South We Go
12Nov/10Off

Week 10 The Nullarbor

This post in Francais

Heading across the Nullarbor, leaving Western Australia to enter South Australia, driving on the longest straight road, seeing lots of empty spaces, passing through towns of 10 people, reaching the end of the Nullarbor, visiting Port Augusta, playing with a Pelican at streaky bay, climbing on rock formations, reaching Kimba, the half way point between Perth and Sydney.

Day 63 (03/11/10) The journey across the Nullabor begins

The time has come for us to start crossing the 1215KM of pure nothing. They are small, when I say small I mean tiny villages of about 8 to 10 people living there every 200kms but apart from that there is nothing. Today we drove the first 400kms, the road way fine, we passed many road trucks, how I love those things. We almost drove right passed the first small town; it became famous because part of an American space lab fell from the sky here in the late 70’s. The town is thing, a petrol station/ motel with the museum attached to it and a caravan park next to it and that’s it. We are staying in a free camp stop 5kms from the village. We played Yatzi until we sunset and then cooked dinner while watching the sky turn to a pretty pink colour before drowning us in darkness.

Day 64 (04/11/10) In the Nullabor

Waking up early we continued driving across the Nullabor, endless kilometres of road ahead of us. Today we drove across Australia’s longest road 148.5kms. What can I say? Sadly we saw a lot of dead Kangaroo’s, a brown snake; those are dangerous ones, passed in front of our van while we were driving. We saw people cycling across the Nullabor, they have no fear. We watch people play golf at the golf holes on the way across. In the evening we stopped at Eucla, which is just 13kms from the Western Australia/ South Australia border. We visited the small museum and the old telegraph station. We camped in a site where, we should not really have camped, but the place was empty so we thought why not?

Day 65 (05/11/10) Last day in the Nullabor

After waking up to the sound of a truck that was clearly checking out our van, we made a run for it Bonnie and Clyde style, throwing ourselves into some clothes and running off. We stopped at the border village, where we filled up the tank and had some breakfast. Now we are in South Australia, the landscape changes here, the road winds along the ocean and we have the most amazing views of the Nullabor cliffs. At the last service station, just before reaching Ceduna, a group of aboriginals came and asked us to buy drinks for them. It seems they are not allowed to buy them themselves, more and more of them kept arriving so we for the second time today made a run for it. We stopped at the village at the end of Nullabor, Ceduna, for the night.

Day 66 (06/11/10) Ceduna and Pildappa rock

Ceduna is a very small village, well not as small as the ones in the Nullabor but still, within 2 hours we had seen all the sights and were back on the road again. We headed to Streaky Bay, supposedly a famous spot on the coast, a tiny village again with not a lot to do. We got the chance to see some pelicans before climbing back in baby hippo and driving away again. We arrived at Pildappa rock, a rock which like Ayres Rock seems to have just grown out of the ground. We climbed to the top and got rewarded with stunning views of the country side. It is amazingly beautiful here. I feel like I am in heaven watching the sunset way up high on this rock, far away from the noise and stress of city life.

Day 67 (07/11/10) Pancakes

After staying in bed for as long as I wanted, God that felt good, I got up, the first thing I saw was the Pildappa rock as we camped at the base of it. It is such a great privilege to be able to camp mostly for free is some of the world’s most beautiful places. To make the day even better we made pancakes for breakfast.   After being lazy for as long as we liked we headed off to look at other rock formations and spent the day bush walking. In the evening we arrived in the town of Kimba that is the half way point between Perth and Sydney, halfway for us on our journey across the continent. We met a nice American couple that liked our van a lot. I hope this is good news for when we try to sell it.

Day 68 (08/11/10) Kimba to Port Augusta

Today we drove from Kimba to Port August, port Augusta is the first big town we have stayed in since we arrived in South Australia, it is nice to have everything you need in one place. We did the shopping, filled up baby hippo and spent the day at the campsite we choose that had a swimming pool, very nice on this very hot day. We spent the rest of the day doing laundry and enjoying the sunshine, just relaxing after the long days of driving we have just done.

Day 69 (09/11/10) Port Augusta

We visited the Botanical gardens of Port Augusta this morning, the gardens were very interesting because not only did they show you the plants of the region, but they set up mini gardens showing you which kind of plants you can have in your garden and how much water each garden type needs. This is a great way to learn what kind of garden you can have if you live in a dry part of the country with water restrictions. We then visited the tower of Port Augusta that gave us a view of the city, it was hard for me as I had to climb up the steps to a high point, which I don’t like doing. In the evening we drove along the road that leads from Port Augusta to Adelaide and stopped in Red Banks national park near the Clare valley, where we saw some more kangaroos, but sadly no wombats.

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