CROSSING THE NULLABOR—– WEST TO EAST

Well you see here in Western Australia, we don’t have wombats….. well at least not the furry four legged kind! So it’s been about 20 years (still arguing the point of actually how many) but we have decided to head across the great divide (aka the Nullarbor) and go and see what the South Australian Eyre Peninsula has to offer.  We’ve spent the last few weeks making a few more modifications and tweeks to Little Bus, so now she is ready for her big journey. She is now the proud owner of  a 1500W inverter to keep the tooth brush charged, a revamped bank of 12V outlets, an extraction fan to keep the smoke alarm quiet and a dash cam ( a result of “when things go bang”)

Leaving yesterday after a lazy start at home we headed out staying at Karalee rocks free camp last night, it’s now fire season so thoroughly enjoyed that, even the food stealing antics of the local family of Butcher birds didn’t dampen our enthusiasm, something about tatties cooked in the coals that always brings back fond memories of camping.

A comfy night saw us back on the road by 8 this morning and after a quick refuel in Coolgardie headed down to Norseman and out onto the Eyre highway, early stop for the afternoon at Southern Hills Campground, overlooking an almost dry lake, in company of the crows in the tree above uss, bees in the long drop wash sink, it’s quiet, peaceful and everything you want from a holiday……

PS : no wombats yet.

The morning awoke cold, clear and early, though we snuggled under the doona and a heavy crotchets camping blanket…. The best kind that nanna always had for you. The place was deathly still, neither a hint of breeze, nor the chirp of birds, even the resident crow was still snugged up in a tree somewhere. But up we must, coffee, dressed, watching the sun awake the bush surrounding us. Surprised we were to have been in a small patch of Spinifex, unusual for this far south I thought.

7 Am and all morning stuff done it was crank little bus up from her slumber and proceed in an easterly direction, destination unknown but on the way we had caves to find, campsites to check out, roadhouses to visit, and scenery to see, what else would we want?, apart from the elusive wombats.

First stop Harms lake…? No lake to be seen but that is the quirky nature of Australia isn’t it?

After this the Balladonia roadhouse where we walked around the tiny museum, quite good in its own right … and free too. More of a tea/dining room with stuff to look at then anything else.

Off again and after Balladonia comes the “longest straight road in Australia 144.6 km (or 90 mile)”, you never see the sign “Australia’s second longest straight road” do you. So dawdling down the road we cruised on, waving at everybody, amazing at the cyclists, 3 today so far, and half way along saw a tiny handwritten sign indicating a photo opportunity, Hitting the brakes, and putting Jo into the dashboard, I pulled in wondering what this roadside P stop had to do with photo’s.

What we found was the “Nullaquin Nomad” see attached pic. Where you have a rock, write your name and date etc on it and then share it with the instagram #RFDS and you can take someone else’s rock and move it around the country if you want… Interesting notion, so find a rock we did, label it with little bus and our names and date then placed it on the pile, will be interesting to see if it is there on the return journey.

Now one thing that we are careful about is little bus’s ground clearance so side trips are often a choice made when looking at the actual road “do we want to take the bus down there” so we pulled over at the “Caiguna Airhole” and parked read the sign  then sat there wondering where the heck the airhole was as the sign gave no indication!!!! We were about to drive down a rocky track behind two caravans when we thought we might look on wikicamps for reviews as they often tell us extra information that the map doesn’t, low and behold we should be on it, “so get out and look ya lazy sods” so we did…. And low and behold there it was at the signs … well between the signs and the road, “huh…. who’d have thunked it?” The air hole is the same as the blow holes in Albany or Geraldton, but 30-50km inland, so no water but the same effect air entering and exiting the huge cave systems below the Nullarbor.

Later on it was the turn of Cocklebiddy cave…. 10km of rocky track to a cave that was closed “nah—ahhh” so 2km further on a 1km track down to another cave A-Makella ah something Arabic sounding. Reviews said rocky sharp track difficult to get off the road without bottoming out and so forth, Little bus didn’t even hesitate, with Jo at the wheel we cruised down, then picked our way along the track, bounce here, bounce there, but after 1km we stumbled onto the cave alright, and also about half a dozen cars on what was some sort of cave research activity, lots of gear set up. Nice large sinkhole though, so we bounced back and continued east, Little bus never once scraped or struggled so obviously we were impressed by her. (and also Jo’s driving off course)

Then roadhouse hopping, Cocklebiddy where Samantha and Bruce awaited the pleasure of our company, and also probably any fingers or noses they could get of you stuck them through the cage… for Samantha and Bruce are to rescue Wedge tail Eagles and the sign says “please do not feed the eagles, or put your body parts through the mesh… pretty much the same thing in our books.

Onwards again and here we sit on top of the Madura Pass camped up for the night, watching the birds soar, looking out over the plains below right to the horizon 30 kilometres away. The sound of the vehicles coming up the pass is offset by the sounds of the birds, critters and off course the buzz of some flies but not many.

Could be a great sunrise in the morning, looking forward to having a fire tonight and probably some hotdogs for tea

Tues 2^nd May

Well we were right about the sunrise, it was majestic, fog down on the plains and a little up amongst the trees, took a whole heap of pics before we coffee’d up and headed down the slope, Fuelling up was $2.49 per litre but we filled up, you just have to do it sometimes…., then we carried on east a few more roadhouses to stop at checking the fuel prices as we went, and ended up at Eucla the last WA town before the border, an interesting little place, no phone service for us, but we toddled down to have a look at the Old Telegraph Station, It seems the ruins are a bit misleading as after we wandered in and around them, taking particular delight in the small birds fluttering around, miners and honeyeaters mostly. We headed back up the hill and had a gander at another roadside museum, This one had pictures of the telegraph station as it was in 1877, a much bigger building than exists now, almost twice the size, but as we know places get ransacked for the building materials….

Had lunch at Eucla (still on our WA time) then time travelled the 15km to the border, All I can say of the border village is how expensive it was, the fuel jumped by 20 cents over Eucla, but it was busy in there and had a better range of everything….. Once again it’s surprising how little tourist information there is in these road houses, no information on the road ahead….. so after the border we are to all intense and purposes flying blind!

But head on we must, 64 km later finds us on the Australian Bight, If you trust the GPS then we are literally in the water as the little bus icon travelled over the edge, as it is we are camped 10m from the cliff edge, (yes we checked the solidity of the ground) and am spending the night getting gently rocked from the wind and listening to the roar of the waves far below…. On the pic below you can see a really little dot sitting on top of the cliff….. That’s us!

The afternoon was spent just relaxing and enjoying the spectacular cliffs of the coast line, now we’ve had tea and soon off to sleep.

See you tomorrow

OH and still no wombats (we did see a yellow sign with a wombat’s picture on it…. Does that count?”)

The moon is so big in the sky, the air so clear when you look at it through binoculars you can see incredible detail….another special amazing thing about our country, get away from the cities and it just continues to make you go “wow”

Overnight a few more campers came in, but the sunrise again the next morning broke over the cliffs, and we marvelled at nature’s splendour again.

Heading east we called in a hundred or so clicks to a viewing platform right at the head of the Australian Bight… the Bunda cliffs and wow still spectacular if not more so!

Plodding back along it was on the lookout for the “Wombat Motel” a spot where there were lots of wombat holes, we had the GPS coordinates but that was all… so getting closer getting closer, looking for a track or a sign or something. Bang on we found a little track heading south, so bounced down it and lo and behold found a skeleton, obviously wombat as you could see the plates on the back vertebrae. So we knew we were close then bounced a few more hundred metres and saw the holes “ooohh excitement building” I thought then we had gone past so after a 6 point turn on a skinny track Little bus bounced back, Jo deposited me on the track next to said wombat holes and while I traipsed around like an excited schoolboy in a chocolate shop she went and studied the skeleton again. Outside of one hole found a patch of oyster shells… “hmmm didn’t think wombats ate oysters says I to myself, a habit I’ve picked up recently, now talking out aloud in my own company.

Anyway a few pics, fresh droppings and lots of fresh wombat tracks (some wearing sandshoes apparently) I wandered back to the skeleton… or as Jo had determined by now either it was an eight legged wombat or more than one. Putting our combined Anatomy and physiology to the test we tried figuring out the wombat jigsaw but as with all jigsaws we were missing a few pieces.

Anyway toddling down further we called in to the Nullarbor road house which bought back a few memories for Jo, such as the mural in the dining room, the old signs and memories of a trip across the Nullarbor in the old ford sedan aged 8 or 9.

Eastwards we must go! forever eastwards… but we decided that as we pulled into our next stop for the night we could go on a bit, took a gravel road down into a little known place of Coorabie marvelled at how small it was… and left, spending the night in a different roadside stop, behind a gravel dump at the edge of a farm where there were lots and lots of “wombat motels”… buggeration huh?, but maybe in the night we might meet a wombat.

Current Wombat count… 0 alive, 1.5 skeletons and 1 roadside kill

Next Day still no wombats so sigh, pretty sunrise and saying goodbye to all the wombats tucked up in their nice warm holes we left, on to Ceduna, stopping in at Penong… Home of the “Largest Windmill…” thats its claim to fame and thats about all we can say of Penong…. Oh and Lake Macdonnell that was meant to be pink on one side blue on the other wasn’t… well maybe just a wee tiny bit.

Anyway finally we passed the quarantine station and into Ceduna for restocking checking emails and so forth, Spent the day in Ceduna, walked on the jetty and bought fresh food, then realised our stay was actually meant to be on the other side of the quarantine station so “buggeration” had to find a new spot so went with our back up plan… Wattelbee conservation Park. 10km down a gravel road found this picturesque little campsite by the water, great scenery, only one other campsite… a caravan. I wondered out aloud “why”but then thought “great, nice and quiet” cost us $13 so set up, had tea and settled in.

Stay tuned for what happened that night!!!!!!!!