Across the Nullarbor and into Esperance

1. Sunset at Baird Bay

2. Sea Lions at Point Labatt

3. Cape Bauer

4. Bay near Cactus Beach

5. Road to Cactus Beach - salt lakes

6. The crossing of the Nullarbor begins

7. Head of Bight

8. Animals to watch out for across the Nullarbor

9. Brendan about to step off the bottom of Australia - Bunda Cliffs

10. The bushcamper coming into land on the flying doctor's airstrip in the middle of the highway

11. Bunda Cliffs

12. Proof that it does rain in the Nullarbor

13. The border to Western Australia

14. The sign speaks for itself - Australia's longest straight road

15. Driving the road

16. Our shortcut is closed but that doesn't stop us...

17. The artwork of the locals

18. The dust storm behind us on Balladonia Road

19. Warnings for Mt Ragged Track

20. Driving the Mt Ragged Track

21. Sunset on Mt Ragged

22. The sunset behind on the Mt Ragged track

23. The top of Mt Ragged and the track down below

24. Clay pans near Israelite Bay (Lake Daringdelta)

25. Arriving at Israelite Bay

26. Coastline near Israelite Bay

27. Little Tagon Bay, Cape Arid National Park

28. Linda at the top of Frenchman Peak - Cape Le Grand National Park

29. Brendan on Frenchman Peak (you can just spot him behind the rocks)

30. Linda on Frenchman Peak

31. View from Frenchman Peak

32. Frenchman Peak

33. The steep slope to and from Frenchman Peak

34. The steep summit sign for Frenchman Peak - look at the angle of the horizon in the background

35. Hellfire Bay - Cape Le Grand National Park

36. The Eastern end of Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand

37. Camping at Lucky Bay

38. Lunch stop, Duke of Orleans Bay

39. Observatory Beach, Esperance

40. The sun starts to set over Pink Lake, Esperance

41. Sammy the Sea Lion (number 2), Esperance Jetty

Across the Nullarbor and onto Esperance

April 2010

Here we are now, six weeks into the second leg of our trip. I am sitting on a lookout overlooking Surfers Point, near Margaret River, WA. Brendan is out finally getting to enjoy the surf again with all the local guys. We are wondering what the locals actually do for a living around here, as it is mid week and everyone seems to be in the surf rather than at work. I guess it is a nicer place to be…

We have visited so many beautiful places since starting our trip west that it is hard now to distinguish one little bay with turquoise, crystal clear water from the next. We are beginning to look upon beautiful beaches down here as you do castles in Europe or ruins in the Middle East – that’s nice, but it’s just another one! After taking a few days to finally leave Port Augusta and one of our favourite camping spots at Mt Remarkable, we headed to the far side of the Eyre Peninsula to Baird Bay. It was near here, at Point Labatt, that we went looking at Sea Lions below on the rocks and were glad for our binoculars. We then moved up the Peninsula, through Streaky Bay, Ceduna, Cactus Beach and Fowlers Bay. Cactus Beach is well known for its surf break – and shark attacks. We were being told stories about guys who have surfed there for their entire lives and have been nibbled by sharks for years. One guy now has the nickname of “shark-bait”. We were actually quite relieved that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for surf when we were there (or Linda was anyway…). Fowlers Bay was an interesting little town nestled right into the sand dunes and looking like a desert community in the middle of Wadi Rum or someplace. We enjoyed a night here around the campfire with a group including a couple currently working as a security guard and health worker in one of South Australia’s communities. They had previously been up in Oenpelli (Arnhem Land) while we had been in Darwin.

From Fowler’s Bay, we started our crossing of the Nullarbor. Not much to be said about this trip really. It is one long straight road, dotted with interesting sign posts! (see photos). We proved that it can actually rain in the Nullarbor, checked out the Head of Bight (where the Southern Right Whales come to breed – but we were too early for them), stood at the edge of the Bunda Cliffs, getting the feeling that we really were at the edge of Australia and about to step off into nothing and drove Australia’s longest straight stretch of road (146kms – and we thought the roads up and down the Stuart Highway were straight!) Despite all the signs for emus, kangaroos and camels, the only interesting wildlife we managed to spot was an albino dingo about to cross the road in front of us. Crossing the border into Western Australia, we had to make sure we had gotten rid of all our fresh fruit and veg (due to fruit fly regulations). We had originally been told that we could take peeled potato and kumara with us, but this turned out not to be the case – unless it was cooked – so we spent some time at the border crossing preparing our nights dinner before moving on – for another couple of days driving on the Western Australian side of the Nullarbor.

We had decided to finish our Nullarbor crossing at Balladonia Roadhouse instead of heading right into Norseman (the official end of the crossing) as we had spotted a four-wheel-drive track on the map which cuts through to the coast and Cape Arid National Park (Israelite Bay). When we arrived however, a sign told us that Balladonia Road was closed. The teenage boy working at the roadhouse assured us that the track was actually only closed to some vehicles and we would be fine (when we asked him about track conditions he told us – “It’s fun!” ) so we decided to drive past the road closed sign and give it a go. The track heads down to Mt Ragged and then onto Israelite Bay. It was about 150kms in length and took about 5 hours to travel. It was quite an interesting track covering areas of sand, clay and rocks. The most memorable part of the trip was probably camping all by ourselves in the middle of nowhere at the Mt Ragged campground. Brendan went off to the long-drop in the morning and ran back after 10 seconds, squealing about a huge snake wrapped around the bottom of the long-drop. It apparently looked about a metre and a half long and as thick as a wrist (“It was huge!”). After a few minutes he went back to the toilet, armed with a big stick and was very pleased to find that it had moved on. (I think he was actually more worried about not being able to use the toilet than about the actual presence of the snake!)

After spending a night at Israelite Bay we took the Fisheries Track back into the more popular area of Cape Arid National Park, driving headlong into a storm over Esperance – with lightning flashing all around us – and thinking about how we were definitely the highest point in the area all around us. Interesting drive….We checked out Dolphin Cove and Little Tagon Bay in the western side of the park before heading into Esperance – where we had to buy a new radiator for the bushcamper which had decided to start leaking on us during the last day of the track. After fixing up this problem we went back into Cape Le Grand National Park, to the east of Esperance. Here we spent of couple of days camped at Lucky Bay and enjoying the walks (Frenchman Peak), fishing (we caught a squid and then didn’t know how to cook it, so we are still using it for bait) and swimming at our favourite spot, Hellfire Bay (see the photos). We also checked out Duke of Orleans Bay – another beautiful beach – before going back into Esperance. Back in Esperance, we met Sammy the sea-lion, the resident sea-lion of the Esperance jetty. (We found out that Sammy the Sea lion is actually Sammy number 2 as the original Sammy was eaten by a great white in front of a whole lot of tourists). We really enjoyed Esperance (once voted Western Australia’s best town to live in and Australia’s second best). It is surrounded by some of Australia’s best beaches and has heaps of interesting places to explore. It is definitely a place we wouldn’t mind coming back to.

From here we continue to follow the southern ocean across to where it meets the Indian Ocean on the Western side.

Love Linda and Brendan. xox.