Tuesday 10th October

A phone call to organise a rendezvous with Brad & Denise, at the Bakery and Coffee Shop, where else!  

We do a bit more shopping, the butcher in Ceduna is always on our list because we can get really good bacon here.    Brad and Denise arrive as planned and we contemplate the next few days.

When we get to the Nullarbor roadhouse we’re going to take the Old Eyre Hwy to Border Village.   Brad needs to stop for fuel at Penong and whilst we are there a guy asks us for a lift to Yalata where he has left his car because he got a flat and then found that the spare was also flat!   He’s backpacking around the place and is currently working at the Nullarbor road house.    Brad can give him a seat and we can take his wheels!   It is well over a 100 ks to Yalata but when we get there, not only is his car still there but it still has all its wheels!    Anyway, he is very grateful and says he will shout us a meal if we’re in the Roadhouse.    We won’t be there tonight because we’re going to stop at the Head of the Bight and will see if there are any whales around in the morning.

Tonight we are treated to a Nullarbor storm. We watch it coming up from the west and are a bit concerned as we’re pretty exposed out here.    Whilst we wait to see which way it’s heading we are entertained to a spectacular show of sheet and fork lightning.    Have a look at the link, best viewed in subdued lighting.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AksnrQT2cvoGxgCdB3JA4VzLQbUB 

It is a rough night although mainly from the wind and rain as both storm centres seemed to have managed to miss us, for which we are quite relieved!

Wednesday 11th October

It is a beautiful morning with little or no wind and we go down to the whale watching point on the cliffs.   There are two whales and their calves under the cliff but photography is not very good there as the sun is in the wrong direction, but when we walked to the lower lookout, a bit to the west, one of the pairs had swum to that point and we can see much better with the different perspective.   These really are majestic animals, we’re not sure why they should come here to calf but are very pleased that they do.   It may be because there’s nowhere people can launch boats and hassle them!

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AksnrQT2cvoGxgGxx969IpuB4oNZ 

The coastline here is spectacular in its own right.

  

LINK

Our next stop is at the Nullarbor R’house, Brad finds our friend, JP, from yesterday and he insists on buying us coffee and biscuits!   

When we leave the Roadhouse we take the Old Eyre Hwy and quite quickly turn off on a track that takes us Murrawijinie Caves, which are really ‘swallow holes’, ie; where the the roof of limestone caverns have collapsed.   

   .

There are two other caves here but they’re not particularly impressive.

After lunch we get back on the Old Eyre Hwy and find that in fact it is in remarkably good condition considering that nothing at all has been done to it since the 1970s when it was replaced by the new highway some 30ks to the south.     We met one other vehicle on the track today, an older couple who had travelled the old highway in the 60s, when it must have been a particularly challenging and exciting venture. Denise too could remember the journey in those days when she travelled along it with her dad./

       Until the mid’ 70s this was the main road to the west from South Australia!

Eventually we arrive at the old Roadhouse/ Homestead at Koonalda, which was a station in the late 19th century and was still operating until 1988.

    

      

….and the usual… 

We’re going to stay here tonight and as we stopped the vans Brad discovered he had a flat tyre on his caravan so we set to to change it. Then we settle into the wine and nibbles and it is eventually quite late when we have dinner.

In the morning we have a walk round and investigate some out buildings and discover a rather strange construction, the only use we can think of is that it might be a sheep dip of some kind.

…. and some improvised fencing. 

The next day we are confused with the time, as ipads and phones disagree!  Some are WA time already others are Central.    We head off back to the main Eyre Hwy on a dirt track that is full of puddles created by the recent storms. The vans get more red mud on them. We stop off to investigate some wombat burrows that have fresh signs of activity but it’s the wrong time of day to see the animal itself.   

  

We don’t go far today and end up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.   The sunny weather makes it and the cliffs look spectacular.

Next day we have to pass through the quarantine station at Border Village. WA is stricter than most states but I guess you have to say that it works as we are fairly free from some of the pestilences that the other states seem to have problems with.   Pretty strong headwinds across the Eucla put the fuel consumption up a bit.     Today’s been a funny day in that we got up on SA time and then changed to WA time, ie; putting the clocks back 2.5 hours, so we had a long day!    

Of course, having done that, sunrise was about 0430 this morning –  who the hell wants the light that early in the morning, answer – Western Australians!

So we’ve had a fairly short day today and we’re at a camp site at Fraser Range, just east of Norseman.   We arrived in the rain which we hope won’t persist as we want to go through the Norseman – Hyden road tomorrow which is dirt and might be a bit soft if the rain is heavy or the road might be closed. Need to top up our tanks with water again before setting off.