BROOME THEN BARN HILL STATION.

We have never stayed in Broome itself, preferring to stop at Roebuck Plains Roadhouse, about 23 Km out of town

I guess it’s horses for courses, but we prefer not to stay in the often overcrowded parks in Broome and drive in to Broome each day.

It seems that every visitor to Broome must go to Cable Beach at sunset ….there must be a law to that effect !!!! There must also be a legislated requirement that as many people as possible take a camel ride along the beach, also at or near to sunset.

Anxious to fit in with the apparent  local statutes and culture, we visited Cable Beach twice and watched the passing parade. People make quite a social occasion of it, bringing chairs and tables and all sorts of comestibles. We settled for a Coke and a packet of chips !

  

Here come those camels, Cable Beach. 

Locals and visitors getting very social on cable Beach.
Here come the camels again!

Sunset at Cable Beach.
 RJ waiting for a drink.

Broome also provides a couple of shopping centres. I must say it was refreshing to once again have a choice between Coles or Woolies and we re-stocked our food supplies realising that our next supermarket of any note would be in ten or eleven days’ time at Port Hedland. I was also able to get a wheel alignment for the Patrol. 

It seems that Coles and Woolies are having a small war and offering increasing discounts on fuel... happy days!!

We collected a couple of 16 cents off a litre and one or two 20 cents off per litre. When diesel is approaching  a dollar 90 cents a litre and to fill up my tanks needs 130 odd litres, 16 cents a litre is a great saving. Keep it up I say !!

Roebuck Plains Roadhouse is at the junction of the Great Northern Highway and the road into Broome and a large number of heavy vehicles call in every day. My fascination with heavy vehicles received a tremendous boost and I have many photos, here's a couple.

Toll moves a tremendous amount of food in WA, I believe a lot for supermarkets. They also hold a number of large contracts supplying food and drink to major mines. This is a triple refrigerated road train on the job.

A triple road train carrying about 14 or 15 brand new mine support vehicles. 

Roebuck Plains Roadhouse also gave me the opportunity to shoot quite a nice pic of a Red-Winged Parrot, one of a group that visited the tree we were parked under a couple of times every day to feed.

A Red Wing Parrot feeding, watched by a Little Wattle Bird

From Broome /  Roebuck Plains we headed south another 80 or so Km to Barn Hill Station, reached along a dusty, sandy and partly muddy track of around 8 Km or so. We elected to stay in an unpowered site along the cliff top. These camp grounds are fairly basic but at least they also provide drinkable water. The septic toilets are fine if a bit basic as are the showers and neither have a roof.

Perched on the edge of the cliffs affording a splendid view of the beach

Access to the beach is by a slightly precarious but very scenic goat track.

One of my enduring memories of Barn Hill Station is the impressive rock formations along the beach – if you look closely I’m sure you can see that there are many trolls present, relics of a past age, well before the realm of men (or maybe it’s just that I have read “The Hobbit” too many times lol !!)

There's Trolls here these for sure !!

More Trolls!  The watchers on the seaside standing mute (with apologies to Banjo Patterson.)

It’s also pleasant to wander the beach. There’s no access for 4WD vehicles on the north side of the beach and, in any event Barn Hill only allows beach access for vehicles to launch boats. We spent many hours just wandering.

The Beach at Barn Hill Station

Barn Hill also has its share of Sundowners, who gather on the cliffs every evening to watch the sun fall into the sea.

Sundowners, Barn Hill Station WA

After a few days of relaxation at Barn Hill we set off again, slowly south, stopping overnight at a very pleasant free camp.

NEXT STOP 80 MILE BEACH

REGARDS

TJ