Eighty Mile Beach

Eighty Mile Beach runs for around two hundred and twenty kilometres along the Pilbara and Kimberley coast, a flat expanse of sand where the tide withdraws a long way and leaves a surface covered in shells in extraordinary quantity and variety. It is a Ramsar-listed wetland and one of the most important shorebird sites in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, with hundreds of thousands of migratory waders, godwits, sandpipers, knots and stints, feeding here after flights from Siberia and Alaska. A caravan park midway provides the only accommodation. Fishing from the beach is popular, four-wheel drives use the sand at low tide, and the sunsets over the water are the daily event.

What you actually see

• The shell beach - sand covered in shells over enormous distances.
• The migratory waders - hundreds of thousands of shorebirds from the northern hemisphere.
• The tidal flats - the sea withdrawing far out at low tide.
• The beach fishing - anglers working the sand at the tide change.

When to go

May to September for the dry season and the peak of the migratory shorebird presence; the wet from November to March brings heat, humidity and cyclone risk. Tides govern everything, including beach driving.

Honest expectations

The caravan park is the only facility for a very long way and books out in the winter season. The access road is unsealed. Marine stingers and crocodiles are a consideration in these waters, and swimming is not recommended in the warmer months.

Nearby

Port Hedland lies southwest; Broome is northeast up the highway.