The journey continues...Susan has gone and I'm staying on in Broome for another five days. The weather is superb. It's getting a bit humid, but there is a great pool at the CP, a beautiful beach close by, shade and air con at my van so I'm loving it 😍I could stay here for awhile!!!.
I have made friends with Michele, a "Roller" from Melbourne and we have decided to travel to the "Rolling Solo" event in Exmouth together, but we both want to take a deep sea reef fishing tour before we leave Broome so we've booked in for a full day with "Absolute Ocean Charter"...sooo excited!!!
OMG...what a fabulous day. We started at 7.15 and motored out to 18 Mile Reef, 35kms west off the Broome coast.
This was our office for the day!!
Heading out to the reef
We fished in different locations along the reef for short periods then we would move to a new location. A few times we trawled for Spanish Mackerel. Everyone on the tour caught fish. Some were good eating fish, others weren’t and we threw them back or they became bait. We saw a few turtles and sea snakes and masses of sharks 🦈 and often watched and even fought off the sharks as we were reeling our catch in.
Michele watched the shark attack this fish as I was reeling it in, but I was so busy I didn't have time to take my eyes off the job. When I finally got it in we could see the attack the shark had made near the upper fins. We threw this one back in as it wasn't good to eat, but it was fun to catch.
Michele also had a shark take one of her fish. She wasn't going to let it go and in the process it pulled her against the side of the boat and she fell. Luckily she was unhurt, but it gave her and me a fright. These sharks were decent sized ones and were very keen to take our catches!!!
The Black Snapper on the table about to be cleaned and later filleted is one of two I caught and will provide us with some superb dinners 🐟 We didn't catch the Red Emperors you can see, but the fisherman of the day award went to the young 12 year old who caught the largest Red Emperor...a prize catch
Did we really catch these Grey Mackerel's?...mmm...The truth to this story... We personally didn't land these ones, but any fish caught while trawling and reeled in by different members of the group were classed as a group catch. The tour operators were controlling the trawling catches.
This was our transportation to and from the charter boat
We were provided with nibbles and food all day and could BYO alcohol. Michele and I took a couple of drinks to have on the way home, but most of the tour group were guys and they came laden with slabs of beer and started drinking around 9am so the party started early. It was physically demanding pulling in the big ones 🐠🐟 but an exhilarating experience. Sitting on the bow of the boat enjoying a couple of drinks and watching the sun set as we motored back the 35kms was a perfect end to a fabulous day. To top it off there are a few delicious fish dinners in the freezer as we brought back fillets of the fish we caught😃
Back at Cable Beach in the evening I took a drive along the beach as the sun was beginning to set.
We kept exploring Broome. We went for beers at Matso's brewery and had a delicious curry dinner with a few other "Rollers", watched more sunsets, had drinks at the sunset bar, road my bike about 4kms along the beach at Cable beach and swam in the pristine Indian ocean waters...watching out for crocodiles!!! The beach had been closed a few days earlier as crocodiles had passed along the coast not far out from shore, but we were assured the danger was over.
The beach umbrellas and lounges available for hire...
Bike riding along the beach about 4 km from Cable Beach Caravan Park
Camels in the sand!!!
Late afternoon Camel tour group. I didn't ride the camels as I had done a camel ride in India, so just enjoyed the scene instead...
What's not to love about this...😍😍😍
On our last evening Michele and I decided, on the spur of the moment, to have a drink at the Roebuck Bay Hotel (known as "The Roey"). As we entered we saw there were a lot of men in the bar and then realised..the girls behind the bar were in very skimpy attire😎🤪 We got a few raised eyebrows from the patrons as we walked in, but we pulled up stools to the bar and ordered a drink. We took a discrete photo and then when chatting to the girls behind the bar they informed us they charge $10 for a photo...OOPS!! too late we already had one😁
It's now 12th October. Michele and I leave Broome and we drive in tandem to Barn Hill Station caravan park about 140 kms south. To get there you turned off a very good sealed highway onto 9kms of corrugated red dirt road passing through 3 gates, but it was so worth the trip 😁
Michele in her 4WD did it in 15minutes. It took me 40 minutes
Not a lot of people around so we had plenty of sites to choose from.
We walked over to the beach and...OMG... were greeted to a superb ocean beach we could swim in, rock pools and some very unusual stunning rock formations along the beach cliffs. We had a swim in both the beach and the rock pool and then took a very long walk, 10kms round trip along the beach. When we got back (exhausted) we cooked our first fish 🥘 dinner. Black Schnapper... woohoo!!! it was superb.
We swam in the rock pool then walked to the point on the left in the distance past the rock formations, the stalactite like structures that you can see in the middle distance on the beach.
The following morning we headed for Port Hedland, which was our stop over destination on our way to Karijini National Park. On the way through we called into 80 mile beach. I left my car and van parked near the turn off. We drove in Michele's 4WD, which could negotiate the 10km of corrugated roads much quicker than I could.
80 mile caravan park looked amazing and was right on a beautiful beach, BUT it's a fishing beach and you would not want to swim there. We walked along the beach and spoke to a guy who had caught 5 sharks that morning. He had one of them on the sand, which he had just landed. It was over a metre long!!!
80 Mile beach pano
The road between Broome and Port Hedland was one of the more uninteresting roads I'd been on. Flat straight and not much to see...a good audio book or loud car singing was my driving companion for the trip...🤪
The only petrol stop was Sandfire Roadhouse. All the roadhouses have some quirky character, so they are always fun to stop at.
I parked my van at Port Hedland Discovery Park beside Michele's slide on camper and we took a walk down to the beach hoping to catch the "stairway to the Moon" phenomena, but we were a day or two early😞😞 We did have a lovely swim though in Pretty Point, a natural sea water pool near the CP.
Next morning, 14th October we are leaving for Karajini National Park via Munjini (Auski) Roadhouse. More on Karijini, Tom Price, and Exmouth in the next episode.
Although it is now 26th October as I post this, as you can see I am still way behind the actual date with the blog. The "Rolling Solo" event is now over (18 to 25th October). I'm about to take off to the Cape Range National Park where I won't have wifi access, so the journey will continue when I get back on the grid and get time to write and upload photos . Until then, please continue to enjoy the journey with me to this date.
😎🥂 Anne