17 October 2024
We woke up early (unclear of the time) as the sun was rising. We quietly packed up, as considerate campers do, and headed east yet again.
Eucla
Our first stop was the Old Eucla Telegraph Station, just on the western side of the WA-SA border.
Before the telegraph came, communication between Western Australia and the rest of the nation took months, but when the Eucla telegraph line and manual repeater station were established in 1877, transmitting messages only took a few seconds …. Together with the telegraph line, a jetty and tram line were also constructed for offloading supplies brought by ships.
The old Eucla also used to be a bustling town where a special team was working to win the battle against Australia’s Tyranny of Distance, but its original location has been abandoned due to the rabbit plague that infested the area in the 1890s. A new townsite was built a few kilometres to the north, and by 1927, the Eucla Telegraph Station had closed, and the communications centre slowly vanished near the border. However, its ruins still stand to this day. (Remnants of a Lost Town: The Eucla Telegraph Station)
As we’d arrived quite early, the morning light was a beautiful golden glow that made this feel like a lost world.
Before we left here, Nicole took a quick photo of one of the two Explorer motorhomes that we had planned to camp with the previous night and who had driven through to here the day before. Nicole sent the photo to them with the comment, “I spy …”
We then headed up to the top of the Eucla Range where the new Eucla centre was established, with a commanding view of the old location.
We decided to have some breakfast here, which I’d hoped would be pretty quick as we had a lot of driving and sightseeing to do.
We each just wanted a bacon and egg roll (or equivalent) and a coffee. Every other roadhouse we’ve stopped at so far has them stuffed in the hotbox ready to go. Not this roadhouse, however.
We had to wait to be served, then waited what felt like hours for said bacon and egg rolls to be ready (I’m not known for my patience by the way). When the lady serving (with some form of Eastern European accent) called out, “Two bacon and egg rolls!”, I leapt from my seat to grab them. She gave me a funny look, but I grabbed them anyway. Then in a suspicious voice she said, “But you didn’t have tomato sauce, you had BBQ sauce!” and asked me to hand then back. Damn, I had them!
A few minutes later she brought those same rolls to our table and explained that someone else must have taken ours (not sure about that) and did we want these instead. In the spirit of getting the hell going we agreed, and she then advised us we had been given a free slice of cheese on each as compensation for our troubles. I however wasn’t feeling fully compensated at that moment in time …
Bunda Cliffs and a burnt-out truck
On the road again, we finally left West Australia after spending around 4.5 fantastic months there. We’ll be back WA!
Our first stop in SA was “Lookout 3” (obviously numbered from east to west) of the magnificent Bunda Cliffs that line part of the Great Australian Bight. The weather was very overcast, however the view was still impressive.
From here we headed to the 52km Peg Free Camp that we had wanted to free camp at, prior to the truck catching fire. We very carefully approached a place to park, as it is a vertical cliff down that is also undercut more than a bit. An amazing spot to be and one that I’m sure could get extremely windy being so exposed. We took a ‘frowny face’ selfie as we remembered the night we could have spent camping here and headed off again.
It’s also interesting to note that the council is trying to stop people accessing the vast majority of these free camp spots along the cliffs because they are so dangerous, with cliffs shifting and breaking off all the time.
Next stop was “Lookout 2” which provided breathtaking views of the cliffs. You can’t possibly describe how magnificent these cliffs are, so I’m not going to try — you’ll just have to make the drive to see them yourselves.
As we continued heading east, we came upon what had caused our re-shaped plans. It certainly looked like there’d been a big fire here, and we were glad we hadn’t been anywhere near it when it happened.
Just before reaching the famous Nullarbor Roadhouse, we stopped at the sign marking the western end of the Treeless Nullarboir Plain; Nullarbor literally coming from the Latin “no trees”.
Note in the photos above the building with the corrugated iron roof is the old roadhouse.
Then it was on to another magnificent view at “Lookout 1”.
Head of Bight
We were really getting spoilt with our sightseeing today. Then, just when we thought the views couldn’t get any better, we stopped at the Head of Bight Visitor Centre. This is an area where Southern Right Whales come to give birth in the shallow, protected bay each year between mid-May and late October. Unfortunately, the whales had moved on and so we had just missed them. But … have a look at these views of the Bight! Absolutely stunning, and well worth the $9 each admission.
Nicole also spotted this little critter (Bobtail Lizard) in the car park, of which we’d seen — and dodged — many crossing the highway that day.
By this time, it was after 3:00pm and we still had another 300km to drive to reach Ceduna, our destination for the night. So, it was into hustle mode to get there as quickly (and safely) as possible.
Our only stops of note were in Penong to see a ‘Windmill Museum’ featuring Australia’s largest windmill (it was a quick stop) and to clear quarantine. Interestingly, quarantine for food etc is not done at the border, rather in Ceduna.
Ceduna
After arriving at the Ceduna Foreshore Caravan Park and setting up, we were both buggered. So, we made the 100 metre walk to the Ceduna Foreshore Hotel Motel for a drink and dinner. Then, to end the day, we were presented this view as we walked out the doors after our meal.
A wonderful way to cap off our Nullarbor crossing and to kick off our SA leg.
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