COVID lockdown at Eighty Mile Beach

Yes, our COVID lockdown adventure continues!

Usually made it back to Eighty Mile Beach in time with sunset.

While my partner was at work I settled into a daily routine.

Every morning I’d go for a walk and gym at the beach and on the way back I’d always collect all the plastic rubbish I came across and shells, of course.

I saw a shovelnose nursery in a deeper section close to shore. There were so many of them!

One day I found some clay and made a heart. I considered to become creative again, but it was too far to carry clay back to camp.

I came across several sea snake skelettons before I finally saw a live one on the beach.

After breakfast I headed out for another walk, or a fish, depending on what time high tide was.

It was a very special day, when I went fishing on my own for the first time and caught dinner! Very proud of myself.

There were some mishaps because I was a bit nervous doing it all by myself. I cut my finger on the line when casting out and I cut myself with the knife when I tried to cut off the line as close as possible to the shark’s mouth after failing to get the hook out. Always feel bad when I have to do that, but can’t put my hand in a shark’s mouth to get the hook out, can I?

Still a lot to learn, but at least I got a fish for dinner!

Rigging up a rod, or re-rigging it because I had to cut the leader off, is another thing I needed to learn. My partner let me video him doing it and I could watch it again and again while I was doing it step by step.

Fellow campers filleted my fish and explained how, so I could do it myself in future. Soon I was filleting the big bluenose or threadfin with confidence.

Now the salmon were running I often threw the catch back because I didn’t want to catch dinner within 15minutes, but spend a couple hours fishing, it’s just so much fun!

In the afternoons I relaxed in the hammock chair, someone gave to us when they left, read books, cleaned shells, and got the rod ready for the next day.

I watched the zebra finches enjoying a shower under the sprinkler.

My dinner combinations became a bit creative – for example, I ate a fish fillet with spinach-omelette. Would never have thought of that combination, but with limited food supplies you just make the most of it and it was delicious. I made fish soup and fish patties, both new to me.

Most days were blue sky, sun, and very hot afternoons. When the occasional storm came in it was a welcome change for the eye and body.

I learned that there were several car wrecks on the beach, most have ‘sunk’ into the sand by now and are barely visible.

One fun story was about a worker from the nearby station who took the owners Ute to the beach for a fish. The owner was away and didn’t know about it. Anyhow, the tide came in and got the Ute. His mates went back to the station to get the front loader to tow the Ute out and got bogged. Both vehicles were lost to the tide. They saved all the tools and other things from them, but the vehicles were gone.

Crabs burry themselves in the sand and come out of their holes and run together to the water at sunset, it’s quite amazing to see hordes of them running across the beach.

Had some fun with the crabs . When I got to close he got hold of the phones cover and didn’t let go.

On ANZAC day everyone attended the dawn service and for the first time we realized how small our little COVID community was – only about 20 people in total!  

End of April my partner was off for four weeks!! I arranged with the owner to be let out at 6am to drive to Port Hedland to pick him up.

He had organised a quad bike and trailer and we were very excited to pick it up and bring it back to 80ty mile beach. We unloaded the quad at the start of the gravel road and my partner let me ride it all the way to the caravan park! It was my first time ever on a quadbike and I loved it!

That night we were discussing ideas how to fit out the quad for camping trips along 80ty mile beach. Can’t wait to tell you all about our new adventures in the next blog.

Explored in April 2020, written October 2025