Back in South Australia

After our long trip across the Nullarbor it was great to stop in Ceduna on the eastern side of the Great Australian Bight for a few days.  We were last here in November 2013.  We spent some time revisiting the Aboriginal Culture Centre with its beautiful artworks and also visited the museum.  An hour crabbing from the jetty yielded 3 lovely blue swimmer crabs - enough for dinner.




A few days of R&R and we were back on the road, heading across the top of the Eyre Peninsula to Kimba, about halfway across Australia, 1500km from both the east and west coasts.  Christmas is coming and most small towns have their decorations out.  The granite statue represents the farmers, graziers and crops of the district.

Our next stop was Port Pirie on the Spencer Gulf.  Cherryl lived in this house as a toddler (it's had a facelift or two over the past 60 years).  We took the informative City Tour from the Information Centre which was 90 minutes well spent.  The Smelter Tours are unavailable at the moment due to refurbishment of the smelter so the City Tours are being offered as an alternative.



We were on the first tour and all attendees provided feedback that we hope the City Tours will continue when the Smelter Tours restart.  We passed many interesting old buildings.  The old cottages were build on slag heaps and as they become empty the land is being cleared and replanted.  There will be no more building on this land in future.

Port Pirie was established on essentially reclaimed swampland.  Minerals mined in Broken Hill were transported to Port Pirie for smelting.  Lead and zinc were the main minerals processed with silver, copper, gold and other minerals processed in lesser quantities.  There has been an active lead abatement program in place for some years and airborne lead levels are continuously monitored around the area.  Port Pirie is also a major grain handling port.

A visit to the excellent museum brought back memories of gone times.

We stayed at the Rangeview Caravan Park while we were in Port Pirie, about 5km from town on the highway.   We had lovely views of the southern Flinders Ranges.












From Port Pirie we travelled towards Adelaide.  We drove through the vineyards of the Clare Valley wine region and stopped off for coffee at Crystal Brook and lunch at Auburn on our way to Gawler where we're staying with friends for the next few weeks.

Across the Nullarbor

We've just completed another of Australia's iconic road trips - CROSSING THE NULLARBOR - and it was a great experience.

We left Esperance and travelled north for about 200km to Norseman, on the Eyre Highway which links Perth on the West Coast to Port Augusta at the top of South Australia's Spencer Gulf.  Our first night was spent free camping at Ten Mile Rocks, about 100km east of Norseman on the edge of the Dundas Nature Reserve near the Fraser Range.

The next morning we stopped off at the Balladonia Roadhouse, about 100km on, for coffee.  What a surprise this little gem turned out to be.  In July 1979 the US space station "Skylab" crashed to earth near here.  The little museum has quite a lot of information about Skylab and there are several large pieces of Skylab on display, together with plenty of newspaper cuttings.  One interesting item is a copy of the council infringement notice NASA received for "littering".

Balladonia was a stop over point for the Red-X trials in the 1950s and there's a display dedicated to them too.

The road between Balladonia and Caiguna is the longest straight stretch of road in Australia - 146.6km (90 miles).  There's a golf course along the Nullarbor with named holes at most of the towns.  The hole at Caiguna is called "90 Mile Straight".  Many travellers play the course and there's an annual competition with the winners' shield displayed at the Caiguna Roadhouse.  Just past Caiguna we moved into the Central West Time Zone, 45 minutes ahead of Perth.






Further eastwards we booked into the caravan park at Cocklebiddy.  Much of the Nullarbor is limestone and this area is littered with caves.  In our caving days we would have loved to spend some time underground exploring the Nullarbor Caves.  Cocklebiddy really is remote and like many stops along our way it has camping and motel accommodation.

The next day took us to Eucla, 12 km west of the SA border.  The accommodation complex here is a real oasis in the middle of nowhere.  It's the only place that the ocean can be seen on the WA side of the border, through the Eucla Pass, because the highway is about 30km inland for most of the way through WA.

We farewelled WA and said "hello again" to SA as we crossed the border into South Australia, adjusted our clocks to Central Summer Time ( +1h45m) and entered the Nullarbor National Park.  We drove onto the "Treeless Plain" which is well named.  In WA we were surprised to see so many trees along the way.  Once we hit SA there was not a tree to be seen for several hundred kms.

We had a brief stop at the Nullarbor Roadhouse to stretch our legs.  The old telephone exchange is a reminder of times gone by.

The highway followed the coastline and we stopped off at several lookouts to admire the amazing coast of the Great Australian Bight.  The cliffs are a sheer drop of 90m into the sea.

We decided to camp at the Head of the Bight and drove to the Visitors Centre 11 kms south of the highway.  This is definitely a "must see".  There are excellent walks from the Visitor Centre to see the Bunda Cliffs to the west and white sandhills to the east - a real contrast.  From April to October each year this is a popular whale watching area with up to 170 whales in the bay at the same time.

Our trip across the Nullarbor ended as we drove into Ceduna after passing through the SA fruit and vegetable quarantine inspection point.  This also marked our completion of "The Long Lap" around Australia because we visited Ceduna in November 2013.

Esperance, Beautiful Beaches and an Unusual Industry

We left Albany and started our long trek east.  First stop was Bremer Bay on the western side of the Fitzgerald River National Park.

We stayed at the Bremer Bay Caravan Park, just across the road from the tidal inlet.  We walked along the Paperbark Walk trail between the trees.

After one night at Bremer Bay we continued eastward to Esperance, driving though light rain for much of the day.  Also on the coast, Esperance is a major grain and fishing port.

The Information Centre gave us a map and we were off on the tourist drive visiting some of the best beaches in Australia.  Again the cameras worked overtime.




We dove past West Beach, Blue Haven Beach and Salmon Beach to Twilight Beach, Australia's Best Beach in 2006, to Observatory Point where the French ships Recherché and Esperance sheltered in the bay behind Observatory Island in 1792.

We turned inland towards Pink Lake, which is not pink at the moment, although this salt lake is home to the algae which can give it a pink colour.





In The afternoon we visited Mermaid Leather, a fish skin leather factory.  This small business is unique to Esperance and is well worth a visit.  Fish leather is light and strong and utilises a byproduct of the local fishing industry.  Most of the fish skin used is barramundi.  The process is fascinating and a variety of goods are produced and sold.  Most of the leather is onsold to produce fashion goods.  Some has been used to make patchwork artworks.