In keeping with our determination to relax as much as possible while were here we sleep in and spend most of the morning reading on our deck and listening to bird noises. We dont of course recognise any of the latter but Issy thinks its a good idea to pretend that theyre talking to us and turn their sounds into words. According to her, one bird has spent most of the morning tweeting pass the bread please. Presumably its mates are taking their time complying.
We decide to take a late morning stroll along the beach. We turned left when we hit the water yesterday, so this time we turn right. I think this means were heading north. If we thought it was deserted yesterday then this mornings destination makes that look like peak hour at Flinders Street Station. We remind ourselves that we drove for an hour or so a couple of years ago to a soft white sand beach in Sardinia. Well that was the idea. When we got there we couldnt find a square millimetre of sand to put our towels down on, so we had to turn around and drive back to the hotel. Ive got
no doubt that the whole population of Sardinia could fit on the 80 Mile Beach (all 140 miles of it), and probably the rest of Italy too. You might also squeeze in most of the rest of Europe at low tide if a few of them didnt mind getting a bit of mud on their towels. It is so so remote here. Broomes nearly 130 kilometres away by road to the north, and Port Headlands about 500 kilometres to the south, and theres virtually nothing in between except for a couple of roadhouses. ... and the beach is all pure white soft sand. ... and there are apparently virtually no crocodiles or marine stingers here at this time of the year. There might apparently be the odd shark, but you always need something to keep people on their toes. Europeans would kill for something like this, well except perhaps for the bit about the sharks. We agree that this place is right up there on the list of stunning beaches weve been to, and places in general for that matter.
About five kilometres and no people later we put down our towels and wander into the shallows. I take
some happy snaps of Issy lying asleep on the sand with not a single other person or sign of civilisation anywhere in sight. Weve been careful not to post any holiday snaps on social media while weve been away, given that our family and friends back home are all in COVID lockdown, but if I did want to rub anybodys nose in it then one of these photos would certainly do the trick. Actually I can think of a few people whose noses I wouldnt mind giving a bit of a rub - our demented next door neighbour who shines lasers through our windows because he thinks were invading his privacy is one quickly to mind. I wonder if he still thinks that now that weve been several thousand kilometres away for the last three weeks.
Lunch confirms our previous suspicions that there are no people left in either Argentina or Chile; theyre all either here or in Broome. I tell the cashier in my very best Spanish that we were sitting at table 22. If only this was true. I meant to say that were in room 22. She thinks its amazing that Ive been able
to learn Spanish from an app. I think the only thing thats amazing is that Ive been at it for about six years now and still dont know the difference between the words for room and table.
I head out to take some happy snaps of the sunset. The tide has again retreated several kilometres and I hike out towards the waterline. The sand isnt sand out here, its mud. I discover this only when one of my feet gets stuck and I struggle for several minutes to get it out again. You can almost see the tide rise and fall here. If I had managed to get trapped, in a few short hours the water would have been about five metres over my head.
