Our West Australian travel news

Port Smith, 80 Mile Beach

Port Smith was a very pleasant surprise. It is located about 10 kms. off the highway down a reasonably maintained dirt road. The park itself is fairly small, but the ablutions block was large and very clean, there was a mix of semi-permanent residents (up to escape the southern winter) and travellers. This park whilst full didn’t appear crowded. The park is about 700 metres away from the lagoon which was lovely, nice to see blue waters again and dip my toes in the Indian Ocean. The tide was out, but there were lots of pools with little fish and tiny crabs in them, lots of mangroves, very nice. They do a lot of crabbing there and we were talking to a couple of guys who had gone out with one of the residents and they had got some of the largest crabs I have ever seen, they were huge. As we were driving back something grabbed my arm and I jumped so high I hit my head on the roof, it was only the old guy who had gone crabbing with the other guys pretending to be a crab and he really caught me off guard it was much funnier at the time than it sounds writing it down. I know I said the crabs were big but not big enough to reach through the vehicle window.
We planned to drive back to the lagoon to see the sunset, but unfortunately I was chatting to a lady and we missed it, Clive was not amused. The people who went crabbing were opposite us and invited us over for a drink after tea, well we had our meal and cleaned up and they were still trying to crack their crabs, the shells on them were so thick they ended up using very heavy duty hammers to get through, but apparently they were delicious when they got to the meat, they didn’t offer us any though! We had a very pleasant evening chatting to them. We had no problems but apparently the night before we arrived everyone got absolutely eaten by sandflies, we sprayed ourselves and put mozzie coils out and if there were any around (we heard no complaints about them the next day) we were spared. I commented that it was a shame the park wasn’t located on the hill nearer the lagoon so you had views of the lagoon, but as Clive pointed out it’s cyclone country and they would have put the park below the dunes to protect it from cyclones, logical, but I hadn’t thought of it. Next day saw us off to 80 mile beach. We had heard lots about this place and were eager to see it for ourselves, en route we stopped at a roadside stall that was just setting up and purchased some fresh vegies which was great. When we arrived at 80 mile beach there were one or two vans in front of us but we still managed to get a very nice site, not too far away from the (what turned out to be inadequate) facilities. This is another park if it wasn’t too full would be lovely. You are a stones throw from an absolutely beautiful beach, there are plenty of green lawned areas, both for the vans and for recreation, a very nice café/shop and glorious weather. Unfortunately, it was crowded, the vans just kept coming in and were being put on the ground the other side of the facilities, which was obviously only used in these situations. The number of people there made using the facilities quite a lengthy task, waiting for showers etc. I did manage to get the washing done in the few days we were there, and it was a perfect lay back and relax place, let’s face it there was nothing else to do there other than fish or relax, as we don’t fish we relaxed. Each day we walked the beach and watched those fishing. Apparently it was the wrong time of the month, moon phase or the wind was in the wrong direction, so each fish caught (there were only a few), was talked about and admired by the whole camp. Many regulars here were from Perth and spent the cooler winter months in this quiet tropical area. Some of these winter permanents had set up shop selling shell ornaments, and other hand crafts to transients like us. The warm weather and lay back atmosphere was really relaxing.
Access to the beach by 4wd vehicles was allowed only during daytime when the local Ranger opened the gate. We tried a quick run for a couple of kms just to say we had been there, we are not madly keen on beach driving we would prefer to stroll so the 4wd also had a break for a few days.
The tides here are quite extreme so when the tide is out you need binoculars to see the water, however at sunset there are usually lots of people with wine glassess or beer cans or cameras in their hand watching the sun sink in the west, which it does regularly once a day.

Reset Nov 2001