After being on the road now for almost 19 months, the long awaited crossing of the Nullabor was now ahead of us - a few facts and figures that I am sure you all wanted to know.
It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi). At its widest point, it stretches about 1,100 kilometres (684 mi) from east to west between South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA).
We left Streaky Bay and headed towards Ceduna, on what turned out to be one of the windiest days we have experienced in the bus. Wind gusts of over 90 kms/hr took the bus at times onto the opposite side of the road, and at times it was quite frightening, and where just lucky that one of the huge road trains that travel this road, were not coming at the time. We were very pleased to reach Ceduna and depending on the weather report, as to whether we sat it out in Ceduna for a few days or not. Took the opportunity to stock up on supplies before heading across the plains, fully aware that the prices were going to be fairly astronomical. We fueled up the bus with gas at 91.5 cents a litre, and knew that this was going to be the cheapest we would see for a while.
We headed out the next day, with the weather greatly improved and headed for Penong. The town of the windmills.
Penong is a very small settlement located on the Western edge of South Australia's grain growing belt. The town itself is an easy 75 kilometres drive to the west of Ceduna, or coming from the opposite direction it is situated 78 kilometres east of Nundroo Roadhouse. Scattered around Penong are dozens of windmills that pump water from the Anjutabie water Basin. This water is supplemented by the use of rain water and water is also carted by truck from a reticulated water supply connected to the Tod River pipeline some 15 kilometres east of Penong. South of Penong are massive deposits of salt and gypsum in Lake McDonnell. Each year 100,000 tonnes of salt are harvested from brine pools and exported from Port Thevenard to the eastern States. Lake McDonnell's gypsum deposits are the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and cover an area of 87 square kilometres to an average depth of 4.8 metres. That's a lot of gypsum. Cactus Beach is located 21 kilometres south of Penong and surfers from around the world and Australia frequent the area to surf 1 right hand and 2 left hand breaks.
As the sun was setting we took a drive out to the windmills of which there is over 30 in number and quite a spectacular sight with the sun going down, and the windmills sort of take on a golden glow. We then took a drive down to Cactus Beach, which was just a highlight as the sun set over the water near the sand dunes near the beach. We stayed at the very pleasant Penong Caravan park that night and for the price, it was just one of the best we have stayed in.
Along the Nullabor, there is a roadhouse about every 200 kilometres. Some better than others.
Nundroo Roadhouse
Nundroo is located 78 kilometres from Penong to the east, and 51 kilometres from Yalata to the West. In the 1860s the Nundroo area was settled by pioneering sheep graziers. By the 1870s Nundroo station itself had been incorporated into the much larger Yalata and Fowler's Bay Sheep Runs which ran for several hundred kilometres in an East West direction along the Far West South Australian Coastline. In those days Aboriginal Sheperds were frequently employed to tend the sheep stock. By the 1880s these vast sheep runs were broken up as the original pastoral land leases expired. The area was then opened up to more intensive farming practices including some wheat farming. Today the area still continues with its tradition of sheep grazing and grain growing even though the area is rather marginal for this purpose.
Nullarbor Roadhouse
The only bump on the treeless windswept plain. Also the best base for seeing the most impressive and renowned Nullarbor sights. You can board a flight here for a superb view of the Bunda Cliffs, the Head of Bight and hopefully some Southern Right Whales.
The Head Of The Bight
The Head of Bight is located 78 kilometres west of Yalata and 20 kilometres to the east of Nullarbor Roadhouse. As a vantage point to view the Southern Right Whale the Head of Bight is impossible to beat. Between June and October of each year up to 100 Southern Right Whales frequent this area of the South Australian coastline to breed and give birth to whale calves. From the main viewing platform Southern Right Whales can be observed at close quarters displaying a variety of behaviour including tail slapping, breaching, blowholing and rolling belly up. Frequently whale calves can be seen with their mothers lolling about or cruising beneath the 65 metre high Bunda Cliffs. The Bunda Cliffs are a magnificent sight in themselves and stretch in an unbroken line for 200 kilometres to the Western Australian border.
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| Camp At The Head Of Bight |
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| Sunrise At Head Of Bight |
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| Entrance To Head Of Bight |
Border Village Roadhouse
Western Australia's Agricultural Quarantine Checkpoint. We pulled in and got the usual, look in the fridge and so forth, but not really what we would call a proper check by any means and we could have quite easily had anything hidden in any number of places in the bus and they wouldn't have known. We had got rid of any bird seed we had and we weren't to know when we would be able to get the birdies any more feed. the people at the gate had some seed there, which was not necessarily cockatiel food, but it was enough to get us through, until we could get them some proper food.
There are gates here, as well as Ceduna, for those travelling east and you have to declare most things and especially honey. for those travelling with other types of birds, some will require permits, issued through the department of primary industries.
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| Fuelling Up At Border Village - Gas = $1.21 - 13 kms down the road at Eucla = $1.12 |
Fuel was such an expense going across the Nullabor, but nothing short of what we had been told and expected. Gas ranged from 99.5 cents a litre at Ceduna to $1.21 at Border Village. Unleaded and diesel averaged around the $1.88 mark and if you wanted premium you had to pay $2.05.
Border Village is located 12 kilometres east of Eucla and 187 kilometres west of Nullarbor Roadhouse. Situated just 50 metres east of the Western Australian Agricultural checkpoint, Border Village acts very much as a gateway to both South Australia and Western Australia. Nullarbor travelers will appreciate a short stop at Border Village.
The traditional owners of the coastal strip of land in this area of the Nullarbor were the Mirning people. Tentative European explorations of the Nullarbor commenced with Edward John Eyre's expedition of 1841. At the time Eyre and his 4 fellow expeditioners were engaged in a desperate quest for rich grazing lands and an overland passage to King George's Sound in Western Australia. South of Border Village, Eyre's expedition very nearly came to a calamitous end with the party forced to endure a waterless 5 day trek across the Bunda Cliffs. Salvation later came to hand when Eyre discovered native wells in the sandhills at nearby Eucla.
Eucla Roadhouse
Eucla is situated some 13kms west of the South Australian border and the name is said to have originated from the Mirning aboriginal word meaning bright.
Eucla was established in 1877 as a manual repeater station for the Overland Telegraph. A jetty and 1km tram line was constructed for offloading supplies to this remote area. At the time both the South and Western Australian colonial administrations operated out of Eucla's telegraph station. Before the invention of Morse Code South Australian staff employed what was known as the "Victorian Alphabet", and Western Australian telegraphers used what was known as the "Universal Code."
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| The Eucla Whale |
Mundrabilla Roadhouse -
European settlement of the Mundrabilla area began with Tom and John Kennedy, and a married couple named Bill and Annie McGill. In 1872 the Kennedy brothers and McGills trekked 1200 arduous kilometres to the east of Esperance in the hope of selecting grazing land at Eucla. Chronic water shortages, difficult terrain and 1500 exhausted sheep forced them to abandon their journey however. The Kennedys and McGills later settled at Mundrabilla homestead where they found good grazing lands and sufficient water for their stock. Tragically Tom Kennedy was later speared to death, and Annie McGill died during childbirth in 1879.
During the 1920s engineers from the Indian Pacific Railway also hoped to discover significant underground water supplies in the Mundrabilla area. Drilling teams were a common sight throughout the Nullarbor at the time, and numerous boreholes were sunk in the hope of discovering water to power early 20th century locomotive boilers. At Mundrabilla the mother of all boreholes was sunk to a depth of 472 metres. At that depth the drilling team were dismayed to discover that they had reached a bedrock of solid granite - and more to the point, there was absolutely no water whatsoever.
Despite receiving a miserly 6 inches of rain per year Mundrabilla continues to rely on pastoral activities for its existence. To the south of Mundrabilla lies the Great Australian Bight where a small Rock Lobster industry has developed.
For semi trailer drivers and other Nullarbor travellers Mundrabilla is a welcome rest and refueling stop.
Madura Roadhouse
Madura is located 83 kilometres east of Cocklebiddy and 115 kilometres west of Mundrabilla.
Originally Madura was settled as a pastoral homestead in about 1876. Madura's early history is rather sketchy, however for many years the area was well known for producing quality polo and cavalry horses for the British Imperial Indian Army. At the time these fine stock horses were employed in various British campaigns on India's rebellious Northwest Frontier. Later known as "Walers", these horses were bred at Madura by an ex-Army Officer who overlanded them to Eucla for shipment to foreign ports. During World War 2 Madura was a site of importance to Australian Army engineers who were intent upon upgrading what is now known as the Eyre Highway. At the time Madura was the only known site with free flowing bore water throughout the Eucla artesian basin. To obtain this supply the Western Australian Government financed the drilling of a borehole to a depth of over 300 metres. Whilst Madura's brackish water supply was perfectly suitable for grazing stock, it nevertheless needed to be desalinated for human consumption. Today the Madura area continues its traditional pastoral activities - mainly sheep.
Cocklebiddy Roadhouse
Cocklebiddy is situated 64 kilometres east of Caiguna and and 83 kilometres west of Madura.
Cocklebiddy lies on the southern edge of Western Australia's truly vast sheep grazing belt. Within the area are several large scale sheep grazing operations, some larger than a number of European countries. One such station is Arubiddy which spans an area over 3200 square kilometres. With limited rainfall sparse stocking rates of about 8 to 10 sheep per square kilometre are the norm. During its pioneering years Cocklebiddy was the site of an aboriginal mission. Today however, all that remains of the aboriginal mission are its stone foundations.
In recent years Cocklebiddy has gained an international reputation as a site for one of the world's largest cave systems. Ten kilometres to the north west of Cocklebiddy Roadhouse lies Cocklebiddy cave. In 1983 a French caving expedition created caving history by exploring Cocklebiddy Cave to an unprecedented distance of 6.4 kilometres. This record was later broken in 1995 by an Australian named Christopher Brown - bettering the 1983 record by a mere 20 metres. Cocklebiddy cave system is unique in that the cave system extensively penetrates an aquifer that lies 90 metres below the Nullarbor Plain. Within Cocklebiddy cave are a number of vast limestone caverns, rockfalls and saline subterranean lakes that extend for several hundred metres.
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| Desert Dweller |
During World War 2 Australian Army engineers attempted to tap water supplies from Cocklebiddy's vast underground lakes. All their attempts proved in vain however. Reports from the time indicate that Army Engineers were disappointed to discover that a thin skin of fresh water overlay a much greater volume of highly saline lake waters.
We stayed in Cocklebiddy for a couple of days, giving us the opportunity to take a bit of a look around, which included the caves and a trip down to the Eyre Bird Observatory. This 35km trip, was to be seen to be believed. Took us 2 hours! and the last 10kms almost half of that. Strickly 4WD all the way!!
Well worth the trip for those that like a little solitude for a couple of days, and the accommodation provided is basic, but nice, and they are always after volunteers, who do stints of 3 months.
Well worth taking the time to stop over for a few days to take a look around, before completing the rest of the Nullabor.
Of course, during our trip, we had been playing the famous Nullabor Links Golf course, and at each of the road houses along the way,each has it's own little hole and this we will tell you all about in our next blog. It was a great way to break up the trip and a little bit of fun.
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| New Holland Honey Eater |
Caiguna Roadhouse -
Caiguna is located 182 kilometres east of Balladonia and 64 kilometres west of Cocklebiddy.
Caiguna is said to be derived from an aboriginal word meaning "spear track" . The traditional landowners of the Caiguna area and other western nullarbor lands are the Ngadju and Mirning peoples.
European contact with the area began in 1841 when Edward John Eyre and his expedition passed within 20 kilometres of present day Caiguna. On 29 April 1841 tragedy struck when John Baxter was brutally murdered by 2 fellow members of Edward John Eyre's expedition. At the time, Eyre felt Baxter's untimely death was all the more ignominious given that he couldn't even be given the dignity of a proper christian burial. According to Eyre's journal the whole area was overlain with solid sheets of limestone bedrock, and apparently under the circumstances the best that could be done was to wrap his friend's body in a shroud, leaving it exposed to the elements. Nearly forty years later, a resident of Eyre's Sandpatch named William Graham organised a search party to discover Baxter's remains. Under the leadership of John Healy the search party did in fact discover Baxter's remains - minus the skull however. Near the site were also found a number of other relics, including the lock mechanism of a gun. By all accounts Baxter's bones were then packed into a calico bag and despatched to the Colonial Secretary's Office in Perth. In a peculiar twist of fate the final resting place of Baxter's bones still remains something of a mystery, even until today
Balladonia Roadhouse
To the east of Balladonia is Australia's longest straight road - all 146.6 kilometres of it. For those of us who are metrically challenged its more common name is the "90 Mile Straight."
Within the Balladonia complex is an interesting and well designed museum. Displays within the museum cover everything from Balladonia's early pioneering days to the dramatic crash landing of the Skylab space station in 1979.
Within the museum a number of remnants from Skylab can be seen. Amusingly at the time, the local Dundas Shire Council presented NASA with a littering fine, and President Jimmy Carter even rang the Roadhouse to make his apologies. The whole issue was something of a good natured diplomatic event with Canberra's American Ambassador visiting the region to inspect any damage that may have been done.
Norseman
When we got to Norseman, it was like the finish of something very special, 1600 kms of one of the longest drives in the world. But Norseman itself?? well not sure what I expected, but it sure wasn't here. Disappointment to say the least, with just a few basic necessities in the way of shops, and when all we really wanted was some proper bird seed for the babies, and we couldn't even buy that, so they just had to rely on their greens and corn, along with a few bikkies. For a little longer at least. The town is unimpressive with few highlights other than the metal feral camels on the round about. Many buildings just left with the facade standing and not much else We played our hole of golf and headed off to Kambalda, where we were going to sit out the 10 days until the CMCA rally.
Along the Nullabor there are a few emergency landing strips for the RFDS and it is quite amazing to see the strips and over the years, they have been used many, many times, by this wonderful service that offers a service so unique to the world.
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| One Of The Very Long Stretches of Road Along The Nullabor |
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| What Remains Of An Old Shop Front |
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| Metal Feral Camels |
So from Norseman it was onto Kambalda, where we were going to sit out the 10 days or so until the rally. Along the Nullabor Links we met up with a couple from Sydney, Britt and Oke, who were also playing the golf course, and turned out that we were staying at the same place. Along with being fellow Highway Wanderers, we just hit it off so well from the start.
We booked into the Kambalda Caravan Park, which is owned by the Mac Group and caters for miners accommodation - first class accommodation, whilst we were lucky enough to be getting a powered site, water, and free washing machines for just over $10 per night. Quite a few others there waiting for the rally and it turned out that we all just got together each night for happy hour.
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| Britt and Oke Finishing The Nullabor Links At Kalgoolie |
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| Enjoying Coffee After Golf In Kalgoorlie |
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| Happy Hour At Kambalda |
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| Barry and Oke |
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| Me and Some New Little Friends |
At the park at kambalda, they had a cafeteria where, for $15.00 it was all you could eat, and as well you could get a crib meal for the next day. The food was just unbelievable and so every second night we would go over and then have our crib meal the next night for tea. Great value and the staff there were just great and wouldn't hesitate to go back, next time we are in the area.
For now though, we have come to the end of a very long blog, and hope you are not bored with it, and enjoy the read. We head off from here to the CMCA rally in Kalgoorlie, and then we have been booked into to a house sitting job, just south of Perth for 10 weeks, which will give us a great chance to sit out the summer and see some of the beautiful country side in this are of WA. Until next time.............
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