Welcome back to our Covid adventure at 80ty mile beach! This time we got a quad and that changed everything!
The very first morning back at Eighty Mile Beach we took the quad for a spin at the beach. We crossed the inlet we fished at on our first week here and explored the sand dunes and the rabbit warren of tracks. We ended up on a track that led back to the inlet and maneuvered the quad through the fenceposts to get to the track along the inlet back to the mouth. That was a bad mistake.
That track got narrower and narrower until we feared to fall into the creek with the quad and all. At that point it was too late to turn around, as we couldn’t move without the quad sliding. While one of us was standing on the side of the quad facing the solid land, to prevent him from sliding the other dug a trench to level out the quad. All while watching the sand bank crumbling into the inlet 2m below us. Once the quad was level and the bank stopped crumbling, we both extended the trench for a few more meters to where the track was wide enough again. An incredibly tense few minutes, fearing to lose our brand-new quad on its first outing, but we made it! What a scare!
The same afternoon we fitted the quad out for camping. He got a board on the front so we could load the tent, crab hooks etc. and on the back, we cable tied some milk crates for various smaller things. The esky / cooler fitted perfectly in between the crates, secured with octopus straps.
This was the start to a new sort of adventure. Every few days we’d load up the quad with camping, cooking, and fishing gear and head out for an overnighter along the beach. Soon we had our favourite spot to go to. Hidden in the dunes but with view of the ocean and plenty of wood around for our campfires we used to cook.
On the way to our favourite spot were rockpools if the tide was right. Exploring them was good fun – there were heaps of octopus, which spray you with water to alert you not to step on them, very clever. One day we found a turtle trapped by the tide. And there was an old van rusting away, lost to the tide way back no doubt. There were corals to admire and other sea life to observe I have never seen before.
Near the rock pools is a track that leads to a station, there you find the remains of a whale. Lots of the vertebras have been ‘stolen’ over the time but there are still a few there, so was the jawbone.
The first time we camped at this spot, my partner let me fish while he packed up camp. There seems to be something about him collecting wood or packing camp while I fish… remember the over 1m Barra? If not check out the blog “Fitzroy River”. Anyway, that day I caught my biggest Threadfin Salmon – 1.02m! I had no knife or pliers with me and once again had to shout for his assistance.
Exploring further south of the first and favourite camp spot we couldn’t get around the last bit of rocks due to the tide. To pass the time we fished and I caught a decent sized Queenie. They are not bad, but not as flavourful as a Salmon so we let him go.
We went very far south, all the way to Cape Keraudren. We explored the Dunes, found a dolphin skull and got into such unchartered beach, that we found so many of very big shells. One little bay was purely made of small shells and we collected all the water bottles we could fit on the quad to safe the ocean from the broken down plastic pieces.
Jaffles? What’s that? I never heard of it, I thought, turned out, I just didn’t know the Aussie way of making jaffles out camping. In Europe we have them electric sandwich toasters, I swear a proper Aussie campfire jaffle is sooooo much tastier!
One night the tide was out and the reflection of the stars and especially Venus was fantastic to watch on the plain. We went for a long walk out on the drained beach to find a good spot for a picture of ‘the staircase to Venus’. On the way my phone fell out of my pocket was was lost in the darkness. I found it the next morning when the tide was out again and to my surprise the memory card and sim card still worked despite being under sea water for at least 10hrs.
We met a couple from Port Headland who had quads too. We were very keen to explore the Anna Plains north of the first creek and they agreed to come with us. It’s better to have three quads out there as the Anna Plains are very soft, muddy sand. We crossed the first creek and had a fish at the 2nd one just about where the Anna Plains start. Our new mate caught a massive shovel nose and we never made it any further.
Then the lockdown was over. We booked a cabin for our last night to sort all our gear out of the rain and wind – quite a storm it was that came through. It happened to be my partners b’day on that day too.
So we celebrated that, but were quite sad, the Eighty Mile adventure was over. But with lock down all over it wouldn’t have been the same anyway, there would be so many people coming to that place. We treasure our extraordinary exploration, experience and freedom we had. We loved every second of our adventures at Eighty Mile.
With lock down over, we were off to new adventures.
In the next blog I take you back to the present though – our move from Darwin to Jabiru in the Northern Territory with some great exploration along the way.
Explored in May 2020, written October 2025
There was never a risk of losing the quad, I was in total control of the situation !!!
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