Next stop was Ceduna with a couple of tiny wheat towns along the way. Each town seems to follow the same formula and has: a huge wheat silo or two, a hotel (pub), an ‘all things to all people’ village store (post office, supermarket, newsagent, betting shop), a caravan park or rest area, a rural supplies shop AND one major very odd tourist attraction. This might be a giant Galah, an old preserved Humpty, a pier where there’s no water, Gus the wooden chainsaw sculpture... It makes for quite an interesting set of photos and memories.
Ceduna was great and we stayed there for three nights in a caravan park right on the beach front. It was a substantial town of about 3,600 people and had agricultural, seafood, salt and gypsum industries and huge silos where the wheat is stored prior to loading onto ships for export. It’s the last major town on the drive to Perth across the Nullarbor Plain, so it’s the place to stock up on food, water, fuel and check the tires and oil!
The bay at Ceduna is called Murat Bay and we went on a very attractive walk along the grassy foreshore called The Encounter Coastal Trail which the dogs enjoyed and so did we. There were “interpretive” signs all along the way for interesting reading about the area and the Aboriginal culture. The town takes its name from the Aboriginal word Chedoona, meaning ‘resting place’. We have also got quite into the arid garden scene and now take a lot more notice and photographs of the succulents and many and varied dune plants. The ones at Pinky Point, Thevenard, on the other side of the bay were delightful and we decided that our next garden will be an arid native one. At Ceduna there is some ‘fresh off the boat’ seafood to be had, and Paul bought some very tasty King George Whiting Fillets to cook for dinner and another night we ate in the local hotel bistro and had Garfish and Sardines.
There is a long jetty at Ceduna and we walked out to see the sunset. This is one of the rare locations where the sun sets into the sea. It was magnificent to watch the huge red and orange globe sink beneath the surface of Murat Bay. And of course the night stars were fantastic too. Many Aborigines believe that the twinkling stars are the campfires of people who have died, or the spirits chattering away to each other – both are very pleasant ideas.
We had a nightmare of a last night in Ceduna – we had thunder and lightning which Muffin hates and she kept us up a good part of the night, bless her! The good news was that the leak in the roof air vent seems to have been fixed as no water came in this time – hurrah!
We made sure we were well stocked up with food, beer and wine, water, fuel, oil and most importantly had emptied our toilet cassette, before we hit the Eyre Highway which took us round the Great Australian Bight from South Australia all the way into Western Australia. Our journey from Ceduna in SA to Norseman in WA was to be 1,194Kms in total. The scenery gradually changed from agricultural wheat fields to Aboriginal lands with dense trees and bush and finally to just low scrub on a limestone base – hence the name Nullarbor Plain derived from the Latin meaning ‘no trees’.
Our first stop on this part of our journey was a little place called Penong, meaning “waterhole”. It has a hundred windmills to bring up water from bores and the usual wheat silos as well as an old Woolshed Museum. There was a strong, driving wind and scattered rain which rocked the motor home and meant you had to keep both hands firmly on the wheel, especially when passing road trains, but gradually the weather brightened as we progressed.
We planned to stop overnight in a rest area but got attacked by desperate horse flies that knew how to bite as soon as we got out of the van, so we carried on to the Nullarbor Roadhouse and to some semblance of civilization – a total drive of 300Kms that day – a big drive for us. A highlight of the Nullarbor Roadhouse was to discover a well maintained Par-5, 550m, 4th hole of golf out the back. Apparently it is part of the Nullarbor Links -the world’s longest golf course which starts in Kalgoorlie, WA and has its 18thhole 1,365Kms away in Ceduna! The course is advertised as having “outback style natural terrain fairways”, presumably you drive (in a vehicle) between holes...
The weather all the next day was absolutely atrocious and unheard of in this area. We had torrential rain and strong stormy winds and we battled along in the van until we reached the Head of Bight, which is a 12km turn off the Eyre Highway towards the Bunda Cliffs. It is premier Great Southern Whale watching territory and we had the timing right (May to October) to see mother whales and their young calves, so we put on our wet weather gear and rushed down the viewing boardwalks to be rewarded with the spectacular sight of at least 10 whales with calves frolicking in the sea just beneath the cliffs, not at all disturbed by the weather. They were so close that you could see their eyes and v-shaped blow holes and the callosities on their heads that differentiate them from each other. We stayed as long we could until a horrendous storm broke over our heads and we scurried back to the van to dry out. Such a shame about the weather, but what an experience it was!
We spent that night in a rest area and Paul made a vegetable curry and baked apple for dinner to use up our vegetables and fruit as we would be passing through the Quarantine checkpoint at the SA/WA border the next day. Any fruit, vegetables, seeds or honey that we had left, had to be eaten or be thrown away. We also had to remember to put our watches back for WA time.
Amazingly the weather was just beautiful the next day – a complete turnaround, with blue skies, no wind and lovely and warm. We stopped at several magnificent view points along the coast and our cameras were always at the ready. The drive seemed easy and we listened to music and audio books and enjoyed the changing scenery. We swapped driver every 50-80Kms with stops for walks, lunch and sights and the time and kilometres flew by.
The Quarantine checkpoint at the WA border nearly had us in trouble as we had forgotten we had a new jar of honey in one cupboard and an old apple core in our waste bin! Fortunately the Quarantine Officer who came on board and searched the van was very nice and just confiscated them both and gave us a pamphlet on the reasons why!
We passed through Eucla, stopped at the Madura Pass for a look at the view across the plains, and made it to a rest area just outside Cocklebiddy for the night. The next morning we tackled the longest, straightest stretch of road in Australia – the 145Kms between Caiguna and Belladonia, stopping at a blowhole and enjoying the changing scenery and several little walks with the doggies. After a nice hot shower and good sleep at Belladonia, we did the final run into Norseman.
The weather was bright but very cold at night and the strong head wind was making our fuel gauge move towards ‘empty’ at an alarming rate. We stopped at wonderful huge granite plain called Newman Rock which had little puddles of caught rain, lots of animal spores and lichen. The arid desert woodland and little spring flowers were beautiful, as were the Eucalyptus hardwood forests around Fraser Range Sheep Station.
When we were just 10Kms from reaching Norseman the engine warning light suddenly came on in the van! It was as though our poor motor home had just had enough of the long stretch across the Nullarbor and was ready for a rest... and so we carefully drove into town. Englishman Edward John Eyre had led an expedition to open up this route back in 1840 and we had “followed in his footsteps” to complete one of Australia’s greatest road journeys.
To see some photos, click on each image (right click and open in new window..):
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| 65_Wudinna |
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| 66_Poochera_Wirrulla |
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| 67_Ceduna |
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| 69_Nullarbor |
