Milligan Island Camping Node is a coastal eco-campsite, 3 hours drive north of Perth. It is located between towns of Green Head and Leeman along Turquoise Coast. Milligan Island is also half an hour drive from Knobby Head where we spent 2 nights with our friends before heading to Milligan Island.
For $15 per vehicle per night you can get a large camping bay protected from the wind by the dunes (most bays are big enough for two cars and two tents/caravans), large, clean long drop toilets (no smell!) and undercover picnic tables with bbq.
Update: The above was true in 2021 when we first visited Milligan Island camp. Now, you need to book it via the shire website. The cost is $20 per site, per 2 people (in 2024).
Nature’s entertainment at Milligan Island camp
We entertained ourselves by walking on the beach and looking for crabs that were very quick running into their holes in the sand.
Have you seen these creatures? They look like jelly fish but they are actually colonial organisms consisting of four different types of polyps with different shapes and functions. Known as Bluebottles, they are sometimes confused with Portuguese Man-O-War which are larger and have more tentacles. Bluebottles have elongated blue float bubble, not more than 10cm wide, and a long dark blue tentacle up to 3 meters long which has stinging cells. We found lots of these stinging bluebottles on the beaches of the Turquoise coast.
Children found great pleasure playing in the sand dunes, running down the slopes and falling into the soft white sand!
Water is very precious. After 2 days of free camping at Knobby Head we used 120 litters of water. (We had a friends’ family with us whom we shared water with.) Now with only 25 liters we had to ration our water to be able to last another day and night.
However, these bees found their bath in our basin where we washed vegetables and fruits! We were told that bees lost their homes due to recent bush fires and were now looking for a source of water. Sure enough they found it at the campground near taps or just in buckets or cups. Luckily, the bees were not aggressive. All this reminds me how precious life and resources, like food and water, is.
When a friendly campground host came later in the afternoon to collect our fees, she told us about the rocks with the hole, just off the shore. At the right time one can see the sun during sunset.
