FROM LUCKY BAY ACROSS THE NULLARBOR

Lucky Bay sunrise the morning we left

When we left Lucky Bay we had expected to be spending a couple of days in Esperance so that we could find a church in which to meet with other believers to worship our God on the Sunday. However, that was not to be. We rang the caravan park in which we stayed last time and there was not a space available for the weekend. We'd seen how crowded another one was and so decided there and then that we'd begin the trek back East after doing the required shop and fuel top up. We also realised that if we stopped early at Grass Patch's little community caravan park we'd be able to get a wash done and that was a distinct need. Grass Patch is approximately 75 kms north of Esperance and 130 south of Norseman. We did the washing and had an early night, but it was not a night for early sleeping as there was a blokes' get together on the property next door! Having no daylight saving in WA, the sun has been up at about 4.50 a.m., and so it was an early morning wakening prior to getting on the road north.

Grass Patch community caravan park

Do you remember the large fires that wiped out so much wheat crop?
It also ravaged the woodlands.

This is what the bush should have looked like?

At Norseman, we missed old friends from QLD by about half an hour, but we did have a lovely coffee and cake after again refuelling. We drove to Fraser Range Station to stay for the night on this working property. I had particularly wanted to stay as my Mum had told me how much she'd loved staying there, but it has taken 8 crossings [4 each way] before we've done so, and I sure regret not having done so while she was still alive. We spent a lovely afternoon and evening wandering amongst the old buildings and equipment, watching the daddy emus protect their young, sitting under the starry canopy and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. On our afternoon wander we had climbed a small hill and we were concerned as we could see the telltale smoke signs indicating fire in the bush north of the highway. That smoke seemed to increase as the sun set, but in the morning there was no more sight of smoke for which we were thankful.

Fraser Range Station

Fire somewhere on the Nullarbor Crossing

Especially for our Franklin family

I can be humorous ...

... and I can be serious

A number of Daddy emus with the littlies

The ringnecks are prolific but they are are gorgeous

Lovely night colour

Starry, starry night

As usual, we were last to leave, but onto the highway we went, relentlessly eastwards. The day was hot, very hot, the wind was strong, very strong and there was a severe fire danger with a sign on the highway that it was Total Fire Ban. My leg was still not ready for driving and Steve had the long day on his own to battle the wind and heat. It was too hot to stop except at the roadhouses where we made the most of sitting in the air-conditioning having a drink and a break. Coffee at Balladonia is good, coffee at Cocklebiddy is not! We stopped at the Baxter Rest Area for lunch, parking in the shade but I was quickly drenched and ready to hop back into the air conditioned car. I am so thankful that it was fixed when we were in Perth as I would not have liked this current heatwave without it! We ended up pulling into the caravan park at Madura as the temperature was still at the old Fahrenheit century even so late in the afternoon! I missed the wonderful nights in the bush but I sure didn't want a repeat of our last eastwards crossing of the Nullarbor where I ended up in hospital in SA with severe asthma! The saddest thing about today was seeing the carcasses of two magnificent wedged-tails beside the road, and, unfortunately there was another three days later. We only saw two flying above the escarpment near Eucla, fewer than we've ever seen. Why can't people slow down to let these magnificent birds get up and away from their feasting on road-kill?

We woke to cloud cover and coolness, a welcome relief after yesterday's heat but we knew that the second, even hotter front, was to come if the weather forecast we'd read was anything to go by! About 50kms before we arrived at the Mundrabilla Roadhouse we needed to pull over to put some diesel in the car. We have three jerrycans, and Steve had checked his fuel price app before we began the crossing so we knew that Mundrabilla was the cheapest. The wind was playing havoc with the fuel consumption! While Steve was filling at Mundrabilla I talked to one of three cyclists who were heading from East to West across the Nullarbor. I asked if it was for a cause, or doing it for pleasure. His response was it was for pleasure but they wished they were doing it for a cause. So many cycle or walk the Nullarbor to raise money for different charities. On one of our crossings we spoke with a cyclist who was raising money for RUOK. We know there is a walker on the Nullarbor raising money for men's suicide awareness programs, but unfortunately we missed him on yesterday's really hot day and I think he may have been in the bush keeping out of the midday sun. We knew about him from a young mum and her seven children whom we met at Lucky Bay. What an inspiration she was! Her children, the eldest being 16, were a credit to her, setting up camp like a well oiled machine, polite and interested when talking to you. Their old camper trailer, and her safe driving, did get them home to Victoria from this current adventure, and I feel blessed to have met SEVENANDME on their trip. Knowing that the coffee at Eucla was good, we also stopped there which gave Steve an opportunity to again stretch his legs. We drove through the WA-SA border, but from the west the quarantine is at Ceduna so we had no need to stop. There was a convoy of huge trucks sitting at the border and we were glad to get ahead of them as the road would have had to be closed to other traffic for them to move. Fortunately, this sort of convoy has escorts and transport officials to keep traffic stops to a minimum.

One of the interesting sights on the crossing is the RFDS airstrip, something that happens three times as the road is widened for those emergencies. Although we'd love to see the plane land, we know that it would only be in case of emergency and so we are glad we've never done so. We had been surprised to find another on the Mullewa-Carnarvon road, having thought it was just a Nullarbor phenomenon. I love the fact that we can learn so much as we travel.

Coming from WA, the time change was two and a half hours as SA has daylight saving, so when we pulled into a rest stop just over the border for lunch it was actually 3.00pm SA time. We thought we'd just go by the sun for a few days until we readjust to different times. We headed for a spot where we, and many others camped a few years ago on top of the cliffs. I was surprised no-one was there, but I wanted to cook up all our vegetables and fruit while the weather was cooler. It was strange to see the cliffs shrouded in sea fog! While I was busy cooking, I saw some little birds out of the kitchen window. Steve grabbed his long lens in the hope of getting a shot. Never before had we seen a white winged fairywren! It had the most striking royal blue plumage on its body. After we'd eaten dinner really late, we wondered why no-one was camping with us, so I looked up wikicamps [I can get the basic information without coverage] and I found to our horror that it has been closed as an overnight camp spot. There was a valid camp spot 6kms further on, and we hurriedly washed up, closed up and left. It wasn't quite dark and we were able to find a spot just as darkness fell. Phew! That's a lesson learned - always check the camp spots, even if you think you know them.

Our non-camp spot with sea fog

Crumbly cliffs

Our van back where we had camped in previous years

Tiny succulents growing in a windswept environment

The morning dawned hot and clear and the forecast temperatures were obviously going to rise. We pulled into Lookout 1 to get some shots of the cliffs in sunshine. Steve was searching the cliff face for peregrines or ospreys with his long lens, and a fellow traveller asked if she could take a photo of him to send to her kids as a hint that she'd like a long lens! Unfortunately there we no raptors, but there were plenty of ravens standing on the cliff edge panting in the heat. The Nullarbor cliffs are a sight to behold, even when one has seen them before. National Parks have done everything to protect the public, but still people get outside the protective fence and the crumbling cliffs have claimed some! At this lookout there is a simple white cross marking where someone fell to their death. The cliffs are up to 120 metres above the ocean below. The driver of a small tourist bus was telling all there about the tourist who fell over and the only way the authorities knew was that his camera was on the cliff edge. 

Another lookout, a sunnier aspect

As we drove towards the Nullarbor Roadhouse [also good coffee] the trees and bushes became smaller and sparser until we reached the western end of the treeless plain. Although the rail goes through so much of the treeless plain, the road only touches the edge of it for a few kilometres. Mind you, when on this stretch of the Eyre Highway today, the roadtrains that passed us seemed to suck us into them, something we'd not experienced before. We also watched one roadtrain be all over the road and I was glad that he had passed us safely! However, the real Nullarbor is still something to see, especially with the heat haze! 

Nearly to the real Nullabor

Flat, hot and dusty

With the heat still very high we pulled into the 222km peg rest area for our final salad of the crossing, but we made it as quick as we could as the heat in the van was oppressive and the flies too numerous to eat outside. We stopped for the night at the second rest area past Yalata and where we have camped before. It's the first indication of stations possibly being there as fences now lined a little of the highway. The temperature in the van, even with everything open, measured 39 degrees Celsius. After a cuppa, Steve went for his Wednesday run but I spent the time writing this whilst cooling myself with a wet facecloth. After dark we were invaded by lots of flying ants, and in the morning cleaned up many wings. I have no idea what happened to their bodies.

A favourite campspot on the eastern end of the crossing

Steve got in his run despite the temperature

It was rather dusty

Sunset time

During the night when I got up the sky was clear and so very starry, but by morning it was clouded over and remarkably cool at 17 degrees. Waking at 7.30 was bliss after the 4.50 starts to our eastern WA days. However, that stillness and coolness was short lived. We could see a front approaching, and knowing the forecast was for catastrophic fire danger we wanted to get away from our peaceful bush camp. In a very short space of time the temperature in the van went from 17 to over 30 and the winds became so strong that our heavy van was rocking like a flag on a flagpole. I take my hat off to Steve for being able to pack up the outside of the van in those gale force winds while I washed the floor. Why I did it, I have no idea, as the amount of dust blowing everywhere came in through the vents and it was just as dirty shortly after. We drove to Nundroo where the first crops, now harvested, were visible. Being Total Fire Ban, the harvester was sitting idle in a paddock not yet harvested. We popped into the roadhouse at Nundroo for a coffee and caught up with a group of bikies, Coffin Cheaters, again. We'd talked to them at Balladonia but never had we camped at the same place. Nundroo's coffee wasn't bad. I had forgotten that that was the roadhouse with the bright mustard yellow toilet bowls! They're quite a sight! Pushing on, we watched the fuel consumption going up with the winds. The green water tanks on a truck heading westwards had buckled. I was glad the winds were sort of behind and across us. Those travelling west would have been chewing through even more fuel than we were. We stopped at Penong where we were going to have lunch before going through to Ceduna, but, seeing the thick dust blowing everywhere and still having 74kms to go, we decided to ride out the day's wild weather with the comfort of air-conditioning at the Penong Caravan Park. We weren't the only ones. There was a steady stream of caravans coming in after us. Mind you, I remembered my Dad telling me that when the winds come up on the Nullarbor there is nothing to do but stop, and so I was glad that we made that choice. By 6.00 pm the temperature had started to drop but the winds continued unabated a while longer. My mother heart went out to a young family of cyclists, a mum and a dad with a small child each on a pillion seat, who were battling the winds half way between Nundroo and Penong when we passed them. I just hoped that they found somewhere safe to camp, but the 40+ degree heat must have been sucking them dry. I hope the little ones are okay. There are adventures and adventures, some amazing and some scary ... and I definitely put crossing the Nullarbor on bicycles with kids in the latter category. That, of course, is showing my age, ha ha! Having written this while Steve was out running, I looked out of the window and saw the cycling family riding in. I was so relieved I jumped out of the van and ran across to tell them I was SO glad they were safe and that we'd waved to them as we passed, and they remembered the van. I then discovered that they were fellow Tasmanians and through the course of the evening and the morning I found out what and why they were on their epic journey, a far greater journey than just across the Nullarbor! They, on their tandem bikes, have been on a far greater adventure than our easy caravan trip. Their website is swagfamily.com.au and I recommend that you take a read. They really are an amazing family, and, of course, being Tasmanians, we had people we know in common - such is the joy of our island home.

Swag Family - incredible people

Especially for our Tiges fan daughter
[a quick snap out the windowas we drove out of Penong]

Our last 70kms into Ceduna was without any drama under cool and cloudy skies. We saw harvesters at work but wondered how much they would be reaping as a lady Steve spoke to in Penong last night said their crop was in and they probably had enough grain for next year's sowing, but that's all. Our Aussie farmers are doing it tough. I know we do everything in our power to buy Australian Grown, but I am afraid that the abundance of so many food stuffs from overseas on the supermarket shelves makes it too easy to forget our farming fraternity. I would love to know how to create a more discerning public. Coming into Ceduna, having again reached the coast, we had no trouble at the Quarantine Station as we'd cooked up all our fruit and vegies. A number of times we had tried to ring the caravan park in Ceduna in which we wanted to stay, but we'd not been able to get connection to make a booking, but fortunately there was one powered unbooked site available. It was a small site and the proprietor suggested we see if we could park and then pay. We fitted, just, and settled in for a three night break in which I need to thoroughly clean everything before we continue our adventuring.

Some say crossing the Nullarbor is boring. I say they must drive across without seeing! Every time we have seen something new. Every crossing we have met such interesting fellow travellers. Drive across it - you won't be disappointed!