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!