ACROSS THE NULLARBOR … HEADED FOR HOME

We left Perth through the 5 acre plots and riding schools of the city’s eastern suburbs heading for the goldfields and flat expanses of the Nullarbor. We will complete another 4000km before reaching home.

Large areas of salt lakes were interspersed through the paddocks of wheat – saltation has been an ongoing problem for crop farmers of this region. As we drove east through the towns of Northam and Merredin, cropping gradually phased out and semi-arid mallee came to dominate the landscape.

Mallee woodland bordering the Nullarbor

 A strong SW wind followed us all day. At times, it has been gale force over the past few days. Where paddocks have been left fallow and stripped of the year’s stubble the topsoil is visibly lifted over tree tops and transported down wind. This problem has been largely alleviated in the WA wheat belt over recent years by no-till farming practices – crop stubble being left in place to hold the top soil and add organic matter to the soil.

Trees bent by prevailing south-westerly winds

The dusty consequences of leaving fallow, cleared paddocks

A steel umbilical cord connects Perth to the goldfield towns such as Kalgoolie, delivering precious water to these desert mining towns. This was an audacious project envisioned and executed by C.Y.O’Connor between 1894-1903. He faced so much criticism at the time for issues around this engineering feat, that it lead to his dramatic suicide in1902 by riding into the ocean off a Perth beach near Fremantle on his horse and shooting himself.

Water for Kalgoorlie...a mega-infrastructure program from the late nineteenth century 

The natural reserve area along the highway is complemented by the adjacent pipeline and railway vegetation reserves, thus creating a ribbon of green through which we searched for flowering shrubs and small delights. Various tinsel flowers, grevilleas, wattles and emu bushes beckoned us to stop and search for new examples of WA’s extraordinary variety of flowering plants.

Tinsel flowers lined our route home in "the West"

Another type of Emu bush

Bottle-brush Grevillea...a type of spider flower

Toothbrush Grevillia...our first sighting of this black and green flower

Dampiera...one of the LPPs (Little Purple Plants)

Photographing these flowers was extremely challenging in the strong wind but identifying them from our travelling library was even more difficult. Each plant seems obvious, until we start to investigate its features to find each may be one of a variety of up to 20 or even 60+ similar species! This is an amazing part of Australia and we have enjoyed the thrill of the chase of finding, photographing and identifying dozens of new varieties and species.

Foxglove

Another type of Grevillea

Pink Pokers....we could now identify them at 110 kph!

Are emu bushes eaten by emus?

Tall Mulla Mulla...perhaps a dwarf variety stunted by the relentless Nullarbor winds?

LPP...possibly a Dampiera!

Stackhousia...easy!

A wildflower "garden" on the Nullarbor

A blue and white garden

A Conostylis flower glowing against Nullarbor soil

Goodbye to the Starflowers or Calytrix of WA

There are dozens of different Emu bushes in the west

One of many varieties of Spinifex grass in Australia

Road trains and grey nomad caravaners make up most of the traffic on the Eyre Highway as it snakes its way across the Nullarbor Plain. The few large stations run sheep at about 4/square km, but we did not sight any in 1200km.

The beasties of the Nullarbor are small compared to those in the Pilbara (usually 3 trailers to terrify you as you overtake them at 125-130km/hr!). Yes, that's our van in the front.

However, emus, red kangaroos and wedge tail eagles were seen as well as snakes and bob-tailed skinks sunning themselves on the asphalt and playing dodgems with the speeding vehicles. Road kill wombats were a sad roadside sight

Emu and chicks at Eucla Telegraph Station ruins - dad takes care of the childcare

One of several snakes seen sunning themselves on edge of Eyre Highway - up to 100km without a bend

Isolated roadhouses are spaced about every 250km with distinctive names like Mundrabilla, Cocklebiddy and Nundroo – supplying food and fuel for vehicles and travellers, as well as basic camping spaces and motel rooms.

Gary checking which way to go - but still got confused!

Edward John Eyre would certainly have liked this support during his first terrible crossing of the Nullarbor in 1841which cost the lives of three of the five members of his exploration party. Gary’s ‘location gene’ was malfunctioning as usual as he failed to guess the correct direction in which to drive onto the highway leaving a roadhouse – we could have been back in Perth on several occasions!

A land of large distances

Yep...no trees here!

The pesky fly seems to be the most successful local animal – trying to crawl into your mouth, nose, eyes and ears if you are brave enough to leave your car to stand on the edge of the massive limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight – they only abate when the prevailing s’westerly wind blows long and hard along this coast causing drivers to hold onto their steering wheels tightly.

The dramatic limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight

The strong wind may assist the tragic AFL supporters of the Fremantle ‘Dockers’ draped in purple and white, as they drive the 3500km to watch their beloved team in their first grand final match in Melbourne!

Mundrabilla Roadhouse welcomes the Fremantle Dockers supporters travelling to Melbourne for the AFL Grand Final with such optimism!

Once we had crossed into South Australia, the highway hugs this coast for a further 500km before reaching the Eyre Peninsula at Ceduna. The side trip to Head of Bight was worth it – three huge female Right Whales and their calves were still lolling in the shallow waters below the cliffs, although most of the pod of 60+ animals, had departed for their journey back to their feeding grounds in Antarctica.

One of the three mother and calf Right Whale pairs remaining at Head of Bight..

The changes in scenery mirrored that in the west – first the salt bush covered limestone featureless plain gave way to mallee woodland on sand dunes which gradually morphed into huge paddocks of wheat stretching as far as the eye can see. A sunny foreshore campsite at Streaky Bay, on Eyre Peninsula for two nights to recharge the batteries ready for the final 2000km drive home is one of our favourite campsites.

A rare, fine, windless day between Geraldton and South Australia

Ruined stone cottages remain as evidence of the struggle of early C19th settlers who failed to thrive in this difficult, semi arid agricultural region, particularly north of the Goyder Line (the northern reliable limit for cropping in SA, plotted by Goyder in 1865).

 A four day deviation to the Clare & Barossa Valleys to sample some viticultural delights took us through some magnificent farming country with cereal crops stretching to the horizon finally giving way to vineyards.

Rapeseed or Canola crop adds colour to this agricultural landscape

Typical Clare Valley vineyard landscape 

Clare Valley vineyard and home

Anticipating first wine-tasting at Clare Valley - temptations abound!

A final swing through Broken Hill, Nyngan and Dubbo will complete this epic journey of approximately 16,000km over the past 3 months in our trusty VW campervan – (it’s twice the distance of London to Beijing!).

The final leg is familiar, well travelled territory for us from former trips, but we are now pleased to reflect that in recent years we have actually explored our wonderful continent around its coastline, as well as on stunning inland routes through western NSW & Vic, central QLD, northern SA and the Northern Territory.

We hope you have enjoyed sharing some of the journey highlights with us.

Gary and Bronlyn, Barossa Valley, October 2013