Day 76 07/06/2011 Broome – Barn Hill Station

Day 76 07/06/2011 Broome – Barn Hill Station

Pete had his first real experience of “Broome time” today, he had to take the car in to have the windscreen fixed and it was booked in for 8am so off he toddled with enough time to get to the winscreen repairer on time because we have no other means of transport, so he had to wait with the car whilst it got fixed!! And wait he did!! I received his first txt at 9am telling me that “they haven’t touched the car yet!” then at 10am “still waiting, they just started!!”  And then at 11am “I’m on my way”. When I asked him what were they doing he declared “nothing the car just sat there!!”  anyway he is convinced that his stormy face got the action started.

Sunset view from our caravan at Barn Hill Station

With the windscreen fixed we packed up and headed to Barn Hill.  Barn Hill is a working cattle station that opens up a caravan park from May - October.  Every nomad we have met so far has told us “you need to stay at Barn Hill, you’ll love it, but you need to book, it gets packed and people stay there for months” but we were dubious I really didn’t relish staying in place with hundreds of nomads!! But whilst in Broome we met a lovely young couple with two little girls and they too said “you have to stay at Barn Hill Station, the kids will love it!” so on their recommendation we rang up, found out they have a vacancy and that’s where we headed.

One of the challenges on this trip has been answering all the kids questions such as: “Are we there yet?” or “Will there be a pool/playground/ jumping pillow at the caravan park?” or “Can we fish/swim/snorkel?” or “will there be other kids?” or “Is it near the beach/river/plunge pool?” And my favourite “is this where we are staying for tonight?” this question gets asked when we pull up for lunch!! Sometimes we have been able to answer the questions from the reading/research we have undertaken on particular spots but other times we have to remind the kids that we have never been to this new spot and sometimes in frustration we just make up the answer.  Well today was one of those frustration days!!  Zac kept asking is Barn Hill on the beach and whilst I was pretty confident that we would be able to get to the beach I didn’t know if the actual caravan park was on the beach so I answered him honestly ‘I don’t know!!” but this did not suffice for Zac so he kept asking the same question at regular intervals until at lunchtime I said ‘Yes Zac it’s right on the beach and we have booked a spot in the front row with ocean views!!” he seemed satisfied with this answer…..



sunset!!



Well you can imagine my surprise when we arrived at Barn Hill station; we drove 9kms over a straight dirt road to a caravan park in a cow paddock strategically placed on the cliffs overlooking the Indian Ocean!! As we were booking in we had two options, we could either have a powered site and be in amongst the tightly packed in nomads!! (honest they were squished in under the trees tighter than sardines), or we could have a non-powered site on the cliff top with endless views of the ocean and at night we could see the lights of Broome and the light house that we visited just the other day!!  So without a moment’s hesitation I booked the cliff top site and delivered to Zac exactly what I had made up hours before!!! Unreal.  Our view is amazing and we are only a short climb up and down the cliff face from the beach!!

After settling in we headed off to the beach to explore and check out potential fishing and swimming sites for tomorrow. 

The other funny experience today was getting mobile reception, I have no reception in the van or under the awning but if I walk to the edge of the cliff and stand facing Broome I can get just a little, just enough to send off a text message to mum and dad and let them know where we are and to post the blog!!  Not enough to get calls because I can’t leave the phone sitting out on the edge of a cliff in the scrub!! Ah life in the country.

PS: In using the internet to post this blog we found that putting the dongle on the roof of the caravan gave us the best reception!!!