To ensure the boys don't slip of the cliffs while going to do a pee in the night they were required to be escorted to the nearest bush last night. Sam woke me around 5 am I was very glad that he did as I managed to be greeted by this as I walked out the door!
We were up early as not only did we have a massive day of
driving in front of us we also had to go through a quarantine check point on
the SA/WA border that we had heard was pretty exhaustive. All fruit and
vegetables and the bags and boxes that they come in had to be gotten rid of as
well as the honey and Izzy and Gator had to be swept thoroughly so as not to
carry any weed seeds or other little nasties.
We passed through quarantine with flying colours except for
some potatoes and onions that somebody had incorrectly told us were OK. The
boys and De continued the tradition and pushed the van all the way from SA to
WA.
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| We past 4 people riding across the Nullarbor.....also a person walking it!!! |
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| Not everyday you get to drive down an airstrip! |
Twelve kms down the road in a small town called Eucla the plain broke into
two as the Hampton range rose up 30 to 40 meters. My guessing is that this is
the same limestone cliff that we were camped a top of last night but the sea
had not progressed to the base of it yet! We drove down the pass to the visit
the Old telegraph station that appears in ‘Are We There Yet’. We didn’t have
sandy sandwiches like in the book, but can see why they may have as the
remnants of the station were slowly becoming part of the dune.
We pressed on another 180 kms until we went back to the top
of the Hampton Ranges in Madura where the view was again incredible. The difference of viewing the plain at ground level and then getting some elevation was amazing.
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| And this wasn't the most expensive....we also paid $2.09 in Caiguna! |
150kms
later we pulled up for a very late lunch in Caiguna, as we were now running on Perth
time. 5 kms to the west we stopped at a cave blowhole that was pretty cool.
Apparently caves ‘breath’ in and out to equalise the pressure between the cave
and the atmosphere outside. All cave entrances are blow holes but you can’t
always notice it if they are large but as this one was pretty small you could
easily feel and smell the damp wind blowing up from below.
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| Note the tie on Jack's boardies and Sam's locks blowing in the wind |
Caiguna is also the beginning of Australia’s longest
straight strectch of road at 145.6kms. I set the video up and have sped it up
64 times so now you can watch an hour and half of dead straight driving on the
Nullarbor. If you want to get the full effect feel free to watch it 64 times
back to back ;-)
We dog legged to the right and 115kms later we were at out
camp for the night Fraser Range Station. It is an old sheep station that they
have converted into a van park and also has the 6th hole of the
Nullarbor Links Golf Course, the world’s longest golf course. It starts in
Kalgoorlie and ends in Ceduna with holes at each of the road houses along the
1400km stretch. I do not share my mothers love for golf in any way so I left it
to others to curse and swear and their small white balls!
Having lived in South East Queensland I have endured the
relentless garbles of the lovers of day light saving for many a year. However
tonight having dinner outside, looking out over the Fraser Ranges in the gentle
soothing twilight instead of trying to find a place to hide from the raging
hot sun cemented my viewpoint even further – Sorry Lozza!
We had made it across the Nullarbor and the boys had behaved
incredible well. We were in WA and have about 2 ½ months to explore all that it
has to offer. Bring it on!
Cool video champ!
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