Day 46: Lombadina to Barn Hill Beachside Stay

 A longer trip to today, 313 km, as we start to wind our way South along the coast for the next few days. 


The first 200 km is long straight roads lined with Wattle trees until we finally arrive at Roebuck Plains Roadhouse, refuel, have a cup of coffee, and turn off in the direction of Port Hedland. 


Broome - Cape Leveque Road

it's amazing how much the landscape changes from Roebuck Plains Roadhouse onwards. Within a few km the Roebuck Plains appear, flat grazing land with few trees. We have roughly another 100km to reach the turnoff to Barn Hill Station, which quickly transforms from good quality bitumen, to corrugated red dirt with large water diversion mounds every 100m or so. Nevertheless, we turn on our fan to pressurise the van to stop dust incursion, open the access gate and head in, followed by two other vans.



The road in was 9 km with one other gate to open, but at 30-40km per hour the ride was reasonably comfortable.

On arrival, check in was seamless and so different from the past few days a Lombadina. This place is very well managed, offers lots of activities, and is right on the beach. It is about a 5 minute walk from our campsite to the steps down to the beach.

The sites are rustic, and a bit of levelling is required, but they are very roomy and we are more than happy once we are set up.

After lunch we went to the office to get a bit more basic info. Is it safe to swim art the beach ? Yes ! can you drink the water in the park ? Yes ! Power generation for the park is a bit of a concern so they request that hot water systems be  run on gas rather than electricity. Amenities are a bit old, but functional and the feeling around the quite busy park is very positive.

Fresh bread is available daily, if ordered ahead. Apparently their fruit loaf is a standout so we ordered one ahead.

Tomorrow night they are set up for the State of Origin, with hamburgers the nightly special from their kitchen, or pizza is also available to preorder.

With all of this information we head back to our van to change into our swimmers and head to the beach. This is a very different coastline where the red earth now meets the ocean.



From the top of the stairs down to the beach you get a pretty impressive view. It is a great beach, very popular with beachgoers, families, fishermen, and those who must just have the beach drive experience.



Sadly, the beach drive experience does not always go well.


He did get out after much digging, assistance from sympathetic 4WD  vehicles already on the beach, and use of rescue tracks, you can see from the photo below how well he had buried his vehicle.


We walked the beach, talking to fishermen in hope of stories of great success to inspire an afternoon fishing foray. Despite the negative feedback, the wrong tide and the fact that I had no bait, I headed down to thew beach to see if lures would work.

Having quickly lost one soft plastic, I realised that the bottom is too rough for lure fishing on an outgoing tide. I moved further down the beach to what looked like just sandy bottom using a silver metal lure hoping to catch a mackeral, or tailor, but just caught weed, so gave up. Tomorrow bait and a paternoster rig looks like the go on an incoming tide.

Despite the poor fishing outcome, the sun going down lit up the shoreline and has a huge audience.


The sinking sun lights up the red cliffs


Stairway down to the beach


The crowd gathers to watch the sunset


The last of the 4WD's leaving the beach before night sets in






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