We reluctantly left Monkey Mia this morning.  There wasn’t much more to do particularly, but we were kinda in need of doing absolutely nothing. It’s been go go go so far, after all.

Driving all the way back South to rejoin the main highway only to drive North again just as far … and further is a bit disheartening.  At least at the highway intersection there is a roadhouse.  There you are tempted by the prospect of a morning coffee, since Monkey Mia is on bore water … a morning coffee is something to only dream of.

So … you get to the roadhouse and order 2 cappuccino’s and 2 maxibons for the kids.  “That’ll be $21.50 mate”, the Pommie backpacker advises.  Once the dollars are handed over you notice the premix cappuccino machine and grin and bear it.

Continuing on we got to the turnoff to New Beach/Bush Bay.  A narrow goat track that didn’t look too promising.  Nevertheless we went down it … how bad could it be?  Down the end of the track there were heaps of campers setup for fishing.  It’s a tidal flat area, so ya need to be a bit cautious otherwise you might end up floating out to sea.

Having no idea where the tide would end up we camped right next to the water … naturally.  Leaving the car and van attached for a quick getaway we set about a basic setup before having a squizz around.  Plenty of mangroves, crabs and fish.  I put a stick in the sand to work out high tide and soon had that sorted out.  About 3pm the stick started getting dry again.  We had about 20m between us and high tide.

Looking back at the van

Looking towards the water

We spent the afternoon lazing around and sunbaking … a first for the trip.  Hannah had a crack at snorkelling, but you needed to walk out 200m before the water was more than knee deep and there wasn’t much to see.  It was a bit windy, but there was plenty of shelter available too.

The kids enjoyed running around being adventurers.

About 200m out

Evening soon came around and the stars out here were amazing.  Not a cloud in the sky and the moon set about 10pm … Stars from horizon to horizon, absolutely gobsmacking.  A very calm, early night was had with the sound of the sea.

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2011-08-04.gpx”]