Port Smith

  26/07/2011
  If there is one thing you can do in Port Hedland, it is spend money!  We spent shedloads today. We are stocking up for a 5 day bush camp, which means 5 days booze plus incidentals.  We think there is a shop where we are going but if it’s up to the  same roadhouse standards there won’t be much choice. We are about 600K’s south of Broome with not much in between except desert, the Great Sandy Desert ,and we are going three quarters of the way, to the small fishing village of Port Smith.  We haven’t got a great deal of info on the place but it could be a good place to chill out for 5 days until we move to Broome. Not sure if there will be  signal for the shiny thing but we can live without that.

27/07/2011
  Said goodbye to Port Hedland, with the distinct possibility that we won’t be going back.  We are now another 500K’s north at Port Smith from what we can gather the caravan park is it. The journey across the edge of the Great Sandy Desert was pretty dull, featureless for mile after mile, just scrub and red dirt in sweltering heat ( we haven’t worked out the cab aircon yet) Greta excitement when we reached the Sandfire roadhouse where you can get the usual roadhouse fare, the only time they change the menu is when they move the sausages and bacon from one end of the hot plate to the other.
  The last 23K’s to Port Smith are along a red sandy corrugated road , just what we needed after a 7 hour journey.
  It seems everyone here in the park has a small boat (tinnie) and outboard which, hazarding a guess tells us this is a fishing camp. We will find out tomorrow.

  28/07/2011
  Our assumptions were right, Port smith consists of this Caravan Park and that’s it! There is an Aborigine Community about 5K’s away but we don’t see much of them. There are a couple that work here. I scouted the place out this morning and we believe it could be Western Australias best kept secret.  From the camp entrance it’s about an 800m walk down the remainder of the red sandy road to an open area wher the fishermen leave their 4x4’s and boat trailers before sailing of into the blue. The trailer park opens out onto a beautiful mangrove lagoon and white sandy beach which in turn opens out into the Indian Ocean.  It was here that Jane was attacked and brutally savaged by the tiniest crab imaginable!  …….It bit her toe and drew blood. There must be something about her feeties and wee beasties!
  The 23K sandy road into here is the only road and ends here so night times are wonderfully quiet. The camp is larger than we thought, about 100 sites and a few tent areas, though it isn’t full, 23K’s of corrugations must put people off. In the centre of the camp is the Kangaroo rehab centre, currently housing 1 grumpy red kangaroo,1 8 moth old orphan euro kangaroo that lives in a pillow case and a couple of R T A victims that just seem to lie around in sun rehabbing.  Because of all the fishing that goes on here  there is a designated fish cleaning area so tonight we are going to take a frozen chips and hang around there looking hungry!!


  29/07/2011
  It’s incredible at times how things work out, there is Jane craving fish and chips, so what happens, the camp puts on a fish and chip supper once a month and last night  was it.  For 5 bucks each( a donation to the flying doctor service) all we had to do was rock up with a chair, plate, booze and knife and fork, to the recreation area where someone cooked us fish and chips! All this and a live band while we all sat round campfires, it was really good.  Also we didn’t need to look around the fish cleaning area with spaniel eyes as today, our neighbours (they spend 6 month here every year) gave us enough Red Snapper for at least 2 meals. Had to rearrange the fridge to accommodate the fish so out went the rissoles!!
  This a true oasis, so Australian, nice friendly people taking life easy. There is a public telephone but no mobile signal and even our all singing and dancing gismo doesn’t work here, it’s so remote.
  I walked the 800 m to the lagoon and had a swim with the hundreds of jelly fish that seem to like it here, they are the non-stinging sort, so I have been told.  They vary in size from saucer to dustbin lid diameter, harmless or not I still chose to swim round them. Jane managed to walk the 50m to the camp shop to buy a frozen loaf, the rest of the day she has spent slumped like the kangaroo,  rehabbing!!  (with Mauve Binchey!)