Eighty Mile Beach is an actual beach along the north-west coast of Western Australia about half-way between the towns of Broome and Port Hedland. As the name suggest, it is about 80 miles long and forms the coastline where the Great Sandy Desert approaches the Indian Ocean. Johns described the beach as "eighty miles of sand without a pebble" but in reality the beach is sand with a high proportion of shell material.
In Biggles in Australia, von Stalhein came ashore at Eighty Mile Beach after being shipwrecked in the See Taube.
Later, when Biggles arrived in Australia to investigate the purpose of von Stalhein's appearance, he planned, in the first instance, to locate the wreck of the See Taube. To do this he planned to deploy the Otter amphibian to search the islands off the coast of Western Australian, using Eighty Mile beach as a base where the Otter can be refuelled using his Halifax as a refuelling tender.
Later, in searching for evidence to implicate von Stalhein's gang, especially in the murder of Toto Wada, Bill Gilson suggested to Biggles that they should investigate the boat von Stalhein landed in. If it could be proved that the boat belonged to Wada, then von Stalhein would have a difficult time explaining how he came to be using his boat.
However when Biggles and co. got to Eighty Mile Beach where the boat had been left, they found that von Stalhein's gang had beaten them to the location and had burnt the boat, destroying all evidence.
Typical features of Eighty Mile Beach. Not all smooth sand, but Biggles would have had no problems getting a Halifax down on such terrain.