camping on a ridge looking over the beach with nothing to do but relax and watch the spectacular show that the whales put on daily was pretty much our last 5 nights. We stayed at a camping spot called middle lagoon which is about a 3 hr drive on a dusty, red, bumpy road that has been graded so much that the road looks more like a table drain with us driving up the side on a 40 degree angle just to avoid the roughest part of the road.... Then 50km from the turnoff to middle lagoon was a tar road... Go figure, I think the reason is that the aboriginal communities who occupy Nd own the land don't want caravans up here do they have a crappy road at the start and finish with a smooth tar road! Once we were at our turn off we hit more dirt, this time it was more like red sand, quite boggy and slippery and we had 30km of it... Pretty sure in the wet if u lived up here the only way in and out would be by air, like a lot of remote places I Spose!
We pulled in at about 2pm after having a quick lunch on the side of the road because let's face it we would have faded away!
The spot we chose was pretty much in the middle of the beach up on the ridge with easy access down to the beach, a path that paddy got to know really well... We set up the camper and because there were no trees we made sure to have the whole set up out to ensure shade in the middle of the day and by god did we need it!!! We set up our full kitchen and pantry rather than just living out of the storage box. Our first night there were Gale force winds that started at about 2am... The tent part of the camper where paddy sleeps was pushed across the ground and a good part of the canvas covered paddy's bed, we actually didn't realize until paddy woke saying "mummy, I can't see you" ... Haha oops. Minor detail we just pegged it back in straightened it up and just hoped it wouldn't happen again, and it didn't!
For this week we really had nothing to do nowhere to be so we made the most of reading our books, clint and paddy did a spot of fishing, we went for a couple of drives, swam in the beach and just soaked up the relaxation... In fact it was so relaxing I was starting to get bored... It was just what clint needed tho so I didn't complain too much ;) one of our day trips took us to a cafe that made the best mango smoothie I have ever had... Was pretty awesome that such a remote cafe was such good quality ( but very expensive)!
We also took a trip up to the koolijum cape leveque another camp ground however the charged a crazy amount of $$$$ to camp there and even a day visit had to pay ... We saw what we needed to and then headed onto the other side of the cape to one arm point and aboriginal community that looks over the super fast flowing tide heading toward derby and it also was the start of the beautiful buccaneer archipelago islands! So glad we took the time to check it out.. Lunch was near so we headed back south and found an oyster farm called cygnet bay. They had a cafe there do we decided it was our lunch spot... Again for somewhere so remote they had 2 chefs and fresh food (must get bus tours in).
As I mentioned earlier the whales from our camping spot were amazing we were mostly greeted by a calf and 2 older whales everyday not super close to shore but on high tide they came in closer and jumped around or whacked their tails on top of the water! Even of a night when lying in bed we could hear them...
I took some time yesterday to head over to the point and sit under a Rick shelter as the tide was coming in and if my butt wasn't so sore I would have stayed there for hrs... I was in awe of the power of the surf crashing against the rocks and the creatures that could be found scurrying along clinging for life with each set that pounded into them. I actually found that more relaxing than sitting on the beach watching the waves!
So today we are on our way back to broome where we will have one more night and then will start to head south to barn hill station!