Trip 9 – Nullarbor (latin for nullus, “no”, and arbor, “tree”)

Wind….  Best friend or bane of existence???  It was strong and relentless, so at night it was our nemesis, our adversary; it blew hard enough to cause the van to hum and whistle with occasional gusts that sounded like trains rolling in.  The good old Goldy made it through unscathed though.  However, on the flip side, it blew straight up our arse all the way across the Nullarbor and we got awesome fuel economy and could only smile, occasionally break into raucous laughter, at the suckers towing big vans heading west (poor buggers).  But make it across the Nullarbor we did.

Leaving Tozer’s Bush Camp, Rob (aka Tozer) put us onto a nice shortcut through the back of his property out to Jerramungup, saving us 25km, and altogether a much nicer drive than the main road.  Then it was off through Ravensthorpe and almost into Esperance (we managed to take a short bypass road to skip the town).  Turning north out of Esperance we had our first encounter with the gale force, head on wind but we pushed through to Norseman, filled up and headed east (now with a tail wind) out towards Fraser Range Station.  As we were making good time we decided to kick on past our planned stop at Frasers and found a secluded, free, bush camping spot about 50kms the other side of Balladonia.

Tuesday morning had us up at sparrows and heading towards Eucla for fuel, coffee and a snot block (aka Vanilla Slice) and during the last 200kms out to the Nullarbor roadhouse we stopped in at the three Bunda Cliff viewing spots offering fantastic views of the Great Australian Bight (pics below).  Our nemesis, the wind was howling on arriving at Nullarbor so we parked strategically to block out as much as we could only to find that an hour later it dropped to nothing and we were in for a dead calm, cloud free, starry but freezing desert night.

Bringing us to today, Wednesday, and our final leg of the Nullarbor out to Pt Lincoln, however first things first and 20kms east of Nullarbor Roadhouse we did a quick stop at the Head of the Bight viewing centre for some fantastic whale and calf sightings.  Some pics below which don’t really do the whales justice however I’ve got some killer video footage.  There must have been over 50 Southern Right Whales within sight of the viewing platforms with two mothers and their calves putting on a show for us less than 100mtrs offshore.  The first mother had a white calf which was really special to see.  Leaving the viewing centre just after 9am, we drove to and refueled in Ceduna before encountering our first heavy rain of the trip just as we pulled into Murphy’s Haystacks, a bunch of strange rocks in the middle of a farmers paddock south of Streaky Bay.  Using the Kinetic IT golf umbrellas we braved the elements to get some pics before finishing the last few hundred km’s down to Pt Lincoln.  Lots of driving over the last three days but broken up with some fantastic scenery and lots of talking shit in the car.

We’re now kicking back with a glass of wine, ready to head out tomorrow to see the sights of Pt Lincoln.

Hope you enjoy the pics, cheers Tony

Great Australian Bight viewing spot #2

 

Great Australian Bight viewing spot #1