Day 130. 80 Mile Beach

The one that got away!

Morning sunshine at the beach

It was 7:30am and Shane and I were enjoying a cuppa. Maya appeared at the door asking after Scarlett, as they were going down to the beach to hit the low tide mark and hopefully get some beautiful shells before everyone else. ‘80 Mile Beach’ is famous for shells, and it’s the main reason why we brought all the girls here. So I got Scarlett out of bed, and we joined Jo and Maya with our buckets, and made our way down to the beach.

We didn’t have to look very far as there were shells everywhere. Not surprising, but there were also a heap of people with the same idea too. Within the hour Shane joined us with the car, and we decided to move further down the beach to virgin territory. After a very successful morning shell hunting, Scarlett informed us that she was getting hungry. We had a full bucket of shells so we decided to call it a morning. We headed back to the van for a well deserved breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs and mushrooms.

After a lovely breakfast (more like brunch being 10am) we then filled some buckets with water and got out Scarlett’s rock cleaning gear to give the shells a going over. It took Shane and me two hours to clean, cull, and store the huge hall of shells we got. We even discovered we had accidently picked up a shell with a hermit crab inside, he was returned to the beach. There were so many shells, and they were all so beautiful. I’m really keen to do something with them, I just need to find a craft shop, but I’m not quite sure what yet.

Bec and Scarlett collecting seashells

Scarlett finds a hermit crab

After lunch there was a mass exit of the park by all the grey nomads on foot; donning fishing rods. Thinking there must be some good fishing on for literally everybody to be heading out, Shane rigged up our rods and we headed down too.














When we got to the beach, there must have been at least 4km of beachfront filled with fishermen. They were spaced about 20 metres apart along the whole beach and they were all fishing. We found a gap and started baiting up and casting a line in; hoping to catch that ‘big fish’. Poor Shane, on his 3rd cast lost his hook, line, and sinker; so he was out of the game for the afternoon. He had enough trouble keeping Scarlett in the water; so there wasn’t much time for anything else anyway. It only took 40min and Scarlett lost interest anyway. She then gave her lovely pink kids rod to Shane to use.

Scarlett fishing...

There didn’t seem to be much action from any of the other fisherman along the beach, just the odd small reef shark or two. I was considering heading back and calling it a day, when bang I was on! The line was running out at a fast rate of knots and my rod was bending dangerously; I was so excited! Shane ran for the camera for a victory shot, and thankfully took one on the fly. Turns out it was a picture in a million; as in the background there is my fish launching out of the water. Unfortunately after a couple of minutes fighting this beast my line snapped, and he got away. I was devastated. The way it was launching out of the water I could see he was a good size. I later discovered that my 12lb line was way out of its league up here as everyone uses a minimum of 30 lbs. Best Shane fixes that before we head back out tomorrow.

Bec 'hooked up'

After a boring plan B dinner of spaghetti bolognaise; we watched T.V together. It was off to bed early ready for another early morning of shell collection together tomorrow.

This mornings haul of seashell collecting