Tues 5 Nov 2013 - Nullarbor again then surf!

We woke early and so we were on the road at 8.00am, but stopped fairly quickly, as we saw a rain water tank - like gold dust out here! It has to be boiled for drinking, but we can use it for cooking, tea and washing up. 

We also had to stop for petrol at the Mundrabilla Roadhouse. There are plenty of roadhouses, at least every 200kms, selling fuel and offering motel accommodation and caravan parks.

Today's overcast and we could see rain coming down in the distance. It's quite windy too, the upside is that there are less flies, but the downside is that it's a head wind from the East, so we'll use more fuel. To our left, there's a long hill, running parallel to the road and there are more little trees again.

To combat the boredom of the long drive, there's a hole of golf to play at every small town (basically roadhouse) along the way, making it the longest golf course in the world. 

As we're not golfers, we found more musical (?) ways to relieve the tedium of the long, straight road. When Rodger was driving, he played harmonica along to a Blues CD. When it was my turn to drive, I sang Solidarity songs, with the practise CD while Rodger played guitar in the back - It's fortunate we don't have any passengers!

At 9.50am we crossed the Border into SA, where there's a hospital and a police station. We don't have to go through quarantine until we get to Ceduna, probably tomorrow, so we have to eat lots of fruit today!

 Almost as soon as we'd entered SA, we came to the Bight, just 200m from the road? At this point there's a beach but we stopped again about 50 Kms later and there  was an impressive view of sheer limestone cliffs.

Then we came to the Head of the Bight.

When we stopped for lunch, at the Nullarbor Roadhouse, the temp was 39.5C and the wind was so hot, it dried out our sandwiches before we could eat them! Whilst speaking to the staff here, we found that we're now on Adelaide time and have to go forward another 45 mins - only 1.5hrs behind Sydney now.

We were expecting to be in the Outback until we at least got to Ceduna tomorrow but when we were approaching Nundroo, we suddenly found ourselves driving through vast wheat fields first on one side and then on both sides of the road!

There's a surf beach on the Bight, called Cactus, and we are aiming to spend the night there. We reached the turnoff about 5.00pm and then travelled down 21kms of dirt track, past pink salt lakes and tall, white sand dunes until we finally reached the beach and yes! finally there was good swell and several other guys out, enjoying it. We were pleased to find that there's also a basic camping ground here.

 When we got out of the car, we saw that the wind had been so strong, it had moved Rodger's surf board from one side of the roof to the other!

It was now 6.00pm and I was worried about shark feeding time, but the camping ground manager said it doesn't get dark here until after the sun goes down at 8.00pm! Such a nice change from the long, dark evenings in WA.

Rodger enjoyed his surf, catching lots of waves and being included and helped by the other guys. I just longed to get wet after such a long hot day. The surf was too fierce for me but I found a little sand hole in the reef, just big enough for me to float in, so I was happy. When I came out, I found that there's a cold bore water shower but with a wall around it so I could strip off and soap up - what bliss!

The Loo - beautifully maintained

BBQ and wood provided too!

It's a really beautiful evening, the wind has dropped and there are few flies and no mozzies, so we're able to sit outside and enjoy a cold drink from our fridge.

Mon 4 Nov 2013 – The Nullarbor

We set off from Norseman about 10.00am and, at first, there were plenty of trees but, after a couple of hours, the vegetation became sparse. It's a really lovely day, blue sky, sunshine and warm - 38.5C by 2.00pm.

We stopped at Balladonia where there's little museum in the Roadhouse, as most of the pieces of Skylab landed around here when it fell to Earth in 1979. Apparently President Carter personally rang the Roadhouse to apologise and offer to pay for any damage. The tiny town was suddenly inundated with reporters, and visited by Miss America, who was appearing in a Miss World competition in Perth. The largest pieces of Skylab were taken back to Perth and displayed on the stage during the Miss World competition, but it was so heavy that the stage collapsed!

We were interested to see that the Eyre Highway is not just the only road across the Nullarbor, but also the emergency airstrip!

On the first part of the road, there were small stone cairns every so often. We couldn't work out their significance, but some of them had been dressed up.

When Rodger was driving, he got the longest straight stretch of road in Australia, 90 miles long and the land was very flat, with dry, bushy vegetation of blue bush and saltbush. There were lots of white rocks sticking up, which I thought were sheep, until I looked more closely.

Even though we're not near the Border yet, we had to put our clocks forward 45mins for Central Western time, which is strange as there wasn't a Central Western time zone in the North.

We drove about 600kms and, well before sun down, found a rest area, with a toilet, where we can stop for the night, as we have seen many dead kangaroos today and don't want to be on the road at their feeding time.

Sun 3 Nov 2013 – Norseman

We decided it wasn't worth getting up early to look for surf, so slept in until 8.00am and then scurried round in order to get to church by 9.30am. We saw a church called "Gumtree Christian Fellowship" when we went to visit Mum's cousin and decided it looked right for us. We enjoyed it very much, it was much like our "Lighthouse".

After church, we set out for Norseman, the beginning of the Nullabor and only 200 kms away. We only did this short trip because we wanted to Skype the family before we get onto the Nullabor, where we think we will be out of Internet and phone access. As Sydney are 3hours ahead, we have to ring early if we want to talk to the little ones. We got to Norseman by 2.15pm and were able to sit in the park and catch up with all the news.

It's so much warmer here, now we've travelled 200kms North. We went to up to the Lookout and saw that Norseman still has an active gold mine and produces 100,000 tons a year.  There was a huge slag heap as a result of the mining operations.

 Tourist spots are the lookout, the mine, the hotel and the camels, although we found one fellows yard an interesting place.

We are staying at another caravan park with the $20 special. It has a good BBQ and we were able to eat outside tonight for the first time since before Perth - it's still warm now at 7.30pm.

Sat 2 Nov 2013 - Bogged in Cape Le Grande National Park!

We got up at 5.30am to try for surf again, but it's still overcast and blowing a  Southerly. After some breakfast, we went to Cape Le Grande National Park, which is 54 Kms East of Esperance.

On the way, we passed a farm where there is a replica of Stonehenge! It's all made of stone and an exact copy of how Stonehenge would have looked if it was new. The farmer charges people $10.00 each to look round it, and has built a fence, so it can't be seen from the road. We discovered we could see it from the junction of the road and his driveway though, so Rodger, terribly discreetly, climbed on the roof of our car to take a photo. Not surprisingly, the farmer noticed and started shouting and waving at him, but it was too late, the photo was taken!

The National Park is on the coast and has the most beautiful beaches we have seen anywhere in Australia. 

The sand is really white and the water, even on an overcast day, bright turquoise and azure. We visited a couple of beaches, pretty little bays, and then climbed Frenchman Peak. The path that led there was through heathland and there were lots of wild flowers, some that we'd seen before and some new ones.

The peak itself was virtually bare rock and the path went up almost vertically and was quite scary, as there was nothing to hang onto and it was very windy, it was certainly a good workout for my new walking sandals! We managed to get to the top, and on one side there was a cave that was very sheltered from the wind. Coming down wasn't as bad as I'd expected and we did the whole thing in about an hour and a half - we haven't had such a workout since we left the gorges!

Mel climbing about half was up!

Mel coming down the lower section

 Our next call was Lucky Bay and we were amazed to find a coffee van on this remote beach. We felt we had earned a cuppa, so we sat and admired the view, sipping our drinks and chatting to the owners, an Aboriginal father and daughter. 

Teagan makes great coffees and wants to expand her business here.

They told us it's ok to drive on the beach and that the little beaches in the distance were worth seeing. Rodger didn't need to be told twice, he's been dying to have a go of driving on the sand. We set off and went well, until Rodger went into the dry sand to avoid a slippery patch and then we got completely bogged, with sand right up to the base of the car.

Well at least it was light, the tide wasn't coming up fast and we were bogged in clean sand, rather than mud! We got out a folding spade that we'd bought for just this sort of emergency, and dug out the wheels and Rodger let the tyres down a lot. We stamped down the sand around the wheels, asked God for his help and then Rodger started the engine. I went round to the front to give a big push, but before I got there, Rodger drove straight out! We were very thankful and stayed on the wet sand after that!

 We got back to town in time to look round the little museum. It had amazing collections of all sorts of things, but it's main feature was the pieces that fell out of the sky when Skylab disintegrated in 1979 and rained down debris onto the Nullabor. Luckily nobody was hurt and no property damaged. The Australian Government charged USA $400 for littering – which they didn’t pay for 30 years!  The museum also had trains and cars from the early days.

 As the sun went down, it turned very cold, with a wind straight off the Antarctic, looks like we'll be getting the trackies out again soon!

Fri 1 Nov 2013 - visiting Mum's Cousins, Russell and Evelyn

We got up very early so that Rodger could have a surf, but when we got down there, we found that there was a Southerly wind blowing the surf flat and nobody out. We had breakfast there and then came back. It was overcast and trying to rain, so we did a few domestic chores and went back at lunchtime, to see if the surf had come up.

Still no luck so we had lunch and went to visit Rodger's Mum's cousin, Russell and his wife, Evelyn. She had prepared a beautiful afternoon tea for us and showed us some of the things she'd made and photos of their family. They were also able to tell us some good spots to visit in the Esperance area.

After our visit, I did a quick trip to Woolworths, to stock up for the Nullabor, and then we went to the movies and saw "Gravity", a movie set in space, which we enjoyed.

We were starving when we got back, so we drove by the camp kitchen and heated up some pre-cooked sausages in the microwave, then went back to our spot and ate them with salad and bread & butter. Hopefully the sun will be back tomorrow!