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Beach in Western Australia

Eighty Mile Beach also spelled Eighty mile Beach or 80 mile Beach, and formerly called 90 mile Beach, lies along the north west coast of Western Australia about half way between the towns of Broome and Port Hedland. It is a beach some in length, The judgement of the Court was delivered on country at Nyiyamarri Pukurl, a site adjacent to the Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park. Traditional ownership of the northern part of Eighty Mile Beach, within the vicinity of the Anna Plains pastoral lease, is shared between the Nyangumarta People and the Karajarri (or Garadjari) People. The two groups filed overlapping native title determination applications over the area, which were determined together on 25 May 2012. The judgement of the Court was delivered on country at Talgarno, a former military site within the Anna Plains pastoral lease. In the Karajarri language, Eighty Mile Beach is called Wender, meaning "a creaking noise", with reference to the sound of walking through dry sand. Many Aboriginal people with connections to the area now live at the Bidyadanga Community (formerly the La Grange Mission) and nearby at Frazier Downs. Several soaks, known as lirri, lie behind the beach and were traditionally important as sources of fresh water. Many of the soaks became Water Reserves on the Kimberley De Grey Stock Route, which was used until the 1960s for long distance cattle droving.

The Talgarno military base, east of Anna Plains homestead, was important in the post Second World War period for the monitoring and recovery of British Blue Streak rockets, test fired from Woomera, South Australia. A gravel airstrip, artesian bores and concrete blockhouses remain. In 1999 the Department of Defence test fired a missile from a site on Anna Plains, in connection with the development of the Jindalee over the horizon radar project. Since 1981 almost yearly expeditions by the Australasian Wader Studies Group have been banding and counting shorebirds there as part of a long term program of monitoring the populations using the East Asian – Australasian Flyway. Since 1992 most birds caught have also been leg flagged to discover their precise migration routes and staging sites.

Eighty Mile Beach lies in the Shire of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, in the Dampierland bioregion. It extends south west from Cape Missiessy in a shallow curve to Cape Keraudren , with its midpoint at The beach is about 100 m wide and has a gentle gradient. It consists of sand with a high proportion of shelly material, and experiences a very large tidal range with an amplitude of up to 9 m. The adjoining tidal mudflats vary from 1 to 5 km in width. On the landward side it is bordered by dunes, a narrow floodplain and, further inland, by a strip of pindan woodland or shrubland. Most of the land along the coast is covered by four large pastoral leases: Anna Plains, Mandora, Wallal and Pardoo, which are operated principally as cattle stations.

Along the beach, the primary dunes are stabilised by green birdflower and beach spinifex. Secondary parallel, calcareous dune ridges and swales commonly feature scattered dune wattle. Significant grasses include Whiteochloa airoides and the local endemic Triodia epactia, a resinous hummock forming species. Inland grasslands have been strongly modified by intensive cattle grazing and are dominated by introduced buffel grass and birdwood grass.

The principal conservation value of Eighty Mile Beach lies in the presence of very large numbers of shorebirds, for which it is one of the most important non breeding and migratory stop over areas in the East Asian – Australasian Flyway, regularly supporting more than 400,000 birds and especially important as a landfall for birds migrating southwards from their high latitude breeding grounds in northern Asia and Alaska to spend the austral summer in Australia. It is one of the most important sites in the world for the migration of great knot and it supports at least 1% of the flyway population (or 1% of the national population for non migratory species) of 17 waders and the Caspian tern. The most abundant shorebird species at the beach are the great knot (up to 169,000 counted), bar tailed godwit (110,000), and red knot (80,000). Other notable species include curlew sandpiper (60,000), red necked stint (60,000), large sand plover (64,000) and Oriental plover (57,000) on the beach, sharp tailed sandpiper (25,000) at both the beach and floodplain swamps, and little curlew (12,000) on the floodplain. Flatback turtles nest along Eighty mile Beach at scattered locations between October and April. Coastal plains in the southern part of Anna Plains Station are a stronghold for Australian bustards and support high densities of red kangaroos. The western part of Wallal Downs has a dense population of euros.

Mandora Marsh, also known as the Mandora Salt Marsh, is a diverse wetland complex based on a palaeo river system. It lies on Mandora Station, with the western end some 30 km from Eighty Mile Beach, beginning on the inland side of the Great Northern Highway, at the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert, in which bioregion it lies. Although it is included in the Eighty Mile Beach Ramsar Site, its environmental values are somewhat different.

Eighty Mile Beach is subject to a relatively low but increasing amount of tourism. A caravan park has been established on Wallal Downs at one of the access points to the beach, 250 km north of Port Hedland and 365 km south of Broome. It is used for fishing, seashell collecting and other beach based recreation.