The Nullarbor and Beyond

After leaving Esperance we stopped at the small town of Grass Patch. Back in the early days it was a service town for goldfields traffic going to Norseman. Today there is a grain depot there, which had several piles of golden grain outside protected by tarpaulins. The town’s pub was built in 1927 and the old store/post office that was built a little earlier is being restored. We called in at Dundas rocks, a rest area in our camps book and from the name we thought it might be an interesting place. We discovered it was the site of an old town although there is little to show for it. The town was abandoned almost as soon as it began as the riches promised at Norseman, just 30 kilometres away, overshadowed the nearby gold find. There were some granite rocks there but we were more interested in a salt lake that was beside the road. We discovered that when you walk on the salt it sounds like walking over dry snow, it is bright white like snow but it isn’t cold like snow. (photo - salt lake)

We stopped at Norseman and got an information brochure on the Eyre Highway (aka Nullarbor Plain) and got directions to the Beacon Hill lookout over Norseman town. From here we saw large areas of salt lakes and in the direction of the Nullarbor as far as we could see the land was flat. There is a working gold mine in Norseman and it produces around 100,000 ounces a year, not a bad income at today’s prices.

We took 4 days to cross the plain, driving about 300 kilometres each day before finding a place to camp for the night. We spent one night in a roadside rest area and the other three at different roadhouses along the way. It is a good road, flat terrain with lots of long straights and the occasional curve to break the monotony. The longest straight is 146.6 kilometres. There wasn't much traffic on the road and most of that we saw were roadtrains carrying freight west. For most of the way the vegetation varied from low scrub to well wooded areas and the occasional grassy plain with bushes here and there. It is only for about a 40 kilometre stretch, around the Nullarbor roadhouse, that there are no trees at all, instead a sparse covering of grass and low bushes.

Once we were near the SA border at Eucla we travelled close to the sea and stopped at some rest areas for a look at the cliffs and the ocean of the Great Australian Bight. Here there are high weathered and crumbling cliffs, a lovely blue sea and waves incessantly thundering in at the base of the cliffs. The Bight is a breeding area for the Southern Right Whale but we were about six weeks too late to see any whales here. (photo- cliffs of the Bight)


At Eucla, where we spent a night, we visited an old Telegraph Station built in 1877. The one remaining building, built of quarried stone, is slowly being covered by the sand dunes. There is no roof and the rooms are well filled with sand. (photo - half buried building)


At Penong we stopped to photograph a collection of windmills. The town has dozens of windmills that pump water from the Anjutabie water basin to supplement the town’s rain water supply.



At Ceduna we passed through the fruit fly quarantine check. Being pre-warned of this we had cooked up our spare apples and tomatoes and after a quick inspection of the cupboard in the caravan, by an official, we were on our way again. We then spent a couple of nights at Smoky Bay. After five one-night stops it was nice to stay put for a change. The camp manager lent us a couple of crab nets and we spent an evening on the jetty crabbing. Over a period of a couple of hours we caught six "blue swimmer crabs" that were big enough to keep and caught lots of small ones that we returned to the sea. The six crabs gave us enough meat for one and a bit meals. (photo - blue swimmer crab)

We are making our way south down the west coast of Eyre Peninsula to be in Coffin Bay for Christmas. Here we will meet up with friends, Tom and Mary and also Steve who is joining us for a few nights. We stopped at Streaky Bay where we had a lovely campsite on the foreshore. The bay is very shallow so going for a swim entailed walking out for quite a distance then sitting down to enjoy the water. It was just deep enough to float! From here we did a couple of short excursions to explore the nearby cliffs and beaches. Many white sandy beaches, high eroded cliffs and some interesting rock pools. We also came across a huge area of white sand dunes where we had fun, climbing up some of the bigger ones, jumping down them and throwing sand into the wind. (photo - sand in the wind)

We went to see the seals at Point Labatt. The information said they could be seen frolicking on the beach, sleeping on the beach is a more apt description. We spent quite a while watching half a dozen young seals playing in a rock pool, their actions could be described as frolicking. On the way back to Streaky Bay we visited Murphys haystacks. These are “Inselburgs”, rocky formations formed by the uneven weathering of crystalline rock. Apparently these rocks were mistaken for haystacks, they were on Murphys property hence the name Murphys haystacks. (photo - some of the "haystacks")

Venus Bay was another nice relaxing place with a camping ground on the foreshore. Here the water is deep enough for swimming and the jetty is great for fishing. We had one evening when we caught just a rock cod (returned to the sea) but with a change of bait we ended up with two Silver Trevally, a King George Whiting and a Herring the next night. From this we had one nice meal and another one is in the freezer for later. We went for a walk around the south headland walking trail and saw about ten dolphins making their way back out to sea from the entrance into the bay. The next day we went to the same spot at around the same time and saw more (the same?) dolphins. These appeared to be feeding as they crossed from one side of the channel to the other, not far from our vantage point.