Wow, what a day….

Didn’t start that well…. turns out the road from Norseman to Hyden is all dirt, and I’m sure you all know how excited Fi was about that! 294 kms of corrugated dirt.

We also ran into the biggest wirily wirily I have ever seen… it burst out of the bush just in front of us, and by the time I hit the breaks, it hit the front of the car. Was huge, at least as wide as the car and full of dust… was a bit hairy there for a while as I had scenes from the movie Twister running through my mind!!

The van isn’t looking quite so new anymore, with a few dings and and bumps, and there is not much of the outside not covered in red dust, but we survived the trip and are now camped by Wave Rock in Hyden.

Had a few good stops along the way, including a quick bite at disappointment rock, which surprisingly wasn’t very disappointing!! Zac and I climbed to the top for a magnificent view, and saw several gecko’s running around.

We also passed many dry salt lakes out of Norseman, and the kids had a ball collecting salt crystals that grew all over the ground.

We made it to Hyden about 2pm, which was good as we had time to walk around the rock, and also explored a place called hippos yawn, which is a little bit of a cave.

The highlight of the day though was swimming in a salt pool which had so much salt that it was impossible to sink!! Was a bizarre and amazing feeling. I did a bomb into the water, and barely broke the surface before I shot to the top again…. only problem was the salt water really stung my eyes, and I had to blindly climb out to wash off in the fresh water to stop the stinging.

We were making so much noise, that some people from Switzerland who were staying in the cabins had to come over for a look. After a while we actually convinced them to have a go (the pool was a bit green looking) and they bought us some chocolates freshly imported from Switzerland for being so brave.

Well now it is time to cook dinner and get the kid a to bed. Only about 3-4 hours drive to Perth tomorrow and we can finally have a rest from driving and relax for a week…. and maybe do some washing!!!

Thankyou everyone for your Birthday wishes… there were so many that I can’t reply to them all, but I got them and thank you. Had a great day 🙂

I’m 36 today 🙂 and there is only 6 hours to our next stop….. must be a sign 😀

Well Fi may have seen the first kangaroo (which no one else saw so it couldn’t be confirmed) but I saw the first camel 🙂

Was late this afternoon after we had travelled through the Nullabour and well into the Fraser ranges that by chance I spotted a camel in the bush. No one else saw it, so after a couple of quick u-turns, we went back for a look. Was about 50m off the side of the road, and it was difficult to get a good picture, so I did my best Steve Erwin impersonation, and snuck through the bush for a closer shot. Wasn’t easy sneaking through the bush trying not to scare it off while looking for snakes, but I did manage to get about 15m away before it gave up posing and headed into the bush.

That was probably the most exciting thing of the day, which doesn’t say much!!

Beyond that there was kilometer after kilometer of straight road, including the longest straight road in Australia which claimed to be 146km with no bend!!

I also discovered today that when passing road trains it is better to announce yourself first on the CB. Most truckies are very friendly and can guide you around given they have a much clearer view of the road ahead from up high. I also got a few comments about how strange it was to be passed by a caravan instead of the other way around, but I soon let them know I am no slow grey nomad!!

It is also worthwhile leaving the CB on channel 40, as the wide loads will announce themselves first, letting you know how wide they are so you know how far to move over. There is some very big machinery crossing the Nullabour on the back of trucks!!

We also had a bit of a problem today. The toilet in the van is full as there was no dump point in Eucla. This meant no on the road wees, so I had to introduce the kids to the concept of a bush wee. Now Zac and I had no problem with this, but the girls seemed to struggle…. especially the oldest one!! For the two youngest, it was a bit of a novelty, but that very quickly wore thin.

Anyway, we made it to Norseman today and will head off to Hyden tomorrow to visit Wave rock and the cave of some Aboriginal that legend says used to eat kids… always helps to keep the kids on their toes when traveling long distances in the car!!! From there it is only 3 hours to Perth, so we will have crossed from one side of the country to the other is just 6 days 🙂

PS – Happy Birthday for today Mel… sorry I can’t share birthdays with you this year, but you are most welcome to join us in Hyden tomorrow for a party…. it is just a plane flight and short 3 hour drive from Perth 😉

Well we headed of before 8 this morning, gotta love the time difference. We were able to bank an extra few hours of sleep last night with the time difference. Love that!!!
For the record, I win grandpa! I was the first to see a kangaroo. I saw a kangaroo about 2 metres off the road in the bush just poking it’s head out watching what’s going on. Lucky it stayed still and we were past it before anyone else saw it.
We have seen stumpy tailed lizards and Craig saw a black snake crossing the road over the past few days. Jess keeps saying can we see some animals today!
Right, now let’s get this nularbor stuff out of the way. It’s nothing like I expected. I had visions of just dirt for miles and no cars and no people and no nothing. Everyone talked about the nularbor as this scary remote thing. It’s proven that wrong for sure. There are truck stops every 100 kms that usually have a big car park at the back which they are calling a caravan park. We are passing trucks and cars with vans all the time. It’s obviously a popular trip for the grey nomads as the ratio between seeing just cars and cars with vans would have to be on par if not in “vans” favor. Weird hey. We have had periodic Internet coverage. I have no phone coverage, thats optus for you.
The land itself is covered with low lying green shrubs for the most part. It’s nice to finally demystify this place. My inner city chick has had a lot of trouble with this “grand nularbor” and it’s reputation but I can now say I know what all the “hoo haa” is about. It does show you how big this country is and how much room there is.
We stopped yesterday and looked over the cliffs “not too closely- I can hear you all gasping ” which was very spectacular. It was a good 100 meter drop on the edge of Australia. Pretty cool.
We also stopped at the nularbor petrol station/ roadhouse/ caravan park (I use that term loosely) where there were 3 huge semis all transporting little lambs. The girls were very interested. Jess especially, she loves animals. We spoke with the driver who told us each truck had about 800 lambs on each. I didn’t have the heart to tell the girls where they were headed but I did leave there with a desire for cutlets! What? Too soon? Not appropriate? Sorry 🙂

The problem with these outback caravan parks is….. roosters!

We stayed overnight in a very basic caravan park out the back of a servo in Eucla WA. There is not much more here that a bunch of power poles, and for 20 bucks a night, you can pretty much pull up and plug in anywhere you like.

Of course being over the border now we have gone back in time to a WA Timezone, and with no daylight savings it gets light here from about 4:30am…. and the roosters start. Now I have always been a morning person, but it is currently 5:31am and I am wide awake after listening to that rooster go on for the last hour. Wouldn’t be so bad if I could get the rest of the family out of bed and get on the road, but I doubt that will happen.

Travel wasn’t so bad yesterday, weather improved as the day went on and I even managed to break out the shorts!! The Nullabour was pretty boring, but nothing like we expected. Low scrub that stretches as far as the eye can see, and mile after mile of long straight road. Only 8 more hours of it and we will be in Norsman. At least we did get to stand on the southern edge of Australia and look over the 85m cliffs to the sea. Was pretty spectacular.

We didn’t stop at the big whale watching sign to look for whales, thinking we would stop further down where it wasn’t so commercial. Unfortunately that meant we missed the whales. We ran into the guy that was next to us the night before in Ceduna and he said he had stopped and there were 3 whales there…. bummer.

Also due to a navigational error (navigator was too busy blogging to check the map) we drove past a sign that said “No fuel next 144km” with only 130km of fuel…. Not sure why they put that sign 10km down the road from the last servo!!! We pushed on anyway rather than turn around and go back. Lucky I put that Gerry can on the caravan!!!

Well we have arrived in the west to a place called Eucla. It’s a small little place just over the border. It’s a servo, motel (rooms as cheap as 15 bucks a night -no Hilton I’m tipping) and a the caravan park. It looks more like a drive-in with random power poles scattered around the car park. Some of which are working and some of which aren’t, which we found out after plugging into 2 points before the finding the third to work. No allocation needed just pull into any spot you like. We were told by an older couple that this place is popular and fills up so we were grateful to get here at 5ish SA time but here in WA it was only 3:00 ish. I love the fact we are going to get a few more hours sleep tonight.
When we went through the quarantine check point into WA we lost the honey, potatoes and cucumber. Bugger. Oh well. No roast spuds for our dinner tonight.
We had a minor hiccup with the power when we got here. We plugged into the first point, nothing. We moved the van to another and again nothing. By this stage I thought I would ask the older couple who had pulled in at the same time as us if they were having the same trouble. They told me they had power so we kept trying. By this stage another young family came over to assist. They helped us try many things and all I could keep thinking was “Judith had trouble with power in her van, maybe that’s what is happening to us! I was ready to call you Jude and ask for some remote assistance!
We were using the microwave as a guide for the power. If the clock came on we knew we were in business except it didn’t. We eventually thought the microwave was buggered as when the battery was off and we were plugged in we had power. After setting up Craig came out and said ” you know the pot cupboard that you were shoving things into yesterday, well the microwave plug had been knocked out. Whoops! My bad. Well we all learn something new everyday! I have now moved some of the pots out of that cupboard which was a squeeze and moved them elsewhere.
Anyway, must go and put the roast on! That’s right peeps we are having a roast in the Cobb tonight. It’s our first time using it so if it all turns bad, look out 2 minute noodles!

Another wild night of wind and rain… man we picked good weather for traveling. I hear it is even worse back home with hail and snow…. what happened to Global Warming?

The sun was out a few minutes ago so I thoughtI would pack the beds while Fi was in the shower. As soon as I dropped our bed and went outside the sky opened and it looked like we were in a tropical storm…. hopefully I got it closed in time and we won’t be sleeping on a wet bed tonight!!

Bit of a late start this morning as one of us slept in (guess who….) but it should be ok, as it is only a 5-6 hour drive to Eucla, which is in WA about half way across the Nullabour. If the weather isn’t too bad, we might even free camp tonight. See how it is when we get there.

Hoping that if we can get there early enough we might be able to get a roast on and try out my new Cobb that Fi got me for my Birthday (couple of days early, but them is the breaks when you are on the road).

We made it to Ceduna about 6:30pm today and arrived just as it was bucketing down. So like any other gentleman who has been driving all day, I sent Fi into the office to check us in 😉 Lucky for me the storm passed by the time we had our site and I was able to setup relatively dry.

Has been a shocking day on the road. The wind has been in excess of 50knts for most of the day, and the caravan is not exactly what you would call aerodynamic!! Totally killed my fuel economy! Was only getting about 300kms to a tank, and at times the wind was so strong I couldn’t even get the car above 100km with my foot flat to the floor while driving into it!!

We have also seen some pretty heavy rain today, and I had Fi on the edge of her seat with nails digging into the dashboard as we passed road trains and were blind for 2-3 seconds in their spray. I really hope the weather improves tomorrow, but I am not holding my breath. Looks like the first fine day we will see will be Sunday.

Tomorrow we head out onto the Nullabour, so not sure how good the 3G coverage is going to be. May not get many updates until we are out the other side, but we will try when we can. By the way, don’t go by the post time on the server as it is a bit screwy…

Having fun despite the weather 🙂

We are currently half way across Australia at a place called Kimba SA.

It is pouring with rain and very windy, so not doing great time today, but we should make Ceduna. Hope the weather is better tomorrow.

Well the weather certainly caught up with us last night. Woke up in the middle of night and thought we were in a cyclone!!

The caravan took a beating and was rocking and rolling, but survived without any damage. At least we know it doesn’t leak!!