hilux;
  • Every vehicle that isn’t Hilux is a Toyota LandCruiser.
View behind van site

Consequently we fit right in.,, The drive to the Port Hedland Discovery Caravan Park loops you right through the residential housing area to the end of the road which loops back into town. The park itself is set on a point bordering a tidal creek. Across the creek is Pretty Pool, a newer residential development area is actually a twenty minute drive despite being just on the other side.

Port Hedland Van Site

The reviews for the Port Hedland Discovery Caravan Park said that the road inside the park was very tight and that manoeuvering vans over 21ft was difficult. The road was very tight but given that the park was quite empty it ended up being quite easy getting out 22½ft van onto our site, which overlooked the creek.

Bulk Ore Carrier

Port Hedland is first and foremost a mining port. It has a weird vibe about it, kind of like Woomera with people. The buildings and houses are all new’ish and the town itself is very clean and tidy. The ore loading port dominates the landscape on Finucane Island on the opposite side of Taylor Inlet. Like most visitors to Port Hedland we spent a few hours in town just watching the ore loader and the bulk carriers across the water.

Ore Loader

The tug boats seem to be going 24 hours a day shepherding the massive bulk ore carriers in and out of the port in an endless procession. The speed that the tugs bring the ships in is quite amazing and the unladen ships ride quite high in the water. Apparently it takes around 18 hours to fill an ore carrier and you can always see four or five lined up to the horizon ready to come in and be filled.

Dome Cafe

We spent a pleasant morning at Dome Cafe sitting on the verandah watching one ship being towed into port. The cafe was a historic building with a huge verandah attached by a breezeway to a newer kitchen/shop area. The verandah was completely enclosed by large lattice storm shutters, presumably a defence against cyclones. After the cafe we parked over near the public jetty and boat ramp to watch the ore carrier go past. It’s not often that you can sit in your car and watch a massive ship ply its way past you so closely.

The Esplanade Hotel

We didn’t do too much sight-seeing in Port Hedland, other than a drive around Pretty Pool, because there isn’t really that much to see. We did some re-stocking and re-fueling at South Hedland which is another residential and community area about 10km inland from the port. The fuel was also noticeably cheaper in South Hedland.

The Esplanade Hotel window

We did, however, do pub night at The Esplanade Hotel, a beautiful stone hotel in the port area of Port Hedland. First built in 1904 it is now a very elegant two story stone building with wrap around verandah on the upper floor. It has very distinctive stained glass windows featuring the iconic Sturt Desert Pea in the centre. The pub was incredibly busy and we couldn’t get a table in the courtyard area and had to settle for a table in the bar area. It was quite a nice pub but had matching nice prices as well.

Port Hedlan Control Tower

The Esplanade Hotel was directly across the road from the port control tower and a small war memorial. The control tower was an impressive structure similar to an airport control tower but not as high and with a broader work space. The control tower overlooks the port and ship turning basin, which was once a land-locked lake area that was re-joined with the ocean.

Apart from iron ore, Port Hedland also produces export quantities of salt from huge evaporation ponds and hills of salt that you drive past as you approach the town. It is also developing an area of lithium deposits and has natural gas reserves off the coast. It is an absolute hive of activity between the port and the mines further inland and you get the feeling that a lot of money passes through this place… on its way to somewhere else…

Eighty Mile Beach

Eighty Mile Beach Sunset
Eighty Mile Beach
Eighty Mile Beach
Assorted Shells
Cake Urchin Shells
Eighty Mile Beach – Turtle Nesting Tracks
Eighty Mile Beach – Van Site
Eighty Mile Beach – Van Site
Eighty Mile Beach – Veterans Memorial
Eighty Mile Beach – Osprey
Eighty Mile Beach – Osprey
Eighty Mile Beach – Osprey
Eighty Mile Beach
Sandfire Roadhouse
Eighty Mile Beach – Van Site

Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park is half way between Barn Hill Station and Port Hedland by 250km in each direction. It is a remote campground set directly behind the dunes of Eighty Mile Beach. Despite being so remote it is fully serviced with power and water and the park office also has a very well stocked shop with all sorts of essential groceries and even a good range of meats. It was the perfect spot to split the drive from Barn Hill Station to Port Hedland and we opted for a four night stay there.

Sandfire Roadhouse

We did have a lunch and fuel stop at Sandfire Roadhouse. It was an entertaining fuel stop. Rob was filling the cruiser and some locals pulled in behind. Unbeknownst to us, a couple from Barnhill Station had pulled their caravan in from the other direction. After Rob paid and pulled away from the pump the Barnhill couple pulled up to the pump, which caused a minor fracas when the local couple objected loudly that they had been there first (which apparently they were’nt). It didn’t get beyond the stage of verbal abuse but the Barnhill campers held their cool and joined us later at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park with a story to tell.

Eighty Mile Beach – Van Site

The campground was quite large and the sites were very generous in size with the standout feature being green grassy sites, which was most welcome after having spent a lot of time on red dirt and gravel in the last month.

Like Barn Hill Station, you have to turn off the highway and drive 9km to the campsite on corrugated red dirt. The road was in fairly good condition when we arrived and once again Rob’s sliding door ‘anti-bounce’ devices made from an old thong held the doors securely in place. A design engineering masterpiece…

As it turned out, Ange and Chris (from Lake Argyle and Barn Hill Station) were also there, as were an assortment of people who were at Barn Hill Station at the same time as us. Jo turned into social engineer and organised a happy hour at one of the camps BBQ areas, which happened two nights in a row. Many stories were swapped and quite a few beers and wines were consumed at sundown… which is just the way it should be.

Eighty Mile Beach

Eighty Mile Beach is exactly that… just one great long beach. Far longer than Barn Hill Station beach. That’s all there really is there but it has two massively attractive features. It is a shell collectors paradise and briliant beach fishing. Rob finally broke out the beach rods and got them wet. The first he tried soft lures, which yielded nothing but the second day using a triple-gang-hook rig with mulies (pilchards) for bait landed three excellent Blue Threadfin Salmon.

Fishing on Eighty Mile Beach was very reminiscent of fishing for tailer on Fraser Island many years ago. The Blue Threadfin Salmon are very similar to tailer except that they dont bite as hard and you need to let them hook themselves rather than jagging back when you feel the bite. Rob lost his first two fish that way until he learnt to let them take a few chomps first.

Eighty Mile Beach

Unfortunately no pictures were taken of the three that were caught but suffice to say we had fresh fish for lunch and dinner that day. The Blue Threadfin Salmon, despite having similar characteristics to east coast tailer were a much better eating fish having a whiter, firmer flesh and a slightly sweeter taste. Nothing like fresh fish caught off the beach and eaten straight away.

Cake Urchin Shells

Whilst Rob was busy fishing Jo spent most of her time scouring the beach for a particular type of shell found here called a ‘cake urchin‘. Cake urchins are a hollow egg shaped shell with a star pattern etched on the top as series of small dots. They’re totally amazing… Jo found two of them not far from the campground on her morning walks along the beach and also found a number flat discs with similar patterns.

Assorted Shells
Eighty Mile Beach – Turtle Nesting Tracks

The beach is literally littered with shells deposited along the tidelines stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. The beach width here varies greatly with the high and low tide differences similar to places like Barn Hill Station, and Broome.

On one walk she also passed a set of turtle tracks on the beach from a female making the trip to the dunes to lay eggs. It was coming into turtle mating season as we arrived and it was good to see that the turtles are doing what comes naturally and that the rangers were marking the egg sites to ensure that they are left to themselves and not raided or inadvertantly walked over or driven on.

Eighty Mile Beach – Osprey

On one beach walk we came across an Osprey. We recognised it from the bird show we had seen at the Northern Territory Wildlife Park we had visited in Darwin. They are a species in their own right having the characteristics of falcons, hawks and eagles. The distinctive feature is a specialised claw that actually locks around a fist so that it is unlikely to drop it. The downside is that whether or not it catches a fish it has to rest and wait for the claws to relax and unlock before it can try again.

Eighty Mile Beach – Veterans Memorial

Another nice feature of the campsite was a war veterans memorial that was a neatly kept and fenced lawn area with commemorative memorial and a flag, which was lit at night in accordance with correct flag flying protocols.

So… for a place that is so isolated we had a very full four days that were very memorable…

Barn Hill Station

Barn Hill Station Van Site
Barn Hill Station – Red Cliffs
Barn Hill Station – Red Cliffs
Barn Hill Station – Red Cliff
Barn Hill Station Mossy Rocks
Barn Hill Station Mossy Rocks
Barn Hill Station – Green Crab
Barn Hill Station Beach
Barn Hill Station – Cliff Face
Barn Hill Station – Cliff Marker
Barn Hill Station Beach
Barn Hill Station – Gulls
Barn Hill Station – Red Soil Cliff
Barn Hill Station Beach
Barn Hill Station – Red Cliff
Barn Hill Station – Red Cliff
Barn Hill Station – Red Dunes
Barn Hill Station
Barn Hill Station – Open Air Dunny
Barn Hill Station – Twilight
Barn Hill Station – Open Air Shower
Barn Hill Station – Flora
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Red Rock Face
Parrots
Ancient Critters
Mossy Beach Rock
Barn Hill Station – Beach Marker
Barn Hill Station – Lost City

Barn Hill Beachside Station Stay is a part of the larger Thangoo Station that has been turned into a caravan and camping park. It is 138km south of Broome and requires a 9km drive over a corrugated red dirt road to get there. The dirt road was in quite good nick and the van handled it nicely.

Sliding Door Device
Sliding Door Device

Back in Broome, Rob had devised a new device to prevent the van’s internal doors from jumpimg off their tracks when driving over corrugated dirt roads. The device was basically a strip of old thong cut to fit snugly above the door but wedge itself into the pelmet so that it wouldn’t slide itself out when being bounced by the door. This little device worked perfectly with both doors staying on their tracks. Very satisfying…

Barn Hill Station

So… after bouncing over the corrugations for 9km we pulled into the campground area to a fairly well set up bush camp with power and water available, a well built reception area with small shop, a grassy common area and a small pen with two goats in it. The season had ended for the year so the shop was not really operating but we knew that would be the case.

Barn Hill Station Van Site

The only real restriction was that power was limited to 6amps per site so using the air conditioner was OK but only if that was all you were using. This was fine… you just learn to juggle your electricity use.

Barn Hill Station – Open Air Shower

The showers and toilets were one of the best features being constructed of rammed earth with some of them having no roof so you could happily watch the sky while doing your business or taking a shower. It was quite an enjoyable experience… A bit like skinny-dipping with a privacy screen.

The weather was hot while we were there with every day in the high 30’s, which was fine but the wind, while not excessive was fairly constant. This was heralding the fact that we were now well and truly in the cyclone zone with the start of the cyclone season now upon us. Rob was tempted to get the fishing rods out for the first time but ultimately decided not to after watching others on the beach casting into the wind. Some were catching the odd fish but not enough to compensate for the effort required.

Barn Hill Station – Twilight

Our site ended up being one over from Ange and Chris, who we were camped beside way back at Lake Argyle. Like us they were recently retired (from Victoria) and were making their way around Australia. Nice folks who were in a similar size van and cruiser who seemed to have a similar travel style to us and enjoyed a good laugh and story swap…

Barn Hill Station Mossy Rocks

Our days at Barn Hill Station were largely spent relaxing since there is nothing to see there other than the beach and the Lost City. We usually waited until the cooler temperatures in the afternoon and then took a long walk along the beach south to the point or north to the Lost City. The beach was sandy with occasional rocky areas that were exposed at low tide. Some rocks were covered in a thick green mossy seaweed.

Barn Hill Station – Red Cliffs

In many places the white sandy beach butted up against red soil rock faces and dune areas. Amazingly the two colours don’t seem to mix with distinct delineation between the two. I suspect that the red soil soil is finer and lighter and therefore settles in between and under the coarser heavier sand particles. That’s my theory anyway…

Barn Hill Station was thoroughly enjoyable stay despite the season having closed down. It was nice to have a bit of isolation again after two weeks in Broome doing a fair bit of sightseeing…

Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City
Barn Hill Station – Lost City

Situated on the beach about 500m north of the camp site is an area called the Lost City. It’s an area that extends back into the dunes and cliff face that has been eroded away over time leaving a series of towers and columns that actually do resemble an abandoned city. In some respects it looks a bit like an ancient temple from an Indiana Jones movie sans the creeping vines and booby traps. It also evoked memories of the final scene of the original ‘Planet Of The Apes‘ movie where Charlton Heston discovers a crumbled Statue of Liberty on the beach beside the ocean.

Barn Hill Station – Lost City

The towers and spires are best appreciated from above so Rob put the drone up to get a birds eye view of the Lost City, the beach and the plateau area behind it. Rob’s still a novice at piloting the drone but still managed to get a decent panorama of the area. He also learnt that it’s a good thing to occasionally wipe the SD card in the drone so that you don’t run out of storage at the wrong moment.

Lost City – Thunder Egg

A young couple at the campground showed us a thunder egg that they had found in the Lost City and said that you could find them scattered all around that area. Unlike east coast thunder eggs, which have a glassy centre or a cavity with crystals, the Barn Hill thunder eggs are a low grade iron shell containing sand. The shell is usually about 5 to 10mm thick and they are quite heavy. The young couple had collected a number of them and cracked them open to discover that they contained different coloured sand ranging from white through yellow, red, brown and orange. They had carefully emptied the contents of their eggs into a bottle in layers similar to the coloured sands souvenirs that you see in Tewantin, Qld making a great memento from their stay. We were satisfied with harvesting a single thunder egg and leaving it intact.

Barn Hill Station – Lost City

The Lost City was a completely unexpected bonus while staying at Barn Hill Station and it doesn’t appear to be well publicised as a ‘thing to see’. Like us when we arrived, when we met someone new we would ask, “Have you seen the Lost City yet?” To which the reply would be, “What’s that?” Perhaps they purposely keep it that way for exactly that reason…

Barn Hill Station – Sunset

Most of the Western Australian coastline seems to produce magnificent sunsets and Barn Hill Station is no different. Each evening treated us to a new and different visual treat as the sun hovered briefly above the horizon and slowly dropped below it producing the fiery oranges and purple afterglows that marked the end of the day.

It was impossible to stand there and not take a thousand photos of each day’s show.

Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Statio – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset
Barn Hill Station – Sunset

Our last evening at Barn Hill Station delivered weather that was a little overcast compared to the other nights and produced a steely gray sunset where the sun’s glow was partially obscured by grey clouds. If only the camera could catch the full beauty of being there…

Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset
Barn Hill Station Sunset

Sunsets are one of life’s simple pleasures and we’ve experienced a seemingly never ending supply of them. Starting from Port Germein in SouthAustralia all the way through the Northern Territory and across the top of Western Australia and down the Kimberly Coast. We never tire of them…

Broome

Cable Beach Sunset
Van Site
Van Site
Cable Beach Van Park Pool
Cable Beach Van Park Pool
Rufus the Frill Neck Lizaed
Broome TV Antenna Accident
Broome TV Antenna Accident

So only a relatively short drive of 165km from Willare Bridge Roadhouse to Broome And Cable Beach Caravan Park, which was to be our home for the next week, which turned into two weeks. Travellers opinions varied about Broome quite a bit. Some say it was over-rated and others say it was beautiful. For us it was the latter and so after a couple of days we decided to extend out stay…but there was a reason for this…

Van Site

Cable Beach Caravan Park is a large caravan park with well over 400 sites. As we arrived at the tail end of the season it was only about 20% full if that. Given this we were allocated a massive double site that also enabled us to drive through instead of backing in. However, not all good things end in joy!

Broome TV Antenna Accident

As Rob pulled through the site a low hanging branch hooked itself under the TV aerial mast and lifted it from its guides and bent the mast. Everything still worked but the mast needed replacing in order to safely move on after Broome. Luckily we found a caravan repairer in Broome who said he could make us a new mast and fit it we booked that in for the Friday morning we were to leave. After a couple of days we decided that we would extend our stay to the Monday only to discover that the caravan repair guy was in the process of moving his business to Broome from Katherine and that he was going back to Katherine on the Saturday to finish up some business there. So in the end we kept the repair booking for Friday and decided that Broome was so relaxing that we miight as well extend our stay for another full week.

Broome TV Antenna Accident

The TV antenna repair meant that we had to pack up, hitch up and drive to the repair place but it was s small price to pay to get the repair done and dusted. The repair was excellent. He basically unmounted the TV antenna, made a new mast on the spot from a stronger piece of square metal tube and we were back on site and setting up again by 9:00am. A big shout out to Caravans in Broome – Spares, Repairs & Hire… great service, excellent result and nice folks.

Our neighbour for most of the two weeks was a ‘born again’ christian warrior. He had a shaved head and prison tatts and spent his days wandering around the roads of Broome dragging a 7ft cross behind him with a little wheel on the bottom. He had a sign outside his van saying he was an ex-prisoner, ex-drug addict, ex-alcoholic, ex-orphanage, re-born christian. He and his partner kept to themselves most of the time when they weren’t out wandering the roads.He did not really interact with us other than to say G’day and this may have been for the best given Rob’s views on religion. But good luck to him! If religion fixed his life up then that’s a good thing for him…

Cable Beach Van Park Pool

With the caravan park being empty we were able beat the heat of the day by taking a dip in the excellent pool without hordes of kids screaming and splashing around. You know you’re turning into a senior when kids become an annoyance to be endured if their not yours. The pool was quite large by caravan park standards and didn’t really have a shallow end, only a ‘shallower’ end. It was shaded by two large shade sail with the ability to add a third if required. It had a grotto at one end that was built from the red and white stratafied Kimberly rock. The pool pumped a small waterfall over the rocky grotto such that you could swim in under the curtain of water and sit in the cooler shade of the grotto. We usually had a dip each afternoon to coold down and break the cycle of sweat/dry/sweat that was normal for each day.

The caravan park also had a coffee shop, Millie’s. They did pretty good coffee and had a coffee and scone with jam and cream deal for $7.50. The scone’s were excellent! Almost as good as Rob’s and were generous in size such that one was all that was needed. Unfortunately these scones came at a time when we had both decided that we needed to drop a few kilos’s so we did tehm once and abstained for the rest of our stay in favour of lowering our daily calories and upping our exercise.

As our second week unfolded we were rejoined by Julie and Ian, who we had met previously in Daly Waters with Terri and Greg. Terri and Greg had turned back east towards Queensland and Julie and Ian were tracking roughly behind us after having spent some time in Kakadu, which we didn’t. They setup across the road from us and it was good to catch up with them and hear about Kakadu and their places visited. They got the benefit of our experience in Broome having done most of the things we wanted to do by then. It’s strange but not unexpected that you keep crossing paths with people who are following similar but not identical paths to yourself.

Rufus the Frill Neck Lizaed

We also had a resident frill-neck lizard on our site. We called him Rufus. He like to hang out in one of the trees beside the van and blend in as much as possible. He was quite a handsome chap and not all perturbed about us getting up close to observe him and take a few photos. He never raised his frill at any point though.

The other thing of note about Cable Beach Caravan Park is the leaves. All the sites have trees dividing them (as Rob found out with the TV antenna). At this time of year they all seem to have dropped their leaves, which come and goacross your site with the wind like and inland tide. Now this gives rise to two things… the park ‘Leaf Guy’ and leaf blowers! The Leaf Guy employed by the park would pretty much spend his entire day sweeping the empty site’s leaves into piles so that the Trailer Guy could come around and scoop the piles up and take them away, to be repeated each and every day. It was like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge; get to the end and start all over again. Then there were the semi-permananet van sites, two roads across from us. There were three in a row from where we could see and, like a Swiss clock, every few hours a little man or woman would pop out of the van with a leaf blower and spend the next five minutes anti-vacuuming the leaves out of their site (instead of hitting a little bell with hammer like a swiss clock). It needs to be said that leaf blowers should be un-invented or have $50,000 fines imposed for each and every use! That said, it was a bit of entertainment during happy hour.

Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach
Cable Beach Historic Marker
Cable Beach
Cable Beach Camels
Cable Beach Camels
Cable Beach
Cable Beach – Crab Hole Patterns
Cable Beach Entry
Cable Beach
Cable Beach
Cable Beach
Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach
Cable Beach

The caravan park was only 10 minutes easy walk to Cable Beach, which is famed for it’s sunsets over the water and camel rides along wide expansive beach in front of the high dunes. At the closest point to us their was a life-saving training centre being built atop the dune. After a short walk north there was a cafe/bar and a beach resort also atop the dune. Despite the caravan park being quite empty their was still plenty of patronage, which must have come from the other caravan parks and resorts.

Cable Beach Entry

We only managed to get to Cable Beach once in our first week. But in our second week we went down a number of times at sunset to enjoy the free spectacle, whilst getting some exercise by walking along the beach and watch the camels coming back from their sunset rides.

The tides in Broome can be as large as 11m, which is pretty much what they were when we there. As such the beach gets pretty wide at low tide and given that it coincided with sunset there were 4WDs aplenty driving down onto the beach and heading north for some fishing or just to watch the sunset up further.
It’s quite hilarious watching people with no beach driving experience attack the sand or coming off the sand onto the concrete drive. They fall into two categories:

  • The ‘Sand Warriors’ who (needlessly) drop into low range and then (needlessly) gun their engines like they’re trapped in a sink hole; and
  • The ‘Inept’ who slow down and drop their revs in the soft sand as they approach the concrete ramp only to bog in a bit. Then in a burst of panic rev the guts out of their engine only to dig in deeper as the wheels plough themsleves in.

It’s almost as entertaining as boat ramps or watching people back their caravans in…

Cable Beach Sunset

But the real entertainment atCable Beach is the sunset. Like Darwin, the sun gently lowers itself toward the ocean and as it approaches begins to transform the sky from blue to grey/blue to pale yellow to orange to red to purple and then it drops below the horizon…not yet finished. After a brief dusky grey the horizon then starts its afterglow as a thin band of orange growing to a thick band of pink through purple as the hidden suns light is relected through the clouds or sea mist.

Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach Sunset
Cable Beach Sunset

At a certain point, before the sun goes down, if you look south you get a juxtaposition of day and night. To the left, inland, you get royal blue sky and on the right (seaward) you get the fiery sunset sky fading to dark. The camera doesn’t quite catch it but it is a sight to behold.

Cable Beach Sunset – Night & Day
Cable Beach Camels

As sunset approaches the Cable Beach Camel Rides slowly trudge back to the mounting/dismounting place, which is a tray-back 4wd. One by one the camels stop beside the back of the ute and the tourists slide off onto the ute tray then down some steps to the sand. It seems they have developed this technique to avoid the lurching jerk upwards when camels go from kneeling to standing and vice-versa. We decided that we weren’t interested in doing a camel ride. Mainly because Jo is allergic to horses and therefore possibly camels and Rob weighs more than 90kg and the websites said there was an individual 90kg limit for all riders. Not sure it was enforced though because we did see a few people bigger than Rob getting on and off.

Gantheaume Point – Dinosaur Footprint
Gantheaume Point – Dinosaur Footprint
Gantheaume Point (Dinosaur Footprint?)
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point Rock Pool
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point – Mysterious Sea Creature
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point Lighthouse
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point
Gantheaume Point Lighthouse

Gantheaume Point is a red rocky outcrop on the Broome peninsula. A lighthouse tower sits atop the point which is surrounded by a fairly barren coastal grassland and conservation area. When then low tide drops below 1.7m, which only seems to happen occasionally, you can scamble down the rocky bluff to a rocky ledge area and find some dinosaur footprints right on the edge of the water.

Gantheaume Point

As it happened the specific low tide occured the morning after we arrived in Broome at 7:10am. So… like good travellers we set an alarm and got ourselves there around 6:45am. There was a path to the lighthouse and at the end of the path there was a slab of concrete with casts of the dinosaur footprints that showed you what to look for.

Gantheaume Point (Dinosaur Footprint?)

We scrambled down the rocky slope where the map told us to explore. There are no signs telling you where to look so you have to try and align yourself with the map and figure it out, which is a good way to do it and makes for a more interesting experience.
At the bottom, we discovered acres of jumbled and tumbled red rock ledge fronting the Indian Ocean. WIth only a memorised image of the concrete casts and a small glossy map to go with we began searching. Jo wanted to head right around the point a bit but Rob spotted a flat ledge of rock to the left and figured that that would be a likely spot for a footprint to exist. We headed left and found a vague outline that could pass as a three-toed footprint and took some photos thinking that it was a bit ordinary and possibly not even a footprint.

Gantheaume Point

After some more searching we headed back to the right towards the point and noticed that there was a family of three further around the point to the right. We headed towards them on the premise that they had either found the footprints or that five sets of eyes would have more chance than our two. As we approached they pointed down and called out to us that they had found the footprints. The chap actually had a compass and was using it to orient himself with the map, which in hindsight made great sense.

Gantheaume Point – Dinosaur Footprint

When we got to them he pointed the two footprints out, which were on the very edge of the water and only a few centimetres above the lapping waterline. The footprints were quite clear and obvious when you saw them but given the tide you had to be there at exactly the right time and you would probably only get 15 to 30 minutes to view them. This was their second time looking them so we were grateful that they had already put in the hard yards. We took our photos and another small group spied us and also came over to view them. The footprints are believed to belong to a ‘theropod‘ dinosaur.

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Gantheaume Point Rock Pool

We headed back to the bluff to climb back up and by the time we were half-way up the water was already starting to spill over the footprints… At this point we stumbled across another couple who were sitting in a sheltered rock pool in a large ledge area halfway back up the slope. It was quite amazing to see a clear pool of water about 60cm deep and 10 to 15 metres up the slope. It was like a child’s wading pool and perhaps 5m long by 3m wide. It backed onto what could be described as a rock walled ‘room’ with no roof. It’s amazing what nature creates without any form of blueprints… We had a bit of a chat with the people in the pool and then continued the climb back to the lighthouse clearing and back to the car.

Gantheaume Point

We’re told that on especially low tides there is a larger group of about ten dinosaur footprints further out in the water but you have to be a bit lucky and very careful to find those. We were satisfied with the two, possibly three, prints that we viewed. It was well worth the visit and the incidental exercise gained from the walking and climbing.

Town Beach Jetty
Broome Town Beach Jetty
Town Beach Jetty
Town Beach Memorial
Broome Town Beach Low Tide
Broome Town Beach Sunset
Broome Town Beach Low Tide
Broome Town Beach Low Tide
Broome Town Beach Sunset

On our first day in Broome we headed into the Broome town area to have a look around town and made our way to Town Beach and the Jetty. It’s a very pretty park area with playgrounds, bbq areas, and grassed lawns. Town Beach is as the end of the park area following the mangroves.

Their is a high modern jetty that rises above the beach and extends out over the water. The top-end of W.A. experiences massive tide fluctuations, up to 11m. As such the jetty towers above the sand flats as it reaches out into the water. We were there at low tide and also visited another time to see it at high tide and the difference is startling.

Despite Broome being a known saltwater croc place there were people on the beach with kids paddling and wandering around the waters edge. Although the water was quite shallow it was fringed on either side by mangroves and probably not the place we’d be letting children swim.

Near the jetty is a sculptural monment titled, “Nine Zeroes Nine Stories.” It features white silhouttes inscribed with the stories of nine people during the Japanese air raids of WW2. Most people tend to think of Darwin regarding the Japanese air raids but the raids extended as far west as Broome. Yet another fact about Australian history that isn’t taught well in our schools.

Matso’s Brewery
Matso’s Brewery
Matso’s Brewery
Matso’s Brewery
Matso’s Brewery
Matso’s Brewery

Matso’s Brewery feels like a bit of an institution in Broome. Rob was already aware of Matso’s having bought and enjoyed some of their Mango Beer some years ago. The Brewery is located on the road following the coastline that goes to Town Beach. It’s also not far from the Broome Prison! It’s a scenic part of Broome and the building consists of a large rectangular building with corrugated metal roof and wrap-around verandah on three sides. The inside has a large pub style bar area and inside tables. Outside on the sea side there is a large open area beer garden with bar tables and stools made from old palettes set out amongst tropical palm trees that had that atypical lean in one direction with a lighty curved trunk rising to a pom-pom of palm leaves.

Matso’s Brewery

Matso’s has a very relaxed and cruisy vibe and would be perfect for a Sunday afternoon chill session with live music and good friends. Alas the season was at an end so no entertainment was happening but there was still plenty of patronage. We had booked a table for lunch and took a table on the verandah. Sitting there on the verandah had that distinctly tropical feel and more so when our drinks arrived. Rob had a tasting paddle and Jo tried the ‘Hard Lemon‘, an alcoholic lemon squash. The Hard Lemon was quite good… think Solo or Pub Squash with alcohol undertone that gently relaxes you in shade and the breeze. The tasting paddle was interesting but their Mango Beer is the standout brew. It’s kind of like a mid-strength lager with a mango after-taste that is a bit sweeter and less bitter than a standard lager.

Matso’s Brewery

For lunch we ordered two share plates of spicy chicken wings and calamri with a bowl of chips. The wings were perfectly executed and the calamari was equally superb. The servings were generous and with the side of chips made a perfect pub lunch sitting on the shady, breezy verandah with cold mango beer and hard lemon to lubricate our throats.

The only disappointment with Matso’s was that our friends and family were all on the other side of the continent and not there to share it with us…

Open Air Cinema
Broome Open Air Cinema

Broome has an open air cinema, or picture garden to use the correct term. It is in fact the oldest picture garden still in operation in the entire world. It is in the centre of the Broome town area on a main street and retains much of the character that it would have had back in the day.

We went there one evening to watch ‘Ticket To Paradise‘, the lastest Rom-Com starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney. It was quite funny and very much suited the tropical atmosphere of Broome, being set in Bali.

Open Air Cinema History

The Picture Garden is basically a large open air screen with rows of deck chairs for patrons. The front series of chairs are under the sky, the back rows are under the cover of the roof. We bought some take-away asian food and sat in the first covered row of seats to eat it and wait for the start of the movie. We had been advised that the local bat population can sometimes do target practice on the open air seats so we decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

Broome airport is only a couple of kilometres from the Picture Garden, which is under the flight path. It was absoltutely amazing to see a 737 jet and a large turboprop airliner fly almost directly over the top of us at, maybe, 100m as we were waiting for the movie to start.

The Picture Garden is an absolute must do in Broome. But beware! Two hours sitting in a deck chair can cause some serious consequences in 60 year old bodies…

Broome Museum
Broome Museum
Broome Museum
Broome Museum
Broome Museum
Broome Museum – Sailmaker’s Shed
Broome Museum – Sailmaker’s Shed
Broome Museum – Boab Tree
Broome Museum

After not getting past Matso’s Brewery on the day we got the cruiser serviced, we made time to visit the Broome Museum. It is volunteer run and consists of three buildings, a main display building, a sail-makers shed and a third building housing information about the dinosaur footprints and a massive shell collection. The buildings surround a courtyard with a magnificent shady mango tree and ‘teenage’ Boab tree sitting across from some WW2 aircraft wreckage. Apparently you can still see some aircraft wreckage around Broome when the tides are low, which we didn’t see.

The museum is mainly focussed on the pearling history of Broome and is quite honest about the history of mistreatment of indigenous pearl divers. We do not get taught Australia’s full and honest history in school and it is a sad statement of our prejudice and indigenous ignorance that we do not do so.

Broome Museum – Boab Tree

Most of us are aware that pearl diving is a hazardous profession, even today with modern diving techniques and equipment. We are also generally aware that many Asian pearl divers lost their lives during the ‘hard hat’ diving suit era either through equipment failure, the bends or shark attack. What we discovered is that prior to hard hat diving suits a great many indigenous men were press-ganged (kidnapped) and forced to free dive for pearl oysters with no protection. A great many died in this cause and didn’t benefit from the business run by the ‘white suit brigade’, English ex-pats from aristicratic families who were granted a ship and rights to harvest Mother of Pearl Shell.

Aside from yet another example of cruel British colonialism, the ‘white suit brigade’ were an English mafia that ran Broome and were noticeable for their preferred ‘uniform’, which was a pure white, drill cotton suit more suited to the hot tropical climate. It was also interesting to note that the red dirt of Broome meant that these men would change their suits three or four times a day to retain their clean white appearance, which also kept the Chinese laundries busy during those times…

Broome Museum

The museum entrance is dominated by a full size hard hat diving suit that is impressive in its size and then you realise that they were oversize to accomodate a diver wearing a thick woollen pullover and then plumped out further as they were filled with air. Divers could be sent down for hours hence the thick woollen jumper to ward of the cold. Visibility on the oyster beds is very low at about arm’s length in normal conditions. Many hard hat divers lost their lives to the ‘bends‘ because they would stay down too long and not want to spend the requisite wait time on the way back to the surface to expel the nitrogen buildup in their blood. The invention of the hyperbaric chamber reduced these deaths dramatically but to us the beauty of the pearl has a history tainted with the exploitation and death of a great many indigenous and Asian pearl divers.

Port of Broome
Port of Broome
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Broome Port
Port of Broome

Towards the end of our Broome stay we took a drive out to the Port of Broome. It is a working port on the tip of the peninsula on the other side from Gantheaume Point. It has a fairly impressive jetty, which is closed to the public but the area is also home to some beautiful rock formations near the public boat ramps.

Port of Broome

The water around the Port of Broome is a matt turquoise colour and contrasts beautifully the rich reds, oranges and creams of the rocky coastline. It’s a fascinating area with small coves and beaches littered with shells and rocks of all sizes and shapes. The sedimentary stratafication of the rocks combined with wind and waves creates thin flat slices of rock that look like plates or choppong boards. Some of the white layers sparkle with embedded minerals when they catch the sun.

Port of Broome is one of those places that you can just poke around and always find something interesting to look at or examine.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – The Don
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Diving Boots
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Oyster
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Oyster
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Oyster
Willie Creek Pearl Farm
Willie Creek Pearl Farm
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Dunny Mural
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Wall Art
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Koi Pond
Willie Creek Pearl Farm

Of course Broome is most famous for it’s pearling industry and all of the history and romance that goes along with it. Willie Creek Pearl Farm is self described as one of the smaller pearl farms in the area. They have a shop and display in the town itself but the homestead is located at Willie Creek about 30km north of Broome. They operate tours of the Pearl Farm and you can be picked up by their bus, at extra cost, or you can drive yourself (4WD recommended). We opted to drive ourselves and they advise to allow about an hour to get there. This is because once you leave the hardtop you take either of two roads to get to the farm. The ‘red’ road is shortest but subject to tidal movements and weather. We had to take the longer ‘blue’ road which was your typical corrugated red dirt, rattle your teeth all the way experience.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm

Once there though it is quite a picturesque setting on the banks of Willie Creek. They are set up with a wrokers dwellings, a shop, outdoor areas and sheds for the land-based, pearling activities. We were there at low tide, which meant that Willie Creek was 11m below us and was more of a sea-water dam until high-tide opens it up. The mouth of the creek is a high dune that blocks the creek during low tide and apparently the sea water rushes in at 30km an hour when the tide comes up.

The tour took us into the sheds, which held large tanks where oysters are temporarily held so that they can be carefully opened and seeded with the glass beads around which a pearl is formed. Each oyster is operated on in a succession of three stations like a hospital production line. They are then returned to the tanks to recuperate before being taken back out to the leases where they form their individual pearls over the next couple of years. Each oyster can be seeded 3 or 4 times before they are retired, i.e. killed for their pearl meat and mother of pearl shell. They like to say that ‘all’ of the oyster is used in one way or another and their is no waste from the process.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Dunny Mural

The most exciting thing we discoveredt is that Willie Creek has partnered with a local University and is trialling the use of ‘Mother of Pearl’ shell for creating artificial bone graft filler. It seems that the shell can be crushed and used to form a medical paste that can be used like a filler in human bones. The paste hardens and forms a lattice like scaffold that new bone grows over. You can see that the owner is very excited about the prospects of this research as much as he is about the pearls themselves.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm

After the shed tour we were taken on a short cruise around the creek to see the small ‘recuperation oyster lease’ and how they handle the oysters out on the larger sea leases. They were hoping for the three resident salt-water crocs to show themselves but unfortunately they weren’t cooperating that day. Seeing how high the tides rise was really quite amazing. We alked down 11m of steps to board the boat, all of which would be covered at high tide. In the middle of the creek they have moored one of their original pearling boats and stripped it out, leaving it floating their for seabirds to nest in. A novel but thoughtful way of putting a ‘dead boat’ to new use.

Following the tour we were treated to morning tea consisting of fruit platters and home-baked mini dampers. The dampers were baked in the shape of a small loaf about the size of two Mars Bars stacked on top of each other. They were an absolute hit… lightly herbed and spiced, slightly chewy and crusty but nice and soft on the inside. Served warm with butter they were irresistable. They’re obviously proud of their dampers because they have their recipe on a poster, which anyone is free to photograph and take with them. The surprise ingredient is lemonade (or beer, or ginger beer). Here’s the recipe for those that may be interested:

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Mini Dampers

Willie Creek Pearl Farm family recipe for mini dampers
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Australian
Keyword Damper, Savoury
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 3 cups self raising flour
  • 1 can lemonade
  • 1 cup grated cheese
  • ¼ cup dried chives
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp mustard powder
  • salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 180ºC
  • Place all dry ingredients and grated cheese into a mixing bowl
  • Add the can of lemonade
  • Mix until just combined
  • Add a little extra water if required
  • Spoon into mini loaf pans (about 1 Tbsp per loaf)
  • Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through
  • Serve while warm with butter
Willie Creek Pearl Farm – Oyster

After morning tea we gathered in the gazebo shelter where the tour guide takes a random oyster, picked at the start of the tour, and opens it up to show you the oysters anatomy and hopefully harvest a pearl before your eyes. These demonstration oysters are from what they call ‘death row’. It is their last seeding before being added to the meat and shell harvest. Our oyster did indeed produce a pearl, which was passed around for us to see before being taken to the shop to be graded and priced.

With the anatomy and harvesting lesson finished we were guided back to the shop where those eager to buy pearl jewellry could spend their money. But before any sales occur they do a pearling masterclass where they explain that the value of each pearl is determed by five virtues:

  • Size – bigger is better (individually).
  • Lustre – how shiny or dull the pearl is.
  • Colour – Black (Tahitian), gold or white (creamy).
  • Shape – how round, regular or symmetrical the pearl is.
  • Complexion – how flawless the surface of the pearl is.

The pearl harvested on our tour was decent but nothing special. It was valued at approximately $700.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm – The Don

In the shop they have their hero pearl, which is known as ‘The Don’ and named after the owner’s father. The Don is very large at around 21mm in diameter and has excellent quailities in the other virtues. It is valued at $150,000. This magnificent pearl was actually found during a Willie Creek Tour exactly as the one that we were on. The tour guide on that day opened up the random oyster for the tour group and immediately noticed that he had something a bit special. He played a joke on the owner by asking one of the tour group to carry the pearl back to the shop for grading and pricing. The member of the tour group quietly handed the pearl over to the owner as if it was nothing special and you can imagine how it played out from there… It is a special pearl as far as pearls go and all the more so because the oyster, which was on it’s third and last seeding was showing signs of having been attacked by particular type of sponge that causes the oysters to slowly get sick and die.

Although neither Jo or I are pearl enthusiasts, like the opals of Coober Pedy, we find the industry and the process to be fascinating. We thoroughly enjoyed out tour of the Willie Creek Pearl Farm. It is reasonably priced (drive yourself) and gives you a full picture of the pearl farming in an interesting, enjoyable and educational balance. We’re particularly interested to hear about the ongoing pearl shell bone graft research in the future. It represents an exciting new offshoot from commercial pearl farming that will revolutionise medical treatment for bone injuries.

The cruiser was last serviced when we were in Adelaide and after the slog up through the Northern Territory and then west to Broome it was time to have it serviced again. Rob booked it into Broome Toyota when we were back in Kununurra to make sure we could get it done before the next long slog down the west coast to Perth. Although we only had 50,000km on the odo, the time intervals involved meant that it was due for the 70,000km logbook service, which is a bigger service than usual.

Broome Boabs

We arrived early that morning to drop the car in. Without transport we had the option of catching the bus back to the caravan or hoofing it into town to fill in the hours. We decided to walk into town and have breakfast, then take a quick look at the shops and after that walk over to the Broome Museum near Town Beach.

Broome Brekky

After a leisurely breakfast we poked aroung the handful of shops for a while. By then it was about 11:00am. The car was due to be finished at 2:00pm so we started our trek to the Broome Museum. It was a pretty hot day but one of those days where you don’t sweat while you’re walking. It’s only when you stop walking that you start dripping with sweat. We soon realised that Matso’s Brewery was on the route we were taking to the museum and that was pretty much as far as we got as we stopped in for thirst quenching ‘hard lemon’ and a ‘mango beer’…

Matso’s Brewery

It was so pleasant sitting in Matso’s beer garden that we decided to leave the museum for another day and just enjoy the shade and the drinks. Whilst sitting in the beer garden we noticed that there was an art gallery on the same site so decided to go in and have a look to kill a bit more time. It turned out to be a new gallery set up by the artist ‘Sobrane‘. Sobrane apart from being a very talented artist with quite a distinctive style is also a ‘silo artist’ and we had seen some of her silo work previously on our trip back in Victoria. Sobrane was actually in the studio working on a large commission piece so it was quite a treat to actually see the artist herself having admired her silo art some months beforehand.

Sobrane has a perculiar condition called ‘synethesia‘. She cannot recognise faces but she hears and smells in colour. It sounds weird but her brain is wired a bit differently to the norm so when she hears a sound or smells an aroma it is interpreted in her mind as a colour. A bit hard to imagine if you don’t have synesthesia but possibly partly explains her talent as an artist.

So after a dalliance at Matso’s and Sobrane‘s Gallery we hoofed it back to the Toyota dealer and got there about 1:30pm so we could sit in the service waiting area until the car was ready. We ended up waiting four hours due to an electrical failure earlier that morning, which meant they were unable to pump oil and had been waiting on a replacement generator and compressor.

During the four hour wait we started talking to the two other individuals who were also waiting for their cars. One was a local bloke from Broome and the other was an indigenous bloke from Fitzroy Crossing. Both were really nice blokes and interesting to talk to and fountains of local knowledge; to us anyway.

The indigenous bloke, Shane, was a fly-in-fly-out mine worker who lived in one of the indigenous communities in Fitroy Crossing and had driven to Broome to get his car serviced. Now, you may remember that Fitzroy Crossing has a bad reputation for crime, vandalism and social issues amongst the indigenous communities. Shane, however was a hell of a nice bloke, had worked hard all his life and made a good life for himself. He told us a fair sized chunk of his life story and one part in particular really hit home how badly our indigenous people have been trated post-colonisation.

When Shane was a young man he moved to Broome and got himself a job at a joinery that made kitchens. He started there doing cutting and over the course of two years there kept asking to do more complex jobs up to the point where he was putting together complete kitchens. After two years he went to the boss and asked if he could have an apprenticeship so he could be formally qualified. He then explained that his boss’s reply was, “No… we tried that with one of your mob a few years ago and it didn’t work out!” Despite this Shane kept working for them for another three years until he moved onto bigger and better things. You could see when he told this story taht he was still hurt by it (after a few decades) but despite this he wasn’t angry or petulant about the way he was treated back then. He was simply resigned to it.

Thankfully for him, life treated him well after that and he lives a good and rewarding life. But what this chance encounter showed us was a few things:

  • Places like Fitzroy Crossing are far more complicated and surprising than just the bad reports that people give of it.
  • Indigenous social issues are complicated but fuelled by white indifference and ignorance with a willingness to place all indigenous people into the same basket without giving them a fair go or a fair hearing.
  • Indigenous issues will never be solved by old white men making decisions in Canberra and throwing money at the problems.

We learnt a lot listening to Shane that afternoon. Our cruiser was the first car finished and as we prepared to leave all four of us stood, said our goodbyes and shook hands with each other. Something we weren’t expecting to be doing in the waiting area of the Toyota dealership in Broome. It was a good afternoon…

Willare Bridge Roadhouse

Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area – normal size
Giant Boab Tree Rest Area
Willare Bridge Roadhouse
Willare Bridge Roadhouse

Sad to leave Larrawa Station so soon but we both wanted to get through Fitzroy Crossing and on to Broome as soon as possible. As with Halls Creek we didn’t want to stop to refuel but on approaching the town we decided that things looked calm enough to pull in and top up the tank. It’s always wise to keep you r tank topped up in this part of the country because fuel stops are few and far between and you can’t always be guaranteed that they will have fuel anyway.

We pulled into a ‘pre-pay’ fuel depot, which are un-manned, serve yourself machines. You swipe your card and enter a pre-paid amount that is reserved and fill your tanks. The difference between how much you reserve and how much you actually fill up with is refunded after seven days. I can’t begin to say how much I hate these machines!!! And from a technology perspective… there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that they need to hold your balance for seven days!!! It is yet another fuel company scam that benefits them not you. Having said that… they’re usually a bit cheaper than service stations so at least you get a small discount (after you get your balance back seven days later).

We got through Fitzroy Crossing without incident and so were relieved that we were not one of the unlucky travellers to be pelted with rocks or have somebody attempt to hijack your car while you’re filling it… We get the feeling that these incidents are not as frequent as some make it out to be but still, they happen and thankfully not to us.

Giant Boab Tree Rest Area

The most notable thing about the drive to Willare Bridge Roadhouse, our next destination, was the Giant Boab Tree rest stop. Out of nowhere, beside the road, a giant boab tree appears of to one side. It is huge!

Giant Boab Tree Rest Area

Once you reach Larke Argyle, heading west, the boab trees become much more prevalent along the highway. Most have the classic fat bottle shape, some have multiple trunks and some, like this one, are ancient with multiple fat, gnarled trunks and a broad umbrella canopy. At this time of year they are mostly devoid of leaves and many have large nuts suspended at the tips of the limbs.

Giant Boab Tree Rest Area – normal size

The boab trees are the very definition of grandeur no matter what size. They are the African elephant of the plant kindgom and are a stately tree that also seem a bit out of place in the in a such a dry landscape (notwithstanding that the wet season was on it’s way). They are a tree that make you smile when you see them because they’re just so different and each one seems to have a personality all its own.

It was a 375km tow from Larrawa Station and approaching Willare Bridge Roadhouse was a bit of a relief. We felt as though we were entering a new phase of the trip. Behind us was the top-end and we were entering the west coast leg of our odyssey.

Willare Bridge Roadhouse

Willare Bridge Roadhouse was a great stop with a circle style van park at the back where the vans back onto the edge of the cirlce like bicycle spokes with plenty of space to stay hitched. The inner area was a large ‘green grass’ area backing on one side onto the roadhouse and pool. There was a nice beeze and it was a wonderful sensation to set the chairs up behind the van and sit on the well maintained grass for a change instead of red dirt or gravel.

It was a simple, easy and pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Our neighbouring van invited us to join them for afternoon drinks, which we did and thoroughly enjoyed before adjourning for another roadhouse dinner. In a major turnaround, Rob had a salt’n’pepper squid salad and Jo went for a ‘herbed’ chicken schnitty (which wasn’t overly herbed). The squid salad was superb though with wonderfully fresh salad.

Willare Bridge Roadhouse was another one of those roadhouses where you could happily spend more than one night if you were just looking to chill out and slow down. But… onwards to Broome!

Larrawa Station

Mueller Ranges Viewing Area
Mueller Ranges Viewing Area
Mueller Ranges Viewing Area
Larrawa Station Van Site
Larrawa Station Van Site
Larrawa Station
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset
Larrawa Station Sunset

After a restful afternoon and night at Warmun Roadhouse we set off the next morning for Larrawa Station, a working cattle station half-way between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing.

As we approached Halls Creek there wasa growing sense of anxiety after hearing stories of crime, anti-social behaviour and rock-throwing at passing cars… We weren’t planning on stopping for fuel in Halls Creek as we had filled the jerry cans back in Kununurra but with no fuelling options until Fitzroy Crossing we decided that we should top up the tank anyway.

We pulled into the fuel station at Halls Creek and it was still reasonably early in the morning and everything looked fairly calm. We filled up, paid and go going as quickly as possible. Once clear of the town we relaxed a bit and continued enjoying the drive and the passing landscape. It’s so sad that these places have such bad reputations and the solution(s) to the problem remain completely intangible…

Mueller Ranges Viewing Area

Continuing on to Larrawa Station we pulled into a rest stop viewing area for the Mueller Ranges. There was a stunning break in the ridge line and the colour of the earth was so deeply red that it was almost purple. Utterly stunning.

Larrawa Station Van Site

Larrawa Station is about 6km off the Great Northern Highway. The gravel road was well graded and so no difficulty for us. The camping area is set off to one side of the homestead area and is sparse but well appointed. All sites are unpowered but there are plenty of taps for water hookup. No power meant no air-conditioning for the night but that’s a small price to pay for having such a great place to stay.

For a bush camp the amenities were absolutely brilliant. Two flushing toilets and two showers. Toilets and howers were separate and built as simple silver-grey colourbond sheets on a concrete slab base. Both were open at the bottom and open at the top. The showers were fantastic. Both had rainshower nozzles and you could see blue sky out the top and red earth out the bottom. Despite having a gas hot water system driving them, the cold tap was all that was needed as the air was hot and cold water was tepid… One of the most enjoyable places to take a shower on the whole trip thus far.

There was a shelter with bench tables and seats and the whole area had a number of wood BBQ’s that sat atop a post and could swivel so as to stop any wind from adversely affecting the fire. It would have been nice to cook on one but we weren’t carrying firewood and didn’t feel like scrounging around for any in the heat of the day.

Larrawa Station Sunset

The site was empty when we arrived but by the end of the evening another half-dozen or more vans and campers had settled in. After the heat of the day we thought we were in for an uncomfortably hot night without air-conditioning but a breeze sprang up in the late afternoon and turned into a light wind that was surprisingly fresh without being cool. We open up the vans windows and vents and were quite surprised at how comfortable it became.

Larrawa Station Sunset

The evening presented us with yet another glorious sunset that spanned the usual range from orange to red to purple. You can never get sick of this daily lightshow. The highlight of the stay though was sitting out under the stars with a cold beer/cider and just simply enjoying the night sky. The only thing that would have made it better would have been a fire. Even if we had firewood we would have been a bit reluctant to light one given the gusty winds.

We were sad to leave Larrawa Station and could happily have stayed another night or two but Broome was calling and we were yet to pass through Fitzroy Crossing and wanted to get that over and done with!

Warmun

Warmun Roadhouse van site
Warmun Roadhouse – Evening
Warmun Roadhouse – Picture Window
Lamb Shanks – Warmun Roadhouse

So began the three day drive to Broome. First stop Warmun Roadhouse, half way between Kununurra and Halls Creek. The travellers advice between Kununurra and Broome is that you do no stop in Halls Creek or Fitzroy Crossing if you can avoid it. If you need fuel then lock your car even if somebody is sitting in the passenger seats… So with that in mind we planned the trip to Broome over three days and stopping half-way to Halls Creek and half-way to Fitzroy Crossing.

Warmun Roadhouse van site

Warmun is a community that is about 200km from Kununurra and 160km from Halls Creek. The Warmun Roadhouse is your typical Truckie stop with caravan sites out the back. It’s a great place for an overnighter and unlike Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing to come feels safe and secure. There’s really nothing to see or do there but we did take advantage of an afternoon to relax out of the heat.

Warmun Roadhouse – Picture Window

Like almost everywhere in the NT and WA, the sunsets are magnificent and always provide a colourful and flamboyant punctuation mark at the end of the day. Warmun held to form and presented us with yet another picture window display from the back ot the van.

Lamb Shanks – Warmun Roadhouse

We did take advantage of the roadhouse diner and were pleasantly surprised to find that lamb shanks were on the menu that night. They were decently priced and properly braised to the ‘fall off the bone point’ and served on a mound of mash with veges. Not the most memorable lamb shanks we’ve ever had but hit the spot and set us up for the next day’s drive to Larrawa Station…