Eighty Mile Beach is famed in 'nomad' circles, if there was one place that everyone said we had to visit this is it! Essentially just a caravan park and shop on the foreshore of a long, long sandy beach on which you can drive, fish and collect shells.

You can't book a site here, so we arrived early, driving only a few hundred kilometres from Pardoo playing our new car game of see how many people will wave back to you if you wave to them - caravans generally 100%, road trains 20%, mine vehicles 0% and other cars around 25% - the things you do for entertainment ;-)

We arrived right on high tide and quickly set up the van before heading down for some fishing action. We'd heard the beach could be shoulder-to-shoulder with fishermen, and certainly if you go directly out the front of the park it is pretty packed!

Over the next few days we found a special spot a few kilometres up the beach after sussing out the shape and watching the sunset at low tide.

The people up the beach from us caught 3 1metre long Threadfin Salmon, and we got one to within 2 metres of the beach before our line broke :-( Still, it's a lovely beach for collecting 'sand dollars' and other shells, a great activity for the kids.

Each Wednesday and Sunday during peak season there are markets on the 'common' at the park selling a range of tourism, fishing and camping items. The shop at the park sells a really good range of groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables and also has an icecream bar - yum! No grog for sale here though, so you need to stock up in Port Hedland or Broome.

All in all a lovely diversion for a few days with beautiful weather, friendly people and good fishing, if you can get them in.