Crossing the Nullarbor

We’ve done a couple of big drives in this trip – Alice Springs to Katherine, Darwin to Kununurra, Kununurra to Perth – all of which were multi-day drives. For the Nullarbor, we’d allocated 4 nights/five days to drive the 1,300km trip.

That meant we were doing four, one-night stays in a row, something we hadn’t done before. All that requires a bit of planning, as we didn’t want to do a full set up/pack down each day. So in Kalgoorlie, we packed one bag of clothes for all of us, and another bag of food. Then we had to pack the car in a different order so we could access the fridge without getting the fridge out, or needing to lower the tailgate. We also bought the kids airbeds, to save having to set up their bunks.

All of this had required a bit of thought and preparation but we were reasonably confident that after all this time on the road, four one-night stops would be a doddle.

Along the way we planned to play the world’s longest golf course too, so needed to factor those stops into our day. There’s actually a bit to see along the way, so we planned to do around 3-4 hours driving a day in order to fit it all in.

Anyway, the first drive was the longest – Kalgoorlie to the Belladonia Roadhouse at just over four hours. We also had four holes to play along the way. Whatever picture of a golf course you’re conjuring up in your mind as you read this, scrap that, and replace it with dirt/rock, trees and scrub – and that’s just the ‘fairways’. This golf course is rough to say the least. All the holes seem to be into the wind (or a nasty cross-wind) no matter what their orientation. And of course we only had two clubs (a 4 iron and a wedge), and four dubious players. I played a lot as a kid, but not at all since about aged 15. Jim has played on and off as an adult (but more off than on) and the kids hadn’t played before at all. Because of that, and the time factor, we decided to play four ball best ball (otherwise we’d still be out there I think).

The Belladonia Roadhouse is your typical roadhouse in Australia – all about functionality and practicality (and basically camping in the dirt). It was fine though, and we chose the spot furthest away from the road so we didn’t get any road noise.  The scaled-down set up was pretty quick and the novelty of blowing up air beds by hand was still there on day one for the kids.

Day two across the Nullarbor took us from Belladonia to Cocklebiddy – around 3 hours or so, with most of the stops being golf-related. We decided to free camp as it was under trees and back from the road (as opposed to the roadhouse 8km away which was on a windswept patch of dirt). We arrived early afternoon, so I had time to finish some work which meant that I could be on leave (pending any unexpected dramas, which as it turns out did not pop up).

Day three and we were heading to Eucla, 12km west of the WA/SA border. They work on their own time there (well central time) so we had to add 45 minutes. Eucla is the only spot where we actually disconnected the trailer from the car, and that was really just so we could drive down to the beach to see the old telegraph station (rapidly being swallowed up by the sand dunes) and the old jetty.

We put the dog to bed in the tent and treated ourselves to dinner out at the Eucla Roadhouse – to celebrate our last night in WA. We arrived in WA in early August, so spent nearly five months here. It’s quite a long time, but it is quite a big place. I had roast beef for dinner with six different types of vegetables (brussel sprouts, carrot, potato, broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin). Given that we’ve been eating up our fresh food in anticipation of the upcoming border crossing it was quite a treat to actually eat some fresh veg.

Day four and we left Eucla and crossed into South Australia, but not the quarantine crossing (that’s in Ceduna), so we could still eat the last two apples we had. This part of the journey takes you close to the cliffs which are spectacular. There’s lots of nice lookouts along the way and a couple of golf holes too.

Even though it was only a two-hour drive, with the stops, and yet another time change, it took us most of the day to do that and arrive at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. We had considered a free camp down the road, but given that we were now on ‘the Treeless Plain’ we decided to stay at the roadhouse as we could tuck ourselves behind a building out of the wind.

Day five and we were on the home stretch! Four more golf holes on this day, plus a visit to Head of Bight to see the cliffs for one last time. We crossed the quarantine station just outside Ceduna, then promptly went to the IGA in Ceduna to buy more fresh stuff. Finally we rolled into Smoky Bay and did a full set up this time, had a quick look at the beach, then I was in bed by 8pm…Jim stayed up to do his study – just this last subject to go!

So here we are at Smoky Bay for 10 whole days! Hopefully there’s a lot of relaxing and not doing too much on the agenda. Merry Christmas all!