Barn Hill Station Stay, Port Hedland (briefly) then Peawah River

Having escaped from Broome relatively unscathed, we travelled a short distance through to Barn Hill Station Stay prepared to spend a week, but I booked for three days for a start. Past experiences suggest it is not a really good idea to commit for a week in an unfamiliar place and Barn Hill Station Stay proved the worth of that philosophy.

Barn Hill Station Stay is a great place but not fun for little doggies. The burrs and prickles are terrible and it only took about 10 minutes for Maestro to have lots of very sharp burrs in his coat and, worst of all, in his feet and they are very difficult to remove. Poor Maestro spent hours trying to pull them out of his feet with his teeth and in the end we had to cut a lot of them out of his coat.

Barn Hill Station Stay is on Thangoo Station, a 43,000 acre working cattle station that stretches about 85 Km along the coast between Broome and Port Hedland. It’s a pleasant place to stay with non-powered campsites (with water) along the low cliffs adjacent to the beach and sites with a limited amount of power in a more conventional area near the beach. It’s a 9 Km drive along a sandy but not too dusty track that is a little rough in places. The amenities are reasonable with flush toilets and clean showers, although the amenities I used has no roof (it is designed that way) and the walls don’t go all the way to the floor.

From our spot along the low cliff line there is a slightly precarious track leading down to a broad expanse of beach with some interesting rock formations. It is possible to walk for quite a long way along the beach.

Generators are allowed in the non-powered areas but we only needed our trusty Honda generator for a short period one day to catch up on a couple of loads of washing – our solar panels and house battery provide plenty of power for lighting and overnight TV / video if needed..

There was the usual gathering of the Sundowners cult on the cliff tops with their drinks and nibbles  and this time I joined some of them hoping to shoot a couple of pics with the sunset and a pod of dolphins that had been chasing bait fish just off the beach. The dolphins did perform but I was not able to get dolphin and sunset in the same photo (although my shot of the sunset has got a dolphin fin just visible if you look really closely).

One dolphin posed nicely, leaping out of the water a couple of times.

Some of the rock formations are describes as “mini pinnacles” but that’s a bit of a stretch. There is also a sphinx-like formation that on close inspection looks like some sort of mad cat. Does it look familiar Mustang??

The name Barn Hill comes from a barn-like hill (funny about that) adjacent to the entry road to the station. There is a cairn on the barn-like hill that is a historical landmark left by Alexander Forrest during his exploration of the Kimberley in 1879.

We decided to give Maestro a break from the tortuous prickles and left Barn Hill after two days and headed down towards Port Hedland, about 300 odd Km away.

We called in to Sandfire Roadhouse for fuel and a check of their caravan park area and decided to continue on another 100 Km or so to Pardoo Roadhouse where we had stayed once before. The caravan area was fine with good grass for a change but the food was really rank, the worst chicken schnitzel ever and I do mean ever!!. I suggest that anyone overnighting there should definitely cook their own!  

Back on the road and Camps Australia Wide 6 suggested that the rest stop at De Grey River is a good place to stop but it was a little muddy from recent rain so we continued through to Port Hedland

We didn’t stay in Port Hedland last time, thinking that it had little to offer, and we couldn’t stay there this time because both caravan parks were full. I suspect that a lot of the local workers occupy a lot of the space in the two caravan parks, and there’s nothing wrong with that. From what I was told, to rent a 3 bedroom house in the area costs upwards of $1,500 per week!

We were offered a spot in “the overflow” that is evidently the parking area of the local golf club, for $25 a night no power, no water but we declined politely and drove on. Port Hedland is a thriving city, it’s just not that interested in tourists, particularly those with caravans.

Camps Australia Wide 6 once again proved its worth by suggesting that the Peawah River West area would be a good place to overnight and it proved a good choice. We found a spot adjacent to the rest area where we could camp and have a fire and generally relax, very nice. It’s great to spend some time chatting with others on the road, sharing tips on good places to stay and sharing warnings of places to avoid because of high fuel prices or just plain bad service   

NEXT STOP; Roebourne and Point Sampson.