Around Australia 06 - days 24-29

Ceduna to Albany, via Nullarbor, Border Village, Caiguna, Norseman, Salmon Gums, Gibson, Esperance and Ravensthorpe

 

 

 Day 24 - Friday, 23 April 2010

We set off on the Nullarbor Plain today.

What can I say about the Nullarbor?  Well, for one thing, a large part of it actually isn't treeless, as the name suggests.  It just has millions of the same bushes and trees across miles and miles of really flat land, as far as the eye can see, which is actually really helpful, because you can see other cars coming for miles and miles - or I should have said, km and km - so there is never any problem passing other cars that happen to be doing less than 110km/h.

While there were only about five types of growth, one sort of grass, 2 different types of scrubs and two slightly stunted trees, the overall view is sort of awe-inspiring.  It is all so BIG - and the sky is so HUGE!  We tried to photograph it, but you just can't. And, eventually you do reach the treeless stretch, which goes on and on.

 

Half way along our trip for the day, just before the Nullarbor Roadhouse, we pulled into Head of (the) Bight, which we were told by all was really worth seeing. We've written (the) because sometimes the word is omitted from the name. However, we found a number of pictures from the 1950s in the Nullarbor Roadhouse where the captions all included it. 

Well now, the views were absolutely beaut, once we walked down a gravel path for all the different viewing platforms.

The lady at the centre at the top, very kindly lent us a wheelchair for me, but it was just too hard to push on the gravel, so I used it as a walker.  But it was really hard, particularly getting back up the l-o-n-g path.  The flies were just such a nuisance that I just had to close my eyes and mouth, but, of course, they kept flying up my nose. Not having a hand to brush them away with, it made it very difficult.  So, very gladly, we finally got back to our car, where we had to eject all the flies as we got back onto the highway.

Anyway, after a fairly long drive, which makes you realize why long distance truckies fall asleep at the wheel, which one did as we were approaching him doing about 110km/h, but fortunately, he woke up and swerved back onto his side of the road in time. Anyway, we gratefully pulled into what we thought was going to be a small town of Nullarbor, but which turned out to be a roadhouse, for lunch. Very friendly people, really great food, in fact, too much food, so I was given a takeaway container to take half my lunch with me for dinner. They obviously had lots of visitors as the photo we took of all the different currency notes they had proudly displayed will show.

We pulled out onto the highway to continue on, when we noticed a sign warning drivers of kangaroos, camels and wombats, so decided to photograph it.

While B.was doing the photographing, I was sitting in the car, and glanced into the mirror in time to see a dingo stroll out from the bushes at the back of the car.  He stopped, looked suspiciously at our car and B., then casually walked around our car and stood in the middle of the road, watching B. photographing.  I lightly tapped the horn to try and catch B's attention, which he ignored and continued photographing the sign.  Fortunately, the horn honking didn't even bother the dingo, so B. got some good photos of the dingo before he strolled back into the bush.

Meanwhile, we still haven't seen any camels, wombats or kangaroos!

Back on the road, really so full, it was hard not to fall asleep, we decided to head for Eucla for the night, thinking yet again that it would be a small town.  But we were wrong. it is more a village, really.

We ended up going to Eucla and back to Border Village, due to the fact that when we pulled into Eucla, there were no vacancies at the only motel, so back to Border Village we went (12km), where they had a lot of empty rooms. So, we spent the night in SA.

Border Village is, as it's name suggests, on the border of SA & WA, and there is a quarantine gate across the road where they relieve you of any fruit, veges, honey, unprocessed nuts before you can cross into WA.

It also has a motel which was even worse than our motel in Ryde.  It was much smaller, just as dirty, &, of course no microwave, so our lovely new microwave came in handy, the TV wouldn't work,  and a tiny little shower recess. 

- J

Day 25 - Saturday, 24 April 2010

Well, after a night of reading and finally deciding to go to sleep at about 9pm (very unusual), we, of course, were awake quite early for once, so were ready to leave earlier than usual.  We were in the process of packing things back in the car, when we realised that we had a totally flat back tyre. B. got out the extra spare  wheel we had bought from a wrecker for just such an occasion, and guess what!  It had a nail in it we hadn't seen before leaving Brisbane. As we had never used it, we obviously bought the wheel and tyre, complete with nail! So, we were back to the skinny little space-saver spare wheel they put in many new cars now.  As we were discussing what to do, the cleaning lady for the motel told us that the RACWA man lived in Eucla, so on to the RACQ again we got, who organised for him to come and fix it. Meanwhile we had to completely unpack the boot to get out the skinny.

An hour and a half later, still sitting waiting, we tried to phone the RACWA and the signal on B's phone kept dropping out. B. was trying to find the jacking point, never having changed a wheel on our Prius, he was worried he might damage something, when the man who cleans the carpets of the motel (boy, did they need cleaning), came past and went back to the reception and phoned the Eucla bloke, who told him he was held up in Eucla, so the carpet bloke changed our wheel for us, we packed everything up again and went to Eucla on our skinny tyre. We got to Eucla, where the bloke pulled out the nails we had in both wheels, and plugged them for us for only $30.

We finally got back on the road at about 11.30am and decided we would have lunch at Mundrabilla Roadhouse, then on to stay the night at a place called Caiguna, which different people had advised us to do.

More of the very flat countryside, except that off to our north suddenly appeared a long range of low mountains, which, we were told by the lady at Mundrabilla who served us lunch, was the Hampton Tablelands. Low they may be, but they run so close to the road for such a long time that they are a very dominant feature.

 

Had another huge lunch at the roadhouse, where we decided to buy a few CDs to play as we drove, because we no longer can get a radio station, then on to Caiguna.

A couple of interesting things - the further west we get, the dearer the petrol is and the more expensive (and less salubrious) the motels get. I also haven't had a signal on my mobile phone since Port Augusta.  I'm with Exetel, and Bernard finally lost his signal at Border Village.  

- J

Day 26 - Sunday, 25 April 2010 (Anzac Day)

After a good night in Caiguna (comfy bed with lovely warm doona, quite old motel, but it had just about everything we wanted, except a microwave again), I went up to the servo shop to get something for breakfast, as I had lost all my fruit at the SA/WA border, and asked the girl serving if I could get a Sunday paper and if they had a post box, and she told me that by the time they get any papers they are 3 days old, and that a mail bag goes away every week.  She also happened to be from Brisbane - how's that for a coincidence?

Just out of Caiguna, we were greeted with the following sign:

 - and it means what it says. Kilometre after kilometre, the road just keeps on keeping on. The sky seems almost dome-like, coming down to the horizon in a clearly distinguishable circle. It's a bit like a great speedo check, as the 146.6 kilometres ticked over just as we came to the turn.

There are a number of signs like this scattered along the Nullarbor Highway. RFDS is the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

... and the emergency airstrip is the road ahead:

Another interesting thing was that every so often there was a small brick building with a huge array of solar panels, all surrounded by a big barbed wire fence.  We ended up pulling up and going to see what they were, and it turned out that they belonged to Telstra, which is interesting, as B. had changed his mobile over to Telstra, but still lost his signal at Border Village.

Pulled in for lunch at Balladonia Roadhouse, which was incredibly busy because it is the only place to eat for about 300 kms - definitely a good place for a lunch stop.

After lunch, off again for the final dash to get to Norseman, the end of the Nullarbor, for the night, where we signed in at yet another Golden Chain motel.  I have to confess that I am looking forward to going on down to Esperance tomorrow, which, I expect will be a slightly larger town, where I just might get a signal on my phone, and we can buy a TV programme - and also see some water!

- J

Day 27 - Monday, 26 April 2010

Well, we signed in to the Golden Chain motel, Great Western Travel Village, for the night and this is the first Golden Chain one we have been quite disappointed with.  In fact, B. even complained when he took the key back. We had decided that the Golden Chain group were our group of choice. Anyway, after leaving the motel, we decided to go on the Beacon Hill tourist drive, which took us up to the top of a very high hill, which overlooked Norseman.  Not only did it take us up high, but we drove past a mountainous slag heap, left over from all the gold mining, which is still the industry that supports Norseman.  It is incredible to think that it was man made, it is so big.

Norseman is named after the horse credited with finding the gold, which started it all:

Apparently, his owner noticed he was lame in one leg, and found a nugget stuck in his hoof.

After the tourist drive, we made a huge mistake.  We had agreed that we needed to get petrol before our next leg, but, of course, after doing the other things we wanted to do before leaving Norseman, we forgot to get petrol.  We were heading for Esperance, which is about 203kms from Norseman. Anyway, at about 10km north of a little place called Salmon Gums, our petrol guage started to beep, which meant we had 50 or so kilometres left (or so we believed). However, our map advised us we'd be able to buy petrol at Salmon Gums, so no problems. So we pulled in to Salmon Gums, and the servo was closed! Apparently, 2 weeks ago the proprietor had just "walked away". There was another bowser over the road, but the business it fronted was also closed. With our fingers crossed, we went to the pub, which looked like it was closed also.  After all, today is a public holiday.

Luckily the pub was open. The publican advised that the closest petrol was at Gibson, 80 km away. He very kindly gave us (yes, he wouldn't take any payment), his motor mower can of about 2 litres of unleaded petrol and a hose, which B. tried to put into the tank, but ended up with a mouth full of petrol. So, we had our lunch at the pub, then used my water bottle with the bottom cut off, as a funnel to put the petrol into the tank. We then drove the 80km to Gibson at about 65km/h for an hour plus before getting into Gibson and filling up. So, with the perhaps 2 litre top-up, we travelled a total of 90km holding our breath all the way. We must have been going on the fumes and the battery, because our 45-litre tank took 45.40 litres.

That publican's name is Alby, and his pub is the Salmon Gums Hotel Motel. He is a CraIg Lowndes fan. Say hello if you are ever in the area.

(In retrospect, we did not have to risk running out of petrol. Yes, the pub is a hotel/motel. They have rooms, and we could have stayed the night, and bought petrol next day from the business across the road from the servo! Duh! Talk about wise after the event.)

From Gibson on, we were able to travel at a lovely 110km/h again. The countryside all around, while similar to the Nullarbor, has lots of salt pans beside the road. Also, a lot of the trees and bushes beside the road are just starting to bloom, some with little white flowers, and some with lovely pink balls, sort of like large pink wattle flowers.

Now, here we are in a very nice room in the Comfort Inn Bay of Isles, overlooking the ocean at Esperance. I've done a load of laundry now that we have water, (while we were on the Nullarbor, we were a little surprised to occasionally see a sign saying, "Don't ask for water, as a refusal may offend."   We also now both have a signal for our mobile phones, we can get broadband on the computer, we have bought a newspaper with the TV programme in it, and have been able to post a postcard we got for Erin.   

Ahhh, civilization - you really can't beat it!

- J & B

Day 28 - Tuesday, 27 April 2010

Esperance is a singularly beautiful place, but before we come to that, some of you will remember the occasion when a spaceship crashed to Earth there. That incident is commemorated thus:

  

 

Yes, it really happened, and the fine WAS paid.

We climbed to hill to the Rotary lookout: 

and we drove along the 40km Great Ocean Drive:

We have passed a number of wind farms on our travels, but this is the closest we have come to one so far.

Wonderful!

Then we had lunch at the Chinese restaurant near the Visitor Information Centre. It was so big, we both asked for take-away containers, and had our evening meals as well.

We then drove to Ravensthorpe, where we stayed at the Ravensthorpe Motel. It's an older place, which has not been well maintained, and we decided not to set up the computer, so I am actually typing this in Albany. importantly, the motel was clean, and the tariff was one of the lowest we have found so far, at $90.

- B

Day 29 - Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Our trip from Ravensthorpe to Albany has been uneventful, and we have booked in for two nights to the Dog Rock Motel, a large, very comfortable motel, with a massive rock, shaped like a dog's head just outside. We then did a quick drive around, then went to a late lunch/early dinner at a cafe called Dome, which is a Perth-based chain (with a recently-opened Brisbane outlet too). We had too much to eat, and are now planning what we shall do tomorrow.

- B