Crossing the Nullarbor

25/2/2015

Early departure from Camp to Esperance. Fueling up, checking tyre pressure, topping up water, grocery shopping, checking my emails, updating the blog in my favorite coffee shop in Esperance with a good coffee, breakfast and a free WiFi connection.

Afterward a long breakfast and a second round of coffee, I was heading north towards Norseman. Stocked up on some water and fuel again and off I went into the Nullarbor Plain. The Nullarbor (from Latin: Nullus 'no' and arbor 'tree') is a very flat, almost treeless, dry stretch of land. And it was hot!

I quickly stopped at Balladonia roadhouse for a coffee and a brief look through the museum. The Skylab – a US space station, came crashing down 1979 and impacted close to the roadhouse. Must have been the only spectacular event in that area for a few million years. ;-)

A part of the sklab that can be (touched) seen in the museum at the roadhouse

It was a very hot day today, around the 40 degrees in the shade from around noon, to about 42 degrees at 15:30 when I had my last coffee break for the day. I've covered a lot of ground today, and cruised through the 90 mile straight – Australia's longest straight road, unbelievable 146.6km dead straight. Took me almost 1.5 hours as I was taking it easy around 100-105 kmh. There was a strong head and cross wind and without cruise control in the car the speed fluctuates a bit as the right foot is cramping up.

15:30 Western Australian time - it was one of the better ideas to get the aircon fixed in Perth!

90 mile straight - like a game of cricket: takes a while to get through it but the enjoyment is in the process

Still straight

and a bit more

There are several sections that can be used as landing strips

I pulled over to stop for the night at Caiguna roadhouse as I got tired and wanted to enjoy a cold shower instead of a hot, sandy bush camp. Right choice as light was fading quickly.

For me, Obdach was always the hub of the universe, but here I stand corrected

In order to complicate it a bit for tourists (like me), there is a 'local' time 45minutes later than Western Australian time at some of the roadhouses. Holy cow!

Art in the Nullarbor

Tomorrow I've got another big day behind the wheel – I'll be crossing the Western Australian/ Southern Australian border hopefully around lunchtime.

Distance traveled today: 636km

26/2/2015

After a super early start and my morning coffee with grass fed organic butter and brain octane (thanks Dave Asprey) while driving, I had a super long day on the road. Starting before 6am was the right decision, as you lose 2.5 hours time difference when crossing the border between WA and SA. So instead of the early sunrise on the West Australian side, like 5:20am, the sun rises only at 7:50am a few meters away in South Australia. And obviously sunset plays it the other way. Hard to stomach that as a country boy from rural Austria! Hence, I lost quite a bit of 'time', crossing the border after about 360km.

Already on the South Australian side - Ceduna, here we come!

Nothing much to see, long straights, not much vegetation for most of the first 500km today but quite windy again. Spectacular cliffs on the SA side a bit later in the afternoon:

Unfortunately I experienced some engine problems with the car. Firstly one warning light, later a second went on – suddenly the power was gone and it was rolling out. After a short stop, checking all the fluids and a 5 minute wait, I could drive again, but there was still one warn lamp on.

A few kilometers away was a service station – so much for timing in terms of where it broke down, as there are only fuel stations every several hundred kilometers – unfortunately it was already closed because it was late (18:00) thanks to the time difference.

I decided to continue on to my planned camp spot as it was only about 50km away, rolling easily at 80kmh in 6^th gear and switching everything non-essential, including the air condition (which was semi-essential at that heat) off. The last 20km to my campsite were heavily corrugated gravel road (with I didn't know that they are in that bad shape before hand, otherwise I would have just free-camped next close to the service station).

So I stayed in Fowlers Bay – lovely tiny settlement (population of 125 according to Wikipedia) with a caravan park, a nice jetty and a huge sand dune next to it. I had a late check in and the person looking after the camp site had a look at the car and said he'll call the mechanic at the service station tomorrow morning for me to see if he's there. If he is, I'll drive back there to get the van checked out. Let's hope for the best.

Dunes at Fowler Bay

The Moon

The Jetty

I saw some huge, amazing wedge tailed eagles while driving, so I had to make sure in the evening I hone my skills with a few sea gull photos on the jetty

... still no eagle, but...

Distance traveled today: 735km

27/2/2015

Had an encounter of the 8-legged type yesterday night – saw a huge spider on the inside of my camper van when preparing my bed. While I tried to guide it out the backdoor – opening the fly screen – it decided to instead crawl down a different path and hide on the insides of the van. Nothing much I could do about it and went to bed. I checked in the morning and the host of the caravan park confirmed my thought that it's just a huntsman spider. Very lovely creatures as they hunt and eat for example red back spiders which are a bit poisonous and other pests such as cockroaches.

My potential roomie - don't know if it is still around or jumped off the (band) wagon

Called roadside assist in the morning as the mechanic of the service shop that I saw yesterday would only be back on Tuesday (4 days!). Roadside assist sent out a service technician. He had a quick look and said I should drive to his workshop, about 70km away in the next village. Said and done. Met his son at the workshop who plugged in his computer diagnostic tool. There were 4 recorded error codes. After he researched them on his PC, he erased them and sent me back onto the tarmac for a 10km test drive. I did so, pushed the accelerator hard and returned to the workshop – without any more warning lights on. As there was nothing much that could be done, he sent me on the way again.

Half way to Ceduna, the first South Australian town, marking the end of the Nullarbor, I overtook a four wheel drive with a large camper trailer and bang – the bad warning lamp – the one where you loose power – came on again. I pulled over, stopped the car, turned the ignition off, (swore just a bit), turned the ignition on again and voila, no more warning light. You gotta be kidding me.

Drove to Ceduna, got checked at the quarantine station (you're not allowed to bring fruit, vegetables, and some other stuff to South Australia as they don't have some of the bad things we have in the West and vice versa) and checked in at the lovely Foreshore Caravan Park. Right after parking the van at my spot, I went around it and heard that my left rear tyre was leaking. Drove to the tyre repair shop, which was luckily in town (if that happens through the Nullarbor you're, well, in the deep end) and got it fixed. The valve had to be replaced which was done quickly and efficiently.

They spotted that one of my front tyres might need alignment as the inside part of it is wearing a lot more than the outside one, but it couldn't be done there. Another job to be done in Port Lincoln – where I'll also visit the Ford dealer (the nearest Ford dealer, 403 km away from here) to get their opinion on the engine warning lamp.

After all that I decided to take it easy today, walk to the shops, eat some wonderful locally caught King Whiting fillets (super tasty!), buy some groceries and catch up on writing for the blog and emailing in the arvo.

Think I'll treat myself to some nice dinner and some glasses of wine tonight and take it easy.

I crossed the Nullarbor!

Distance traveled today: 155km

Cape Le Grand – Stunning beaches and meetings

23/2/2015

I've had one of the most amazing days.

It all started out with my alarm clock not ringing at the assigned time, 5:30am, to make sure I'm in Cape Le Grand super early and increase my chances of getting a camping spot here. There are only about 15 spots here and it is, what the Australians call: 'First come, best dressed' – meaning the early bird catching the worm and in regards to camping, securing the spot.

I woke up at 6:55am, looked at my clock and was slightly panicky. Suffice to say, I left the camp ground withing 10 minutes of getting up – postponing my breakfast to after achieving my mission: A camp spot close to the beach of my favorite national park.

Anyway, I arrived in time and got the very last spot – lucky number 7. After a my usual office standard breakfast (Greek yoghourt, 180 nutrition blend, brain octane, and a few other super foods that I don't want to mention in order to avoid totally embarrassing myself) I left to hike up Frenchman's Peak. Lovely hike, apparently 2 hours return, which took me about 50 minutes, including at least a 15 minutes photo session on the summit. There were some birds around here, enjoying the breeze and updraft, I think a type of falcon, doing stunning areal maneuvers, interesting to watch and hard to photograph ;-)

Next stop: Lucky Bay. There is a van selling coffee there, serving clients during the busy summer months since 2013. That was new to me and I had to check it out. Doc made me a lovely Cappuccino and I treated myself to a Black Forest cake.

Welcome to Luck Bay

Sitting at this amazing beach – white sand, turquoise and blue water, quite often some kangaroos around to entertain the tourists, some granite rocks in the distance – and enjoying my feed, I saw a taxi pull up right next on the beach (!) to the coffee van. Out came Faraz the passenger and Wazza, the taxi driver. I got in a conversation with them over coffee. Turns out that Faraz flew into Esperance to see the real Pink Lake on an island yesterday and visit Cape Le Grand (CLG) today.

Lucky Bean Coffee Van - home of the Kangacino - I heard its a Cappuccino with some Maltesers as aehm Roo droppings ;-)

Later I found out that Faraz accidentally left his drivers license in Perth and hence had to take a taxi to see CLG. I reckon its about a 60km trip each way. As we got into a very interesting conversation right from the start, I spent most of the day with Faraz, drove him to Thistle Cove, to show him the most perfect beach (in my humble opinion) and hang out there. I had an amazing time discussing life, business, passion, opportunities, scenarios for the future and many more things.

Turned out that he is the CEO of an investment company in London (think that is the first CEO business card I ever got handed to me). He's got a lot of experience in marketing, a field that I want to get better at as well and it was great to finally talk to somebody who shares quite a lot of my thoughts about business, corporations, leadership and opportunities. Faraz had a career as an investment banker, found out that the corporate world is not for him either and hence founded his own investment company with some partners. As he is traveling a lot, he even met and had a conversation with Sir Richard Branson in airport lounge at some stage and confirmed what I thought: Sir Richard is a very down to earth person. I bounced some ideas about my possible future through with him and got some helpful advice and nice offer. I took heaps of pictures that day, I think I need a place with a good internet connection to share them! We built amazing rapport from a conversational perspective and I'd like to catch up with Faraz wherever our paths cross again.

By pure chance I bumped into what turned out to be a sensational conversation. I'm really thankful that such random chance meetings, they help me to figure out my thoughts and find my way.

Faraz showing the Roo something on the iPhone 6, or perhaps taking a selfie?

I really need to quote one of my friends, Harry G now: Life is geil!

Foot note for the English speaking readers, “geil” is a word used by the youth to describe something amazing, great, sensational.

Another thing I wanted to share here was what I read yesterday night in the book from William Least Heat-Moon's book “Blue Highways”:

“Satisfaction is doin' what's important to yourself. A man ought to honor other people, but he's got to honor what he believes in too.”

While this book about a journey across the US by the author, it is difficult to read but has many gems of wisdom and thought provoking short stories ingrained.

Dinner at the camp kitchen was great too, I met a lot of lovely people and we had some great conversations going. Two women there, from Perth but now living in Denmark, WA, were extremely interesting: they have done some amazing cycle tours over the years, one of them taking more than a year to ride from Alaska (!) down to Tierra del Fuego – Feuerland. Just on their tracking bikes with some bags attached to them, a tent and nothing much else. One of them did some tours alone for example from Darwin to Perth, or across Europe. Quite inspiring what stories they had to tell. Must be quite an adventure.

Distance traveled: 87km

24/2/2015

This place is fantastic! Waking up, quick walk on the beach and then preparing a nice breakfast.

In the morning I checked out Hellfire Bay – oh wow, sensational as well – had a good chat with some Australians, went for a swim, moved on to Thistle Cove – my all time favorite beach, took some more photos, cooled my feet (Sun burnt! Forgot to put sun screen on my toes yesterday!) in the turquoise to blue sea and left for a coffee at Lucky Bay mobile coffee van.

Hellfire Bay - oh yeah!

Thistle Cove - as beautiful as it was a few years ago when I took a similar photo

Today I had to share the beach with 1 other person... remember the times at the Adriatic Sea in Italy?

Perfectly timed, one of the local kangaroos came to the beach to entertain the visitors.

Lucky Bay - staring match - local vs. tourist ;-)

The weather got rather hot, 35 degrees at least today. I spent the afternoon low key, practicing guitar, reading quite a lot (Richard Branson's: The Virgin Way, Justin Beginners Guitar book and started with Marcus Aurelius – Meditations) and preparing for an early departure tomorrow. It's going to be a long day behind the wheel tomorrow, so I better get into gear early.

It didn't cool down much over night and I experienced the first night with troubles sleeping due to the heat. Got some more reading done though to make time pass and got up bright and early.

Distance traveled: 35km

The magical place called Esperance

Words won't do these views justice – but imagine the bluest of blue, the whitest of white and the clearest of waters and you would get close. Unbelievable, every time I visit this place I'm stunned by its beauty. One beach after the other, just picture perfect. And these are only the beaches around the little town called Esperance – (from espérance - French for 'hope', referring to an abstract, positive expectation). 

Unfortunately the photos displayed at the blog changed color quite a bit from what came from my camera, they lost the white and blueness. I need to look into this further, but when I'm back home I'll show you the pictures in their full magnificence.

I found a free WiFi hotspot in Taylor's Beach Cafe, giving me the opportunity to enjoy a good coffee (the first one since Margaret River) and update my blog, read and answer some emails and have a light lunch.

The weather has changed a bit since the morning and is now completely overcast. Gone are the stunning colors, but there is another day coming!

Distance traveled: not done yet, about 130km so far

Awesome scenery – but not too much Internet coverage for a few days

19/2/2015

The first night in the van was great. My body took more than 10 hours of sleep and I woke up refreshed and full of energy. The last few weeks were a bit hectic but I made it through it successfully.

Prevelly and the whole Margaret River region are arty

I tried intermittent fasting today. Some research suggests, that you should not eat for 14+ hours several times a week. From how I understand it, our body was used to long stretches of not getting fed in our earlier days as humans. Furthermore, digestion uses a lot of our blood and energy, and some people even argue that you have more mental clarity when your body is in a fasting state. There is a lot about this out there in the Internet at the moment, but as with most things, trying it out and observing what it does for you is my preferred way to test it.

The learning curve for camping is steep: While I selected a relatively wind protected place for the gas burner, I was not careful enough. Had to restart the flame at least 4 times to prepare my shakshuka for brunch. But it was well worth it ;-)

Shakshuka - awesome brunch

Being still inspired by Bill's guitar play, I practiced for quite a while after breakfast, followed by some reading. As my eyes got tired, I went for a run, this time turning left on the limestone path – well worth it! Awesome views all around and hills to get the heart rate right into the (crossfit) zone!

Seaview Gardens, a restaurant right next to the caravan park, served me a wonderful dinner, some wine, a sunset and big waves in the distance rolling in.

I hit the deck quite early again, and gave my body the sleep it craved.

Distance traveled: 0km

20/2/2015

I woke up early and had a generous breakfast of bacon and eggs. I've filled up the water tank of the camper van for the first time as I'm heading into the Stirling Range where bush camping will be very likely.

 

On the road, with Austria 3 and STS

After a long day of driving, some nice photos taken, I reach my destination for the night – Mount TrioBush Camp and Caravan Park. Lovely place, deserves its great rating in the camping app. It is located only a few km away from Mount Trio, which I plan to hike up tomorrow, and has all the facilities that are needed. The local bush nature walking trail was a welcoming change for my legs that got a bit tired of holding the accelerator down.

What a great place to bush camp!

The definition of an 'open kitchen' no walls on 3 sides - awesome

For people that can't see the Trail on the ground (like me *g*)

Sharing dinner (very decadent – including cucumber salad with Steirischem Kuerbiskernoel!)in the bush kitchen with two young German carpenters, they are currently working at this property as part of their Work & Holiday visa. Nice chaps, complained the massive number of Germans in Australia and about our racism over here. Apparently Germans are more tolerant, especially from the area they are from – near the Swiss and French border in Germany.

Bush camping - still living like a gourmet

Distance traveled today: 415km

21/2/2015

After a rather cool night, I got up around 6am to get to an early start. Wolfing down some breakfast I drove to the Mount Trio car park. The hike up the 856m high Mount Trio is apparently 3 hours return, including taking some photos I did it in a bit under on hour. But to be honest, I pushed very hard.

The right one is Mt Trio, actually higher than the left one, but this photo is misleading

Bluff Knoll, 1099m, is the highest peak of the Stirling Range and was next on my to-do list. Wonderful hike up, overtaking everybody that I met, despite not eating since breakfast and the 'crossfit style' hike onto Mount Trio ;-)

Bluff Knoll

Great views from the top – quite a prominent peak when you look down over the wide lands. The return trip took me 1h36, instead of the 3-4 hours posted at the bottom. I guess they scale down the times to families.

At the lower right side you can see the carpark - and Wookie if you got eagle eyes ;-)

The Stirling Range is amazing - and has a very diverse eco system, well worth a visit!

As it was only 11am, I had some coffee and cake at the Bluff Knoll Cafe, and revised my plan for the day: hitting the road and covering a good part of the way to Esperance to have an easy day tomorrow.

How is that for 'authenticity'?

I chose Stoke National Park as my overnight stop (lovely walking trail!), leaving less than 100km to drive to Esperance tomorrow and spend my day there.

Who are you?

The only things I'm struggling with a bit at the moment: Internet coverage, a power plug to charge my computer (the inverter in my car doesn't want to work!) and finding a shower ;-)

Distance traveled today: 360km