16th - 20th Dec 2016
Feral goats, Emus, and rain
0014
Coonabarabran to Olary Creek
16th Dec 2016
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| Olary Creek camp site |
Through Broken Hill which doesn’t have a
lot to offer, and then we kept going for
about 200 kms until I found a very nice off road area next to a dry
Creek Bed, yet high enough up that any possible rain wasn’t going to cause me a
problem ! Lots of emu and kangaroo foot
prints in the river bed, but didn’t see a single living thing. I had a great steak for supper, and ate up as
many veggies as possible knowing there was a Fruit and Vegetable Quarantine
place only 50 kms further up the road tomorrow, and turned in at about 8 pm,
both of us exhausted after a long day.
932 kms completed today.
Pics here for this section :- https://goo.gl/photos/nrtjFnLpqgRYJryN8
0015 Olary Creek to Nundroo East
17th Dec 2016
Quarantine pinches my fruit !!
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| Trroper ready for breakfast at dawn ! |
Woke up at about 5 am in our still deserted
camping spot beside the river (no water !!) at Olary Creek – Beautiful fine
morning but a bit chilly as dawn came up.
Packed up, and after breakfast (where I
once again ate as much fruit as I could !) and a quick walk round the river bed
with Trooper, we set off as the sun lit up the countryside. A long drive across South Australia to Port
Augusta, made more interesting by the quite high hills we were crossing all
morning. As high as 580 metres, in
places – Which would explain why it stayed quite cool all morning.
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| Lot of long straight roads out here |
Trooper seems to have settled into the car
routine better today – He didn’t really get too unsettled at all. Once I stop and turn the engine off, however,
he is up and ready to leap out !! I try
to stop about every 3 hours for him, but if he sleeps peacefully, then I keep
going ! If I time the stops right,
he does okay, and a petrol stop in between walks doesn’t faze him too
much. He does get all excited when
climbing in and out of the car down his steps, and seems to forget where his
back legs are, and slips off the side !
So I end up almost supporting him front and rear as he goes up or down
his steps !
Arrived at the Quarantine Station at Oodia
Wirra at about 9 am – And that’s about all there is in the town ! A man leaps out in front of you in his high
visability vest, and demands to inspect your car for fruit, veggies, plants etc
because this part of South Australia's Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone (I wonder if
anyone has told the fruit flies ? )
Since I knew what was coming, all my fruit and veggies were in my fuit
bag on the front seat so I just handed it to him and let him take what he
wanted – Basically he took all my fruit but left me my cabbage and
cauliflower. He then still wanted to
see in the fridge in the back, but after a quick glance he said I was free to
go. Now I have to find a shop to buy
some more fruit !!
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| Dropping down towards Port Augusta |
Through the hills and into Port Augusta,
which seemed much smaller than last time I was here ! Another quick refuel (I have 2 x 90 litre
tanks, and although I can go some 1200-1300 kms at a time, I tend to fill up
when one tank is empty just as a precaution, so about every 6-700 kms) and it
was on towards Ceduna, another 470 kms up the road. After the industrial Port Augusta (and nearby
steel plants at Whyalla), we passed the aptly names “Iron Knob” mine and then
headed on west. All pretty boring, with
lots of rolling fields with hay being cut – It is good to see, and I enjoy it,
but you wouldn’t want to get too excited about it !
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| Kimba - Halfway across Australia |
Passed through KImba, which claims to be
exactly half way across Australia between the coasts – Had never really thought
about it before, but it does explain why it has taken so long to get here – And
I am not yet anywhere near the Nullarbor !!
On to Ceduna, which is yet another place
you don’t really need to put on your “10 must-see places of the world”
list. Once again, I just filled up with
fuel so I wouldn’t have to pay the high prices out on the Nullarbor, and headed
out. Unfortunately my timing has got a
bit messed up because I really wanted to camp at Eucla at the other end of the
Nullarbor when you can camp right on the cliffs looking out towards the Antarctic. But I am not going to get there tonight, and
will probably be there at lunch time tomorrow.
Bugger.
Looked at a couple of pay camp sites as I
passed them, and they looked so sad that I decided I would rather free camp
again. Since it is not too hot, the need
for a shower at the end of the day is not too overpowering (pun intended), and
as it is cool at night there is no problem sleeping either. So I plodded on until I found a good site set
back off the road – Several other campers at this one for a change.
The target of 5 days to cross is starting
to seem quite optimistic, especially with the dog with the 30-60 minute stops
for him, and my increasing age which makes me feel like stopping at about 5 or
6 pm ! Where we have stopped tonight,
about 150 kms west of Ceduna, will mean we have covered about 2540 kms of the
total of about 4800, so it will probably be 3 more full days driving yet.
Pics here for this section :- https://goo.gl/photos/H1LNnSg47f5UANzR6
0016 Nundroo East to Dundas Rocks
18th December 2016
The drive across the Nullarbor itself is
one I always find interesting, because you always see something out of the
ordinary. Signs tell you that “Drowsy
Drivers Die”, and then you see quite a few wrecked or broken down vehicles
beside the road – Too expensive to take them away so they sit out here until
they rot ! 
We see sections of road turned into
emergency runways for the Flying Doctor, and lots of signs for camels, wombats
and ‘roos, although we don’t see any – live ones, anyway. I do see a number of wedge tailed eagles that
are feasting on fresh roo carcasses in the middle of the road, but they always take
off well before I get close enough to photograph them. Just before Eucla the road comes as close
to the waters of the Bight as it does on the entire trip, and you can not only
see the water, but
easily drive the short distance down to the cliffs where
there are walkways along the edge with stunning views along the cliffs – It
really is pretty barren out here, and the non-stop high winds make me kind of
glad I wasn’t camping here last night – Stunning ? Yes, for sure, but I would have been blown
away ! And underground are some of the
largest underground caves in the world !
The Nullarbor Plain is the world’s largest single piece of limestone,
and covers an area of about 200,000 sq kilometres. Water then erodeed this limestone over the
years, leaving the extensive cave system underneath.
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| The cliffs along the Bight |
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| Big road trains wander down the road ! |
You have the enormous road trains to keep
you company on the road – I always try to overtake them as quickly as possible
because the rear trailers tend to wander quite a lot from side to side, and the
road out here really isn’t that wide !
We negotiate the 90 mile straight, which isn’t as bad as it sounds since
the road does undulate quite a lot, so it isn’t as if the road is just
stretching out into the distance. After
passing through Eucla and yet another quarantine station (although
this time
all they take is my cabbage, which I was allowed to keep last time !), and then
I am in Western Australia at last, and heading towards Norseman.
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| The start of the 90 mile straight |
At Norseman I turn south down towards
Esperance, instead of taking the shorter and more direct route heading west to
Perth. I have never driven this road
before, so I decided that now was a good to do it, even though it would add
another day to my journey. Soon after
Norseman, I started
looking for a campsite, and found an interesting one at
Dundas Rocks. This was situated in the Great Western Woodlands, which is the
largest remaining area of intact Mediterranean climate woodland anywhere on
earth, covering almost 16 million hectares, - About the size of England !! But it is water that is valuable out here,
and on exploring once I had set up camp, I found I was on the edge of a dam
that was built in 1892 to collect the water that ran off the surface
rocks. The now abandoned township of
Dundas was a busy township in the 1890’s due to the extensive local gold mining
activity. Today it was just interesting
for me to learn of the extensive history of this area from faded and overgrown
signs.
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| Campsote at Dundas Rocks |
Photos of this section here :- https://goo.gl/photos/niN2ohBuaMmr5i71A
0016b Dundas Rocks to Wagin.
19th December 2016
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| Salt pans everywhere |
After a quiet night on our own in the bush,
the next morning as we headed south towards Esperance I was surprised to see
how many salt pans there were around here – They went on and on for miles – And
those were just the ones I could see from the road. And oddly, the salt areas were interspersed
with massive grain growing fields stretching as far as the eye could see. By mid morning I reached Esperance, where I
refueled at a reasonable price, shopped for some fruit and veggies to replace
those taken away at the border posts, and then went down to the waterfront to
check out the harbour.
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| Whale tale statue, Esperance |
Established in the 1870’s to service the
gold miners, agriculture increased rapidly, especially after the 1960’s when
superphosphate was found to greatly increase yields. The port for loading grain is very much a
part of the harbour, and although there is a pleasant walkway around the
harbour, it is only an hours walk. So
once Trooper and I had explored, we jumped back in the car and continued out
was west along the coast towards Albany.
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| Esperance water front |
I say “along the coast”, but in fact you
never see the sea – The road actually runs quite a long way inland. As a result, it is in fact an extremely
boring drive, with just miles of grain fields stretching into the
distance. And enormous piles of grain,
all covered in tarpaulins, and waiting to be transferred to (presumably)
Esperance for shipment out. I had
wanted to see this bit of the country, but now had had enough, so decided to
cut across country NW, towards Katanning.
As evening approached I checked out a couple of camp sites (so I could
get a shower before arriving in Perth !) but they were terrible, so I kept
going, and eventually arrived in Wagin where I found one that was acceptable,
but still nothing special. I object to
paying for a camp site that provides nothing for my money – If I want no
facilities, I can get that for free !!
Wagin to Perth.
20th December
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| Temporary grain storage everywhere beside the road |
After a good shower and an interesting walk
round a local park with Trooper, we set off the following morning for the last
few kms to Perth, and in fact arrived there by about noon. Nice to be back in Perth again, and good to
have finally arrived after 6 days and nearly 5000 kms. My last big surprise was that when I arrived
at Damien and Hannah’s home, not only was Janet there, but Damien was also – He was supposed to be offshore
! It turns out there was a big cyclone in the area off Broome where his rig is
located, and
he had been evacuated.
Fantastic ! That would make
Christmas even better ! So happy to see
him unexpectedly.
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| Finally arrive in Perth, 5000 kms & 6 days later ! |
Plan
to relax over Christmas, spend time with grand daughter Poppie, and maybe catch
up with a few friends in Perth.
Photos for this last section are here :-
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