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