Nullarbor Travelling

Well where do I begin.....at the beginning I guess!! ha ha!!!


I began my tour on Wednesday 21st February with a nice early pick up! I met Matt Man, American, as we were both waiting to be collected at 6.45am. Kylie, our super duper tour guide, got there and we chucked our stuff on the trailer before making ourself comfortable on the bus. Fred, Surge and Jeanette (sp??), all French, were already on the bus. We then had a couple more pick ups, first Alison, Canadian, and then Anne, Dutch.

We headed out of Adelaide, yay, checking out a Salt Lake on the way. We drove through the small township of Snowtown which apparently had the largest Mass Murder where 12 gay men were killed, after being abused, then cut up and put into barrels of acid - nice stuff eh!


We had a quick wee wee stop at Fort Germein which boasts the longest pier in South Australia so we were checking out pretty famous places here. We walked part of the way along the pier taking photos.

We stopped in the Flinders Ranges at Mt Remarkable for some food. We had a walk just before where we saw a couple of kangeroos. We got back ready to stuff ourselves silly!! A couple of rather rude Emus were hanging around hoping we were gonna be stupid enough to feed them - not us!! HA! We also encountered a Goanna as we left which bolted up a tree - funny little guy!


We went through Port Augusta and had a little tour at Iron Knob. Iron Knob was built because of the Iron there and from thousands of people only 150 live there now, its around 100 years old. They were at one stage mining alot of iron from here. It was quite interesting with Phil, swallowed a fly, who kept calling Kylie Jo even though he has never met Jo.......spooky!!
We drove on to Wundinna for our camp, we set our tents up - me with the ants!!, and had a great feed before getting some sleep.

Up nice and early again the next day, 6am, and after breakfast we drove to Baird Bay where we were gonna get a chance to swim with Sea Lions and Dolphins. We were there slightly early so waited on the boat for Trish, Alan and Cal. We were not allowed to were sunscreen so we didn't transfer it into their homes.....


We set off and checked out the sea lions first but the tide was still too low there so we went to see if the dolphins were about and after jumping in the rather chilly sea it turned out they didn't want to play. We headed back to the sea lions and were able to get in. After we'd jumped into the flat bottomed tinny we got to the reef where they were and jumped in. These little guys are fun and playful. I took photos but have yet to get them developed so to come!! They were swimming around us, playing, jumping and one decided to have a sniff of my foot which kinda tickled - he was lucky not to get a kick!!! It was fun and we stayed swimming with them for about 45 minutes!!

Once we'd got back onto the bigger boat we headed back to the dolphins. We jumped in and there were about 3/4 dolphins but they didn't want to play either, although one did swim right under me which was cool. We headed back to shore then as it was obvious they weren't in the mood!!


It was fantastic though, really fun and amazing!!


We had a bbq lunch just up the road then off we went to check out Murphy's Haystack, at this stage I will tell you all that Alison is a Geologist so she was in heaven for most of this trip!!!, and these are basically rocks although technically they are discribed as inselbergs - a hill that looks like a rocky island rising sharply from the sea! They were rather nice. Matt, Anne and I saw a Blue Tongue Lizard there which was good.


Our final stop for the day was at Venus Bay where we did a walk around the cliffs. It was really good, there are tree fossils (?), I'm not sure of the proper terms etc but you'll get the idea, that are on the edge of the cliff from when Australia was attached to the antarctica and this area was all forest - amazing! Just incredible.....


After our beautiful walk we drove on to Coodlie Park where we would have beds not our tents....although I am quite attached to my tent now!!


Sandie made us dinner and Grampa took us out on a spotlight tour to look for wombats, unfortunately according to Grampas first review they were all in the pub - he then said he thought it was too hot for them so we didn't see any. We did, however, have a kangeroo and her joey just sit in front of the truck occationally looking at us which was quite cool.


We headed off to Scales Bay in the morning for a surf lesson, I opted out of this one since I had already done it and wanted to take photos. So we watched the few who went for it and they all did pretty well, all standing up quite quickly - well done!!


We had a stop then at Streaky Bay where we had to do a bus swap and we checked out a small museum for the largest shark caught on a hand line, although the guy was disqualified, and apparently he used a live sea lion as bait - sick!! We then grabbed lunch, a very windy lunch.

We drove quite a bit more then stopped for food and booze and to have a look at Ceduna Aboriginal Arts Culture Centre and something I learnt from Kylie was that if you put your ear to a digereedoo you can hear how good it is - very clever and it works too!!

We then passed through Penong - the town of 100 windmills??


We got to our next camp at Fowlers Bay and it had started to rain. A few of us thought we'd still see if sand boarding would work or not.....well to all those wondering it doesn't work on wet sand or the dry sand under the wet sand but at least we tried!!


The next day, after an interesting wake up call from Kylie, we stopped to look at the Dingo Fence which is the longest Man Made structure at 5614km, longer than the great Wall of China!! Quite impressive. A few of us sat under the cattle grid to listen as something drove over, shame we didn't get a road train.



We stopped at a road house where one of the road train drivers told me about a japanese guy who would keep cycling in the dark on the nullarbor, even though he was told not to, and he was pulled in by a road train and killed about 3 months ago!! Pretty scary!


We then got to the Famous Sign, I hadn't heard of it, and it is quite cool!! The Camal, Wombat and Kangeroo Sign so we all got excited and took lots of photos.......

We also reached the Eastern End of the Treeless Plain and there is a sign for that as well.



We checked out the Bunda Cliffs which were very cool and impressive. We also saw some Sea Lions down by the sea on the rocks - good stuff!! It was beautiful. We grabbed lunch here, trying to finish all our fruit and veg before entering WA as otherwise we'd have to throw it away!! very strick....


We crossed the border, taking photos of random signage etc on the way and made it, we put out clocks back 45 minutes!

We had a quick stop in Eucla where we looked in the museum, bought a drink and played in the play park - it was fun.

We then drove to Old Eucla which is a bit lower and nearer the sea. It was buried under sand dunes and the old telegraph station was lost for about 80 year. The vegetation grew on the sand dunes so they couldn't move, then the rabbits came and ate it all and so eventually the sand could move and revealed the old telegraph station again, pretty cool. We also checked out the beach, saw emu, snake, rabbit and kangeroo tracks. It was great except for the March Flies - I hate em!!! We also saw the beach there which was beautiful and had an old jetty, half fallen down.

We then drove alittle bit more with the Hampton Tablelands to our right, through Mundrabilla and then we bush camped at Madura. Bush camping is pretty cool and was def one of my fav spots, you feel so remote and there are no facilities except for Bob the shovel if you need a poo and Kylie did a wonderful demonstration on how you would use him - fascinating I thought. I was rather pissed off that I didn't have the need as I would have liked to test it...... We used our bush camp stove on the camp fire to make dampa(sp??) - good stuff!

After we had done the usual in the morning ie packed everything up, had breakfast we headed out back on the road again. We stopped at an upended car which looked rather cool.

We saw alot of Wedgetail Eagles on this day, one family of Mum, Dad and Kid! We checked out a smallish cave before heading off to Cocklebiddy Cave, which is where they used to take people swimming on this tour but is now unsafe. We walked down to the entance which is pretty big and had a look around - looked creepy.

Driving back out on the dirt road we did a bit of aisle surfing in the bus..... Fred won although I think there was a little cheating going on - no I'm not a bad loser!!! Ha

We past the 90 Mile Straight Sign for the longest straight road in Australia, I think you could easily fall asleep!!! We then stopped to look at Caiguna Blowhole which, depending on the air presure, either sucks or blow air. We stopped at a roadhouse where the American Skylab fell to the ground a few years back. We than had a toilet stop a bit later where there were beautiful paintings on the outside walls.

We had a great sunset just before we drove through Norseman, gold town, and then on through Esperance. We arrived at Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand around 8ish - this was the longest driving day and would give us an extra day in Lucky Bay. After a late dinner it was time to sleep!!!

I got up pretty early and had a walk along the beach during sunrise which was really nice. I saw a few kangeroos down there. Had a nice paddle.

Around 10ish we went to Esperance and after a costal drive checking out the beautiful beaches we were let loose for an hour and a half....... We had lunch in a burger place, a proper one, and I had a massive burger with everything on it, egg, bacon, pineapple, salad - I don't remember but it was good. Popped on the net and then to the bottle shop. Anne had gone to the trophy shop, as she had already booked Perth accommodation, and picked up something for Kylie. We were picked up, jumped out to buy a frisbee and taken back to Lucky Bay. Jo had arrived with her group, 2 passengers.

We got back and chilled for a bit before attempting to play frisbee but it was too windy so we decided on beach cricket which was ok but still a little windy, fun though!!

We all walked up Frenchmans Peak with Kylie which was a good walk and fantastic views from the top. I really enjoyed it and when we returned a few hours later Jo had made dinner - great!!!

We played some stupid flexibilty game where you have to pick up a small cardboard box with your mouth without bending your legs, so obviously you end up ina splits like position - Ouch!! It hurt and I didn't win, I am bitter!!!

Another early morning for me......my bodyclock evolved. I chilled out until 9 am when Matt Man, Alison, Fred, Surge, Jeanette and I did a 3 hour hike from Cape Le Grand Beach to Hellfire Bay, through the mountainous area. It was quite a tough walk but good, fantastic views and the finish was just beautiful. Finishing up on Hellfire Bay and walking along the beach paddling, heaven. I had a quick swim at Lucky Bay when we got back before stuffing my face with more food....

In the afternoon we went to Thistle Bay where we walked along the beach to have a look at a few whale bones, a jaw bone - massive, bit smelly!! There had been a bush fire around thistle bay so there were just burnt remains of trees, a little sad but a fact of life.

We wandered back to the bus and when we got back to Lucky Bay Anne and I went for a snorkel. It wasn't great snorkelling but it was funny, saw a few fish and lots of seagrass. I then had a shower, wow my first in 4 days........

After some dinner Alison, Anne and I walked to Matthew Flinders Monument in the dark, we saw a little froggy and a crab which was good. Had an early night!! 9.15pm!!

So this morning was a sad one as we left Lucky Bay at 7, well 7.20!! Late again..... We had a couple of stops for food, alcohol and we also stopped to check out some camels. Anne and I had fun doing the voices of the camels while the others fed them grass.

We drove through the Fitzgerald National Park which is a Biosphere reserve - I thought that was kinda cool. Alot of the towns we were passing finished with 'up' and Matt Man questioned Kylie as to why, Kylie told us that up in aboriginal means place of so like a town coule mean place of the big tree.

We stopped for some lunch before heading to the Stirling Ranges. We were going to do a walk up Bluff Knol (sp?) but because we were running late and also because we had spotted smoke pretty close from what looked like a bush fire, we could smell the smoke, we decided it was safest not to. Instead we just dumped the trailer and drove up to take some photos, the top of Bluff Knol was under cloud and was kinda chilly just where we were so I think it would've been really cold up there.

We drove on to the Porongurup National Park which, just over a week ago, had had a bush fire go through it and wipe a load of it out. Alot of people were lucky not to lose their homes and luckily noone was killed. We stopped to take photos of the burnt out woodland - was quite sad to see its so bare.

We pitched our tents in a caravan park for our last night. We decided to present Kylie with her award tonight so we all wrote our little notes and put them in the trophy. Anne and I spent time making a crown and sash for her to wear. It was quite funny giving it to her but I think she was really pleased with it and she deserved it.

Fred and I then got a cake each for our birthdays, his was a few days before the tour started and I had just being going on about mine!!! It was a really nice last night. To finish it off Anne, Alison and I were ready from some trashy novels - v amusing!!

Then to bed and what was to be a very windy night. I had a broken pole in my tent and so at 4.30am my tent kinda fell in on itself so I decided to just get up!! Not the best night sleep.

We headed off after breakfast at around 7 and drove to Denmark!! We stopped there where I got some fruit, a hot chocolate and a chocolate bar - yummy!! Denmark apparently has an average of 700mm of rain fall each year and so to prove this it was pissing it down!!

We continued on our journey and arrived at the Valley of the Giants at 10ish. We did the tree top walk which was amazing and beautiful. It was a bouncy iron walkway through the massive forest, our highest point was 40 m and we were still looking up at the trees. I loved it. We then went on to do the Ancient Empire Walk with some trees being over 400 years old - about twice as old as white Australia. They had Red, Yellow and Rates Tingle trees there and also the Red Flowering Gum. Some of the trees were huge and had hollowed out trunks at ground level - awesome!!

We stopped at the Diamond Tree where we were going to have lunch. First though we could climb up to the fire watch tower at the top of one of the trees, there were no ropes for support but I felt pretty safe. It was cool and what a view, 75m up!! Anne and I walked up together and saw a nice big huntsman spider on the way up - a little freaky but not dangerous! Kylie had already had to kill one we saw in the toilet as it had lost half its legs and could barely move - poor little thing.

We had our lunch, joined by a load of the wonderful march flies - die flies die!!

We got back on the road and were now on the home straight to Perth....was a little sad. After a stop at a gas station for a drink and wee wee stop we headed for Perth. We blasted the music, opened the windows and danced in the aisles on entering the city!! Shock return......

Kylie dropped us all off at our hostels, got to mine at 8.30pm. Anne, Matt Man, Fred, Alison and I met for some dinner in the evening before going to bed at 11ish!!

I had such a fun trip and alot of the fun was had sitting up the front chatting to Kylie and Anne - really had a laugh!! Def recommended to anyone. Will be waiting to hear that Kylie has become a Ranger in a National Park and will have to check it out!! Miss you guys.......

Love
Dawnie
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