Ceduna (A) marked the end of the. Nullarbor crossing and - having been held up there so long in May - I sped through. In fact, because I had set Google Maps for the next town I inadvertently tracked around the South Australian quarantine post! Video “After Ceduna”. I needed to follow the route I had taken in May but a 26-hour detour through the Gawler Ranges (picture above) was wonderful. The local information volunteer said the road was fine. This was lucky as afterwards I saw that the website says it is four wheel drive only. It was certainly a punishing drive for Bertha. Here’s a video of a family of emus I found myself herding! Iron Knob (F) is a dying town beside an abandoned iron mine, the first place iron was mined in Australia. The next night at Hummocks Station (G) couldn’t have been a bigger contrast. It was one of the first sheep runs in South Australia and has developed two lines of sheep, one for wool and one for meat; it has made a genetic contribution to 50% of the sheep in Chile. Port Wakefield (H) is a functional town with many carefully preserved buildings in the old centre. When I left there I drove to a suburban supermarket and stocked up with supplies to go and spend a few days with family beside the beach in Adelaide. Night 218 - Wirrulla Caravan Park. I was happy in Wirrulla (B), a sleepy farming centre. The park is maintained by the local community. Night 219 - Waganny Campground (D). Gawler Ranges National Park. Night 220 - Iron Knob Caravan Park, Iron Knob (F). This park is also maintained by the local community. Night 221 - Hummocks Station (G). near Snowtown. This is a historic station and a lovely place to visit. Night 222 - Port Wakefield Caravan Park (H), Port Wakefield. This park had many fishers staying with their vans lined up along the waterway.
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I made it a point to visit different places and I took the return more slowly, with one more driving day and two more rest days.
YouTube video: Second Nullarbor Crossing. Departure - Norseman. See previous post. Night 208 - Afghan Rock Rest Stop, just east of Balladonia. Night 209 - outside a property gate opposite Caiguna Roadhouse, where two injured wedge tailed eagles are housed. (I used two tokens I lost and found repeatedly on the way west to have a hot shower.) Night 210 - Nuytsland Nature Reserve lookout above Eyre Bird Observatory. Night 211 - Nullarbor National Park, back from the picnic table at the Ten Kilometre Peg. Night 212 - Head of Bight visitors’ carpark. It was too late in the season to see lots of whales, but I did get a long view of one mother and calf. Nights 213-216 - Fowlers Bay Caravan Park. Three days resting, and Keith and Lucy from Wagstaffe were there one night! The earlier parts of this once important port are being overwhelmed by encroaching sand dunes. Night 217 - Point Sinclair: I admired Cactus Beach and chatted with a surfer, and then I spent the night quietly beside the jetty at Port Le Hunte, the best night of the journey! Arrival - Ceduna. Again! How humiliating to be carried into Kalgoorlie on a tow truck! And after two days in a Hyundai workshop the mechanics could find nothing wrong with her, even tho her battery flattened out a second time while she was there. So I consulted an auto electrician and spent an hour watching him do exhaustive tests. He felt that something was wrong but couldn’t quite put his finger on it. So I was easily persuaded to buy an expensive set of lithium jumper leads. From now on I will be a self-starter when things go wrong!
Meanwhile I enjoyed two nights renting the artist’s flat above the Black Crow Gallery and looking around Kalgoorlie. Once Bertha was restored to me I visited Boulder (the often forgotten sister city), the Super Pit (open cut goldmine over many old underground mines), the end of the Goldfields water pipeline (see entry Almost to Perth) at the Mount Charlotte Reservoir, and Lake Lefroy, a really huge salt lake. Pictures are in the Kalgoorlie to Norseman video here on YouTube. I was in Norseman just long enough to refuel and to make a left hand turn onto the Eyre Highway heading east towards the Nullarbor Plain. I spent the night just beyond Norseman and the next day visited the Balladonia Roadhouse. It has a small historical museum of the usual dubious quality, but which also has a genuine piece of space junk: a bit of Sky Lab that fell from the sky onto nearby land in 1979 (picture above). Then I set out back across the Nullarbor. Nights 203-204 - BIG4 Caravan Park, Kalgoorlie. This was a dusty place with an assortment of miners, grey nomads, and prospectors who towed interesting bits of equipment or off road vehicles behind them. Night 205 - RV Park beside Centennial Park Kalgoorlie. Convenient and friendly. Night 206 - beside an old railway siding on Lake Lefroy, a bit before the Widgiemooltha Roadhouse. Night 207 - Jimberlana Hill rest area, just east of Norseman. The area is littered with large granite rocks, seriously large ones. Wave Rock (height 14m, length 110m) is very well known, and while I also visited Mount Walker, Bruce’s Rock, Baladjie Rock, and Boondi Rock l passed by signs to as many more. It’s amazing how granite can weather into interesting or boring shapes! One of the most interesting, The Hippo’s Yawn is at the back of Wave Rock seldom gets a mention! Rainwater doesn’t sink into granite as it does into soil, so various means get deployed to catch and hold the runoff: a concrete pond at Mount Walker, wells at Bruce’s Rock and a large tank at Boondi Rock that was constructed to service passing steam trains.
After Pingrup I stopped for lunch in Lake Grace, an isolated agricultural town. When I crossed the Wheatbelt from east to west back in June, the young canola fields, green and yellow, were patterned against the red or brown wheat fields. Now in September the canola is the brightest yellow and the wheat crop is the brightest bright green. As I moved west along Great Eastern Highway and cropping gave way to open woodland, the Great Western Woodlands. I woke at Boondi Rock to the unpleasant experience of finding the battery flat and being out of phone range. Fortunately friendly campers had the gear and soon got me on my way; at least I thought so. But quite soon Berta lost power, and I had to roll her off the road. I was able to call the RAC road service from beside the highway, but since it was a sunny Sunday afternoon I opted to camp there overnight and to face the rigours of being towed right through Coolgardie into Kalgoorlie on Monday morning. YouTube video: The Wheatbelt and its Rocks. Nights 196-197 - Wave Rock Short Stay (A). Night 198 - Burracoppin, beside the highway (D). Night 199 - Baladjie Rock, Baladjie Nature Reserve (E). Night 200 - Southern Cross, at the Overnight Stopover (G). Night 201 - Boondi Rock Campground (H). Night 202 - beside the highway, broken down 25km west of Coolgardie (I). I should love to have seen a greater length of the South Coast; however the Stirling Range was magical in a different way, perhaps the more so because I knew so little about it and had no expectations. Additionally, a friend in Albany gave me house space to sort my possessions and abandon some of them, so I was travelling with a bit more space to move in. Then another friend was able to restore Bertha’s awning to its rightful place, and after that I have a lot more space!
YouTube videos: Across the Stirling Range, Wildflowers long version, Wildflowers shorter version. Night 191 - Mount Trio walking track car park. Nights 192-194 - Kylebub Crossing Camp. Night 195 - Pingrup Caravan Park. I decided to skip Margaret River in favour of seeing the great trees of the inland forests. Not being able to hike far I found these to be fairly touristed but was grateful for the ease of access. See this video; it has three sections: the tram on the old railway at Pemberton, the Understory sculpture park at Northcliffe, and the Valley of the Giants near Walpole. The second video focuses on the spots where I hit the southern ocean; I’m not sure why it looks a bit washed out.
Nights 182-183 ~ Pemberton Caravan Park. Great park situated between the town and the forest. Night 184 ~ Sid’s Campground near Northcliffe. Night 185 ~ Mandalay Beach car park. Night 186 ~Beside A1 highway, before Denmark. Nights 187-190 ~ Spencer Park, suburb of Albany. It was a relief to get totally clear of the metropolitan area and to find myself among grass trees again and then to pass through sheep and cattle county.
Night 174 - Fremantle Village. Expensive and cramped but close to the city. Nights 175-178 - Golden Ponds Holiday Park. A super place with good value camping for long and short term stays behind the function centre and between the fish-stocked lakes. The time here was marred by extreme tiredness, rain and Bertha’s canopy getting twisted by a sudden wind gust. Night 179 - roadside, a bit before Placid Ark Roadhouse, S Western Hwy Coolup. Night 180 - beside Stockton Lake, near Collie. An interesting area with a history and a present of coal mining. Near to Wellington Dam, with its amazing mural. Night 181 - beside a sheep paddock near Dinninup. I’m taking the easy way and quickly pushing the story into an uncaptioned video here; and here is a broader view of the open cut coal mine near Collie. Sculpture on the Curtin University Campus.
Besides visiting Buddhist monasteries, I was excited to meet fellow students and staff from Curtin Uni Fine Arts and a friend from Sydney Uni Linguistics. So I got to visit various galleries (Art Gallery of Western Australia — 2 exhibitions, Lost Eden Creative at Dwellingup, The John Curtin Gallery, David Giles teaching studios, Moores Building Contemporary Art Space, Japingka Aboriginal Art, The Fremantle Arts Centre — 3 exhibitions) around and in the city (Perth video here and Fremantle video here). I also became obsessed with grass trees (video here). The Perth video includes some shots of Rottnest Island. I’d wanted to go there for about fifty years to see the quokkas (QuokkaCam not loading ). It turned out to be a worse than dispiriting experience with crowds of international tourists not being told about its history and the friend who took me whispering “Whitewash” as our guide skirted around historical facts. On YouTube Top Things to Do on Rottnest Island sketches an uneasy balance in contrast to the darkly confronting Truth of Wadjemup. This blog only records where I have slept in Bertha, so counting nights, it looks like I spent a few days in Perth (nights 169-173) whereas it was more like six weeks. And since I’ve been having spots of trouble with Weebly I’ve decided to let Apple compile some semi-automatic videos and posted them on YouTube; this has saved a lot of time and trouble. Less than a week from the end of the Nullarbor to the metropolitan fringe: 658km. From salt lakes and mining, across the wheat belt, with towns sitting closer together, until the reappearance of familiar fast food signs, traffic lights, road bridges and even a Bunnings store. Night 163: Norseman - RV park between the sports ground and the works depot. Night 164: roadside park 10km south of Widgiemooltha Roadhouse - so pleasant to be among trees and away from the sound of generators. The roadhouse provided breakfast and a port-a-shower in the morning. Bypassing Kalgoorlie-Boulder (to return later) I headed straight to Coolgardie and followed a sign to The Gorge, which turned out to be a man-made decal city with no water in it and a sign prohibiting swimming. There was, however the historic car club drinking coffee under a tree. The town itself has wide streets and substantial historic buildings. It was once the centre of the goldfields. It is very quiet now. Night 165: Goldfields Woodlands National Park. I continued along the Great Eastern Highway, in parallel with a rather narrow railway line and a very large pipe, stopping briefly in Southern Cross, which projected itself as the place from which the crowds set out for the goldmines. Indeed, soon after this the frequent side roads leading to mine sites (gold and nickel) ceased, and wheat fields appeared. Night 166: Baandee Lake. This was a stroke of the greatest good fortune. I chose the stop for its convenience and saw the most beautiful sunrise ans sunset camped beside the lake. The salt crystals were extraordinary, but it’s disturbing to find such a lake in a farming area. Cunderdin Museum explained a great deal about how the goldfields were opened up. The towns have such wide streets to allow camel teams to be turned around before the railway was built. Water was so scarce that it could cost the same as beer before the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, which installed the wooden forerunner of the pipe I mentioned above. Eight pumping stations were built (the museum is housed in Number Three) to move the water from a reservoir near Perth to the East. An hour later I reached Northam, where road-trains muster and uncouple, indicating that this is the end of empty roads. Northam, despite the deceitful charm of its narrow streets, turned out to be an RV unfriendly town: to the extent that I left poor Bertha out in the cold and slept in a friendly motel. Night 167: Wundowie, a small and Friendly place laid out around its recreation areas has a very swank RV park. It is curbed and guttered with a concrete pad for each vehicle to park beside. From Wundowie to Perth is just one hour. However I am hanging around the periphery and spending some time at Dhammasara Buddhist Nuns’ Monastery and the longer established Bodhinyana Monastery near Serpentine. They tell you that the Nullarbor lies between the towns of Ceduna and Norseman. In terms of buying anything more than fuel and fast food this correct, but it’s obvious that no botanist or geologist would agree. Departure - Ceduna - see previous entry Night 153 - Penong - roadside The real Nullarbor Plain starts a bit after Penong. Night 154 - Bunda Cliffs lookout - parking area Night 155 - Eucla - parking area behind the dunes Night 156 - near Mundrabilla - roadside camping area Night 157 - Cocklebiddy - van park behind the Wedgetail Eagle Inn Roadhouse Nights 158-159 - Caiguna Blowhole - in the bush (two nights because I was getting tired) The Nullarbor ends about 150KM past Caiguna near Balladonia. Nights 160-162 - Newman’s Rocks - off road camping area 80km beyond Balladonia (three nights because I was more tired) Arrival: Night 163 - Norseman (still tired) Google thinks it should have taken me twelve hours and it’s actually taken me twelve days; people walk it faster. I saw 1 walker and 4 cyclists (in 3 groups). I overtook 2 caravans and 2 overtook me. 1 road train overtook me. There were quite a few vehicles, but it felt like almost none because we travelled in file. I didn’t see a great deal because I was keen to get to Perth, if I could. I’ll take things really slowly on the way back. |
AuthorIn mid 2018 I started recording each night I sleep in Bertha: sometimes just for myself, sometimes to share with friends and other travellers. Archives
February 2024
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