Esperance (October)

Home for a month!

Esperance really did become home. There's still, nearly a year later, so many things that just remind me of being there.

It is a town of beaches. A short tourist drive takes you on a loop out of town to all the little coves.Twilight Beach; Observatory Point; 10mile Lagoon; 11mile beach; the secret surf beach, to name but a few. I became very familiar with some of these while Casey was working.

Twilight Beach is probably the most popular as it's only just out of town and really accessible. Many an afternoon was spent there. There's an amazing rock in the bay, just in swimming distance with a brilliant hole through. Supposedly there's often sharks just on the other side where the water's deeper. Didn't stop me swimming though. Neither did the two rays we spotted in the water.

We probably spent most time at Observatory Point though. Casey liked the fishing there and I liked the quiet beach. It had a great view for getting the bbq out and cooking in the evening too. We even spent a few nights there, though of course they don't allow camping or overnight parking.

We spent most nights in a campsite on the sea front though. Met a couple of great guys there and ended up spending most of three days out in a tiny, serviceable fishing boat. Now fishing is another activity I'm really not a big fan of. Stand on a rock/bank/beach, throw a line and wait. Not much appeal to me. But add to that the fact that we're out in a tiny, little boat and I had a great time. I caught my first ever fish and probably caught as much as anyone overall, though the boys nearly managed to reel in a small ray. Of course we had no idea what any of the fish were so we were throwing them all back.

Added to that I got to drive the boat and we were anchored just next to a small rocky island with sea lions on! 

All in all great time!

Most of our time in Esperance was very normal. We played mini golf- golf in a form I actually enjoy. I wasn't even too bad at it by the second time around.

We went to the cinema; had take-aways; went drinking with the shearers, which generally consisted of taking a carton (box) of beer over to their block on the industrial estate and having a few; went to parties, where I experienced my first spit-roasted hog; ended up in hospital on a morphine drip; and went for weekends away!

When we went away, it was to Cape Le Grand National Park. Home to yet more gorgeous beaches; kangaroos on the beach; and, Frenchman's Lookout, which is quite a climb but worth it for the views.

So all in all a beautiful time in Esperance and what I miss the most is my daily routine- a smoothie from the smoothie trailer for breakfast, a wander round, a coffee from the Coffee Cat trailer and a cake in the afternoon before driving out to yet another beach!

The Nullarbor Plains (24th-26th Sept)

We crossed from Whyalla to Esperance in 2days. A distance of nearly 2000km. Day 1, from Whyalla to Ceduna wasn't even the Nullabor, we were just driving across the top of the Eyrie Peninsular. It was like driving into nothingness. Ceduna was the last real town before before the Nullarbor but even before that we were going 100kms between towns, with straight stretches of road up to 50km long. The only thing of real interest was the Big Gullah.


Once on the Nullabor they weren't even real towns anymore. Road stations. They had fuel, a shop, a truckers shower and, because it's Aus, maybe a pub. Imagine living out there...

The drive across the Nullabor is flat and straight. Not boring though. There's not nothing to see. Despite it being a 'treeless plain' there's a fair amount of vegetation and always the hope of spotting wildlife, mainly camels. We didn't, that would come later. We saw eagles though, with wingspans the width of the car. They were always the last to fly away from the road kill. So magnificent the way they just rise up so slowly from the road.

The road kill, that's another thing entirely. It's unbelievable, especially across the Nullarbor. We don't really get much road kill in the U.K, but in Aus, on the Nullarbor you can barely go 100m (I mean meters) without passing another flattened 'roo. Trucks don't stop, slow, or really even notice them.

And believe it or not there really are some interesting stops across the Nullarbor. Well you would hope so on such a long stretch of road. You are actually driving across the Great Australian Bight (or bite). The erosion on the cliffs really does look like teeth marks. Just imagining a colossal giant taking a bite out of Australia...
Anyway the bight really is incredible.

On one side you have a magnificent coast line with beautiful cliffs and blue water, and the other side; desert plains! There are 3 official viewing points along the Bight, though there are 4x4 tracks where people have gone to find their own. The first, travelling East to West is the 'Head of the Bight' where the viewing platform is set out over the cliffs. I'm told it was once free but as it would now set you back a fair price, we settled for the second one, which was suitably spectacular anyway.




Then there was the Nullarbor golf course. Too expensive for us to play but a brilliant idea.




The Nullarbor Links is the worlds longest golf course. 18 holes, each in a different town across the Nullarbor from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie. A 1365km course. Now I'm no golf fan but even I think that's an amazing idea.

Then, of course, there's the 90mile straight. By this point (travelling from the East) you're used to the seemingly endless straight roads so it isn't actually all that bad but cruise control is a god send, that goes for driving in most of Aus actually. And the drivers are all so friendly. You spend so long between seeing another vehicle, you're happy enough to wave at everyone and you rarely ever get stuck behind another vehicle because the road is so quiet and straight you can just overtake (though the limit has come down from 140km/hr to 120km/hr).

And then you reach Western Australia, and have your entire car searched for fruit and veg. Very annoying when you did your shopping 2 days before and have to bin it all. And then there are trees, and hills and twisty roads! The great Western Forest where we camped by a waterhole in the Fraser range- absolutely stunning!






And a word of advice on fuel stopping on the Nullarbor. They seem frequent but can easily be over 100kms apart and over $2/lt. Fill your tank as full as possible when you start and be mindful!

Whyalla (20th-23rd Sept)

" "By Allah, it's hot." "Why Allah? You should blame the Devil." "

We broke down not long after leaving Bordertown. All I am going to say about Murray Bridge is there's very little to do....

Heading West from Bordertown thing start to get very flat very quickly, as in it is so flat and bare (something that became very common afterward, but here it was still a novelty for me). The colours though were quite beautiful.

We stopped a couple of times on the way to Whyalla, in Port Pirie overnight, where we really started making use of the beautiful thing they had in South and Western Aus- overnight lay-by's/campgrounds.
Then we stopped again in Port Aususta to honor another recommendation of 'the book.' The water tower lookout point was actually quite brilliant... and a really good view.

My abiding memories of Whyalla were the red colour of rust and midges. It was beautiful though. We stayed in a quiet carpark on the beach just out of town... yes we really did sleep in the car a lot.



The beach there was incredible. The water was crystal clear and really shallow. At low tide it created sand banks you could walk through the shallows to. And the sunsets were beautiful. The colouring of the area was I think due to the iron industry and made any sunset photo even more spectacular!




The midges were less pleasant. Mozzie spray was purchased soon after. I was covered in bites.

All in all, despite the bites, it was a very cool place to chill out for a couple of days before hitting the Nullarbor!

South Australia! (August 9th- Sept 16th)

So we spent nearly 6weeks based around Bordertown and Viclor Harbour in SA. For Casey it was the full 6weeks (working). I went off to New Zealand for the weeks in the middle of that.

Victor Harbour was lovely, so much so that Casey is now living there. We arrived on the 9th, spent a few days exploring and had found work by the 13th. Our exploring took us all over the peninsular south of Adelaide, above the Coorong wilderness which was beautiful in itself and without any modern amenities- it was not only where I saw my first wild emu but also my introduction to long drop toilets... pleasant, I think not.

We wandered right down to the Southern tip of the peninsula from where you can see Kangaroo Island, I do regret not going out there but you really can't do everything; spent many an evening enjoying the beach at Port Elliot; walked out to Victor Harbour's small Granite Island.
This island has a horse drawn tram to transport visitors over it's causeway, or you can walk.








The island is small enough to walk around in a couple of hours, and has it's own little penguins, though they're not there during the day and access to the island is not allowed during the night.


Still a pretty little island, though I think Casey preferred the fishing he did after... and actually caught a squid... the calamari was a disaster and the ink got everywhere while preparing it.

Wandered up as far as the suburbs of Adelaide where we stopped at Brighton, yes Brighton (they like their British place names) and spent the afternoon on the beach, again before heading to Mt Barker and cooking dinner in the wetlands and sleeping on the summit of the Mount(ain).










There really was not much in Bordertown, just a few white kangaroos and sheep, and as Casey was working in the shearing sheds, I spent a lot of the time I was there sweeping in the sheds too.

Main piece of advice from this rather mundane post is to be aware of the time differences as you cross from state to state. I thought I had missed my bus into Adelaide... turns out I hadn't changed the time on my phone to South Aus time and I was early... oops.
Also it's often a good idea to ask where hostels are. On arriving to Adelaide I wandered around until I found one just down the road from the main bus station. The people there were great... they cooked pancakes for breakfast and gave me a lift to the airport, but the bed was the most uncomfortable I slept in on the whole trip. Not the best experience.

(skeletal fish in Adelaide)