Across the Nullarbor Plain

Any classicists out there will know that the name Nullarbor derives from the Latin for "treeless", but in fact most of the 1200 km trip between Norseman in WA and Ceduna in SA is through scrub and bush, with only a relatively small distance on the flat, treeless limestone slab that gives the journey its name and reputation. It would have been a difficult trip before the highway was sealed in 1976, nowadays the Eyre Highway is a superb road and the drive is not nearly as adventurous. However, you still need to be aware that there are few services and little water, and ensure that vehicle and equipment are in shape.

We had an early start from Norseman to travel the 700km to Eucla, just west of the SA border. Eucla is a tiny town, which still makes it bigger than all the other places on the WA part of the Eyre Highway, which are just roadhouses. Eucla has its own timezone, half way between WA time and SA time (although it doesn't do daylight saving) so we lost 45 minutes. We decided to give ourselves a rest at Eucla and stay 2 nights, rather than making it the overnight stop that most travellers do. The town started life as a telegraph station, when the line was built across the continent from East to West in 1877 and today houses people working at the local meteorological station and the quarantine post at the state border, plus having a police station and medical centre. However, it has been moved to the top of the escarpment which overlooks the old town site, which has been overrun with sand dunes. It is amazing how many towns we have seen on this trip that are no longer at their original sites, you think of a town as being fixed and immovable, but in fact they are sometimes surprisingly perambulant. We also planned to visit the met station, as they are open to visitors, but when we fronted up there was a sign on the door saying that they were closed that day, which we found disappointing.

Fully rested, the next day we tackled the last 500km of the trip to Ceduna. Once again we got away to an early start, as with daylight saving we knew we would lose 1 3/4 hours to the time difference. There are some terrific vistas from the limestone cliffs, looking across the waters of the Great Australian Bight, but we are here at the wrong time of year to see any whales, which apparently are a common sight in Winter and Spring. The final part of the road into Ceduna is quite a contrast to most of the journey, as it passes through vast grain fields and farmlands. South Australia has a quarantine point just outside of Ceduna, where they take any fresh fruit or veg, we had heard about this and planned our supplies from Norseman so we finished the last things at our lunch stop before we got to Ceduna.

Some people may be aware that late last year a new 'golf course' was opened across the Nullarbor, called Nullarbor Links(www.nullarborlinks.com). Billed as 'the longest golf course in the world', it consists of one or two holes at each of various stops along the road, starting with 2 holes at Kalgoorlie and ending with 2 at Ceduna. The holes themselves consist generally of artificially turfed tees and greens, with scrub, dirt or sheep paddock in between. We briefly considered playing the course on our trip across, but decided that we didn't really want to spend the time stopping at each of the roadhouses or stations along the way. We did have a look at the hole at Eucla while we were there, which didn't make us regret our decision!

Norseman

Norseman is a gold mining town about halfway between Esperance and Kalgoorlie, and is the western end of the Eyre Highway across the Nullarbor. We've spent a couple of nights here, although we haven't seen it at its best as it has been in the 40s both days. The town was named after the horse that, supposedly, got a gold nugget stuck in his foot when a stockman camped nearby overnight, thus sparking the local rush in the 1890's. While its glory days are long gone, Norseman is a neat town with some nice parks and civic institutions, and they have gone to a fair bit of trouble to try and entice the tourists who stop off after their Nullarbor crossing to stay for more than a single night. We did several short walks through the local woodlands near town, each

providing lookouts over salt lakes, mine sites and the distant ranges, as well as good information boards on the flora and fauna (who'd have thought there could be so many different kinds of trees that all look pretty much the same). We also did a very interesting heritage drive winding past old gold workings and the traces of previous boom towns. Seeing how little is left of once bustling communities makes you wonder how long we can continue to ride the current mining boom in Australia, and what will happen when all those minerals too start to run out.

We would have liked to spend a bit more time exploring local rock formations, but the heat drove us inside to huddle in our air conditioned van watching the Australian Open tennis.

Esperance

Esperance started life as a sealing port in the early 19th century, but now that the seals are fully protected they are getting a bit cheeky, hanging around the fish cleaning table at the jetty for scraps. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that scientists discovered that adding some trace elements to the local soil would make it fertile, and all of a sudden the sleepy backwater town became a major pastoral and shipping hub. Named for the French ships that originally discovered the sparkling blue waters of Esperance Bay and the 105 islands that make up the Recherche Archipelago, Esperance now is a major shipping port for grain and minerals, as well as a popular holiday destination. Not only that, they have a reasonable golf course, so we spent a pleasant week here.


The first thing we did on arrival was buy ourselves a new television, so hopefully we won't have any more problems in that department. Luckily the manufacturer of our old one has an agent in Esperance so we were able to leave the broken one with them. Although we are unlikely to ever get anything back from the manufacturer we have consoled ourselves with the thought that because the original tv came with the van it didn't actually cost us anything. Having got our major purchase out of the way we sampled Esperance's tourist delights. We firstly saw the bay from the ground, on a lovely drive for miles along the waterfront, following the beaches and inlets, then did a full day boat trip out to one of the larger islands. This included a couple of hours cruising, a 90 minute walk, some time on a glass bottom boat viewing the abundant fish, sea grass and corals and a barbecue lunch. We passed on the opportunity to use some free snorkeling equipment, but did go for a paddle! This island is the only one you can go on and was used by the original owner to fatten his sheep, rowing them over then throwing them into the bay so they (hopefully) swam to shore. To get them back he did much the same, threw them into the water and collected them as they swam past the boat.


Just east of Esperance is Cape Le Grand National Park, home to not only Lucky Bay, which supposedly has the whitest sand in Australia, but also Frenchman's Peak, providing a tough walk/scramble to the top. The photo at the left shows one of the flatter bits of the walk, which basically followed the right hand contour shown in the photo at the right here. Our Esperance experience was rounded out by a one hour tour of the port area, run as a fund raiser by the local Apex club, and a couple of games of golf. Mind you, John claims that finally getting to watch some cricket and tennis on television was one of the highlights!

Ravensthorpe

We finally got a call from the TV repair shop in Albany just after lunch, to say that our tv was finally working, a month after it failed. Luckily the caravan park had very kindly allowed us to stay on the site well past the usual check out time of 10:00, so we picked up the tv, hitched up and set off for Ravensthorpe, a small town about 200 km east.

Our first day in Ravensthorpe was forecast to hit a maximum temp of 45 degrees, so we headed to Fitzgerald River National Park, closer to the coast. The sea breeze kept things bearable, although we decided not to do any of the long walks, just a short stroll up to a scenic lookout. We then went to Hopetoun, a small seaside village, for lunch, returning home in the mid-afternoon. The contrast between the coastal Hopetoun and Ravensthorpe 50km inland was stark - from mid-20s to mid-40s. We closed the van up tight, put on the air-conditioner and turned on the Hopman Cup tennis tournament on the tv. We enjoyed an hour or so of tennis before pffft! The tv failed in exactly the same way as had happened a month before. You can imagine how happy we were, despite the fact that the tv has been repaired or replaced under warranty each time we have had a failure, we have been without it for 3 months of the 10 months we have been travelling. We have decided to cut our losses and when we get to our next destination buy a decent set from a big name manufacturer, if we get any sort of refund from the dud set it will be a bonus.

Our next day at Ravensthorpe provided much more pleasant weather, so we headed up to Wave Rock at Hyden, about 200km northwards. We were a bit concerned that we would travel that distance, take a photo then head back home again, but the local community has gone to a great deal of effort to ensure that tourists have plenty to see and do. The wave formation itself is impressive, and there is a very interesting walk that climbs up the rock above the wave. One surprise is the wall built all the way along the rim of the rock, which channels rainfall into a dam. This used to be the main town water supply, and is still an important water resource for the local farmers. The wave is only a small portion of the quite large rock, and there are other interesting formations, such as 'Hippos Mouth', shown above. We also did an informative 3km walk laid out through nearby salt lakes and scrub, followed by a tasty lunch at the visitor's centre. We passed on the antique lace exhibition, the toy soldier display and the wildlife park, and headed into the town of Hyden proper, where we discovered a terrific sculpture walk depicting the history of the area using scrap metal and junk. All in all we had a great day, well worth the 400km round trip!

Finally Leaving Albany

We extended our stay in Albany by an extra week, but after just over a month here we are finally on the move again. The reason for the extension was so that we could get the TV fixed, however as at the evening before we are due to leave we still don't have it back. However, the part has finally been sent from Melbourne (over a week after the manufacturer promised) and we are tracking it on the courier company website. We are hopeful (perhaps foolishly, given the history with this tv) that it will arrive in Albany tomorrow morning, and we will be able to pick up the fixed tv pretty quickly after that (how long can it take to replace a board?) and be on the road again. We've enjoyed our time in Albany, but we're starting to get itchy feet after our longest stop since spending 2 months in Darwin.

The extension of our stay here had a side benefit, as over Christmas our fridge suddenly decided not to work any more. In common with most caravan refrigerators it is a '3-way' model - able to be run on 240v (or AC, mains power from the caravan park), 12v (battery power from the caravan battery, or the car battery when towing) or gas. Experimentation showed that it was working in all except AC mode, so we switched it over to gas until we could figure out how to fix it. After spirited discussion on a caravanning website forum, we decided the most likely cause was a failed element, so we got out the instructions to try and figure out how to replace the element. The bad news was that it was too tricky for people with too many thumbs like us to tackle, the good news is that we realised that the fridge was still under warranty. Once workshops opened again in the New Year we were able to take the van off to the local refrigeration mechanic and get a new element installed, under warranty, so we would have had to extend our stay here anyway, even without the tv problem.

We've taken advantage of our extra time here to tackle a couple more walks in a local national park. The first was a very tough walk up Bluff Knoll, 3.1 km straight up (then 3.1 km down again). The first photo at left shows the view up to the top from part way up the walk, the second shows the view back down to the car park from the top of the knoll. It was much tougher than we had expected, and our legs were stiff for several days afterwards. Mind you, the 6 year old in her party dress who was skipping down from the summit as we got near the top made us feel that perhaps we weren't as fit as we had thought!

The other walk we did was up Mt Trio, not as long as the Bluff Knoll walk but still quite demanding. At least there were no 6 year olds to put us to shame - we were the only people to do this particular walk, which was made obvious by the unbroken spider webs as we pushed up the narrow track through the overgrown bush. These last 2 photos show the view from Mt Trio across to Bluff Knoll (if you expand the photo very large you can see how far below the peak the car park is) and the end of the track up Mt Trio. We didn't have to be told twice - beyond this point the sides of the mountain become a sheer drop.

Of course, the main thing we've done in Albany is play golf. We've both played 3 times each week here (except while Wendy's mum was visiting), with men's day on Wednesday and ladies' day on Thursday, plus a comp on Saturday and Sunday. We've certainly honed our skills with the practice, with a couple of competition wins plus several ntp's and balls down the line between us. The locals have been very welcoming, and the course was a good test. Mind you, we haven't seen it at its toughest, it runs beside the beach and in winter the sea breeze can apparently make it almost impossible even to walk upwind, let alone hit a golf ball. We've had only gentle zephyrs in comparison!