Cleaverville Beach

Drones eye view of camp

After leaving Bruboodjoo Point we headed further north – originally planning to stay a few nights at 40 Mile Camp and then head onto Cleaverville Beach after that. While filling up all the water tanks and jerry cans at the Devils Creek Refinery (great RO water – all you want for a gold coin donation to RFDS) we decided to head on direct to Cleaverville.

a "muddie" and me

It’s an easy 10-12 km dirt road run into Cleaverville Beach with numerous options from camping along the beach from individual sites to camping at the large shared area near the Caretaker where there are clean toilets, dump points and bins. Another reason for camping at the shared area was that there was a group of “Collie-ians” staying there who we knew from the RSL.














While we were there I had to conduct some minor repairs to “new” van – one of the high pressure pipes had chafed against the chassis and was leaking, and the inside door handle on our door broke off (while we were inside the van – had to yell to the guy in the next van to let us out). Must buy a lotto ticket as when I was trying to fix the pipe two guys from other vans came over and had spare pipe and compression fittings I needed, and when I was trying to work out how to do temporary repairs to the door – a mate from Collie walked past and had a complete spare door assembly in his van!

The Queen of Cossack

The Collie gang was going out to dinner at the Rio Tinto mess at Wickham so Linda and I tagged along – but we left early to do a bit of sight-seeing at Cossack and Point Sampson. Beaut old stone buildings at Cossack (need to spend more time there on the return trip in August) and we were so impressed  with the tiny caravan park (near the Tavern??) at Point Sampson that we booked a site for a week on the return trip south. Roast pork, crackling, pasta ragout, ice cream, ice cream, and ice cream at the Rio Mess rounded the day out nicely.

What's that bit of broomstick on the end of my line?

Now to the important part of the blog – fishing! After some pretty unsuccessful forays to my son’s secret spots (one small Mangrove Jack) we finally found a spot in the estuary that was going off every rising tide – whiting, huge bream, lots of little grunter, a couple of trevally, a small stingray and one large brown sweet lip. Linda and I scored 7 big whiting one afternoon and a sunrise session the next morning put another 60 whiting fillets in the freezer.

On the second last afternoon and evening something unusual  (for the Pilbara) happened – it rained – in-fact it bucketed down with close on 60mm – certainly settled the dust and filled up our water tanks with 60 liters of pure rain water – long showers that night.

The secret ledge Jack

Planning to be back to Cleaverville Camp for a week in August – cant let that Estuary secret spot alone for too long.

Short video HERE

Bruboodjoo Point

After a quick overnight camp at Robe River we headed up to Bruboodjoo Point camping area. Priority after setting up camp was to pack away the doona, winter coats, uggies, beanies, scarfs – with temperature mins around 15 C and maxs around 30 C we were certainly not going to need these reminders of winter. It also meant that the 100 kg  of Jarrah I had lugged from Collie on my roof rack hardly got used as it was usually too warm at night to enjoy a fire.

Busy place

Bruboodjoo Point (aka 9 Mile) is a large camping area about 40 km by road (about 20 km as the drone flies) north of Coral Bay with a lovely sheltered bay for beach boat launching and Ningaloo Reef edge about 3-4 kilometers out providing a coral playground. It has no toilets, water or bins (does have a dump point) so you need to be fully self-sufficient to be allowed to camp. The camping area was packed when we were there with around 200 vans in the area.





Readers of my blog will recall that Oyster Bridge Conservation area is one of our favorite snorkeling spots and we couldn’t resist a visit as it was only 10 km away via rough road and 4WD track. It didn’t disappoint and some underwater GoPro video is included in my video at the link at the bottom of this blog.

SS Minnow ready for action

Unfortunately fishing from the shore wasn’t particularly successful during the time we stayed despite getting up before sunrise and heading out to the “secret” hot-spot at Three Ways.  I did however get invited by Marty next door to go out squidding in the SS Minnow (small inflatable tender with fast leak) and he hooked a large squid which whilst I was trying to get into the Minnow  “inked me”  covering my face, hat and sunnies (I think I can still hear Marty laughing).

Couple of nice Spangled Emperor

By chance I also bumped into Graham (whom I used to work with) who was up north for three weeks fishing with his son. He was kind enough to take me out to just inside the reefs edge in his tinny were we caught a couple of nice Spanglies before the sharks arrived – bugger!

A "healthy" pie

The lure of the “bakery” soon compelled us to head into Coral Bay for a snorkel, lunch at the bakery, water top-up and fuel. Nice relaxing day.

The best music !

One highlight of our stay was an evening of entertainment provided by Tammy (and support team husband -  Murray) who sang for several hours under a full moon. What a great night – Linda and I even did a bit of a shuffle in our dancing thongs to the music.








I will certainly be back to Bruboodjoo Point – just got to find a son/grand-son/son-in-law to tow my boat up so I can chase more squid and spanglies.

Short video HERE

Plan B - Denham

Firstly coronavirus, and then Station licensing issues foiled our plan to repeat last year’s trip to Tamala Station – so Plan B was to head up to Denham Seaside Caravan Park with the Tamala Team.

It was a chilly 1C on the morning we left Collie to head north to spend a week to warmer weather at Denham.

Towing our newly purchased caravan we left a day earlier than the rest of the team and decided to try a couple different “one nighters” from our usual stopovers.

On the shore of Lake Indoon

Night one was at Lake Indoon – between Eneabba and Leeman. Not a bad spot next to the dry lake (there is a boat ramp) with flushing toilets and bins. Only down-side was that fires were strictly prohibited, and it was still 4C at night. A bit of excitement for all was when a van came in under a low hanging tree and tore two massive dead branches off which then rolled off the top the van. Amazing thing was that the only ones who were not aware of the incident were the owners of the van who continued onward to find a parking spot!

My new SAT TV system

Night two was spent out the back of the Billabong Roadhouse – not our usual scene but we had heard of unbelievably cheap fuel ($1.07/ltr for diesel) and free hot showers so thought we would give it a go. We were pleasantly surprised how quiet it was and enjoyed the hot shower.







After getting set up at the Denham Seaside Caravan Park (nice park next to the dog beach – yahoo said Molly after being cooped up in the car for 3 days) we had a planning meeting and a few coldies with Pete, Marion and Trevor (aka Inky Ross)  and decided on a trip out to Francois Peron National Park the next day for a bit of 4WD fun, sightseeing and fishing. As we could not take the vicious hound into the National Park we found a lady in Denham who was offering dog-sitting for $35/day – a win-win for her and us.

Inky and bream

Had a great day out in Francois Peron – didn’t get bogged, saw all the camping areas, and caught some nice whiting. So -  after picking up the hound it was time for showers, meeting up for a few more coldies (becoming a theme) and fresh whiting fillets for dinner – nice!
Next day we tried (unsuccessfully) to catch whiting around the town area so that afternoon over a few coldies we decided to head out again to South Gregories camp site in Francois Peron (Molly by now becoming good friends with the dog-sitter)  - weren’t as successful as our first visit but caught a few.


We did finally find a good fishing spot closer to town but as this was near the end of our visit only were able to fish twice – we will know next time!



Inky also caught his first ever squid (2) on a jig at the local jetty – which quickly got turned into a squid ring entrée with a few coldies.

The Team

After a great week we had our last dinner at the pub (and a couple of coldies) and next day - Pete, Marion and Trevor headed off to the freezing stormy weather down south while Linda and I (and Molly) struggled in the heat to go further north towards Coral Bay.

As a final note of recognition - Pete was the only one to catch whiting, Mulloway, and Spanish Mackerel (but that’s another story).

Short video is HERE