The last k's, facing the Nullarbor, arriving safe in Perth

G'day Mates,

Lets go, still have many k's to go and we have to pass the Nullarbor! Our third time so we are professionals haha.

Here we are in Southern Australia and because its spring the flowers are blooming everywhere which means beautiful coloured paddocks!!

Towards Port Augusta we had to face one more, not for us but for our car, difficult spot; The Horrocks Pass, but of course we made it!

Leaving the mountains behind us we hurried ourselves to go to Ceduna as quick as possible because there we had to get some supplies before we head to The Nullarbor....

Things you pass on the road......

The strange thing is that every time we have to face the Nullarbor we always get a bit nervous which actually is silly because there is not much danger about it anymore. There are stops now regularly and it is soo busy nowadays, packed with Grey Nomads, that IF you break down there is always help.

Doesn't look so packed hey?? 

Just look at this free spot, who wouldn't want to stay there for a night?? 

At night it cools down a lot so .......

dinner outside was out of the question!

In the morning we found out we weren't alone, there were already a few in the evening (otherwise we wouldn't have stayed) but obviously there had arrived a few after dark.

A section on a Nullarbor is, as you can see below, Australia's longest straight road and you have to be careful not to fall asleep. Doesn't matter for me but for Fred it would make a lot of difference, well he is the driver you know!!

Coming from the Nullarbor we went straight towards the Goldfields and stopped at the gate;

Coolgardie, what a lovely little town;

looked like time had stood still....

If you ever want to make a Western Movie, think of Coolgardie as set.

Anyhow we had a free spot in town which was good, no shade so bloody hot but that's good our solar panel....

Because the trip had gone successfully and quick, we had some time left so you can imagine, being at the Gold Fields and with a new detector under the bed, where we went!!

Still no luck but I'm positive! My time will come and I promise you I will make you part of it! 

Arrived safely at our first House sitting address in Perth, not only our first now, but this was literally our first House sitting address and the owners become more than friends, we feel as adopted family of each other haha!! 

Look what we found in Perth! A Dutch Kroket, jammie!!

Mates! I'm having a Christmas break, see you maybe before, otherwise in the new year!!

Because this drive of 3400 k's from Beaconsfield, via Bendigo to Perth has a lot more to see and deserves a lot more to tell about then my 2 last stories, I will give you some links of previous stories on my blog as, as I said, we have done this before;

Dolphins in Whyalla;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whyalla.html

Beautiful Port Lincoln;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/port-lincoln.html

Hilarious stop 

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/hilarious-and-beautifull-stop-coodlie.html 

Last but not least; The Nularbor;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/the-nullarbor.html

Have a GREAT TIME!

Cheers!

The Nullarbor

G'day Mates,

Today I show you what "The Nullarbor" is.

Ceduna is our last stop before the Nullarbor and we had a remarkable visitor in the caravan park;

This car belongs to a German Lady from Berlin who was travelling around the world, in this car, on her own!!

She slept in a little tent and she just came over the Nullarbor from Western Australia....

Her name is Heidi (of course haha) and she is 77 years young, isn't that amazing!!

Between Ceduna which is South Australia and Norseman, West Australia is nothing but a few roadhouses/service stations with sometimes a camping spot. The distance between these two towns is 1200 k's. There are also a few free camps along the way luckily!  Of course we filled up our tank (170 ltr) and our fridge in Ceduna as you can understand that the prices will be sky high along that track!

From one of our neighbours in the caravan park we got some, already cooked, crabs which we had for a nice lunch....

  

What is the Nullarbor?;

The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north.

"Crossing the Nullarbor", for many Australians, is a quintessential experience of the "Australian Outback". Stickers bought from roadhouses on the highway show "I have crossed the Nullarbor", and can be seen on vehicles of varying quality or capacity for long distance travel.

On the border SA and WA which is approx. 500 k's from Ceduna, will be a quarantine checkpoint again so before we come there we have to eat our fruit and because I already was aware of that, we only have cooked and can vegetables with us (I thought)...

When we left the weather was perfect for travelling , especially on that part as normally it can be bloody hot and without having air condition that wouldn't have been fun! But it's over casted, it's just 22 degrees and we even had some spots of rain.

The one thing which is annoying in Australia is that there so often wind and I'm not talking about normal wind but very much wind! And because it's also a very dry country you can imagine the dust whirling around.  Our car and caravan haven't got their own colour anymore, it's grey, and when we got some rain during our trip we thought it would clean the car and caravan a bit. Crikey, it just got worse, for a cleaning job it should rain properly, not just some drops.

On our first stop for the night it took about 1 1/2 hour before more people came so we could open a can beer and have a drink. It's always a gamble because we don't really like to be on such a  camp ground on our own but going further isn't an option either as it's not wise to be on the road after five because of the wildlife. Still to our surprise just one other caravan joined us. In the night we had some proper rain

 and the colour of our car is back hurrah !!

Next day we drove 500 k's (3 rd of March) and passed the fruit and vegetable checkpoint (they threw away 2 onions, garlic and my honey!!) and 2 time zones which caused our day to be 2 1/2 hours longer! So, one unlucky and one lucky happening.

I must say, even on this long stretched area there were also very nice things to see;

Next day again we drove 400 k's and I will explain why we are in a hurry because actually we don have to drive that far on a day as there are enough free camps and roadhouses to stay.

On 25 th of March our daughter is coming to Perth for two weeks holiday ( really looking forward to that) and the last day we were in Ceduna, I wanted to plan these two weeks and book some caravan parks. To my big surprise and actually shock, I found out most of the parks were fully booked because it's Easter! So the night before we left I e-mailed some caravan parks but because of the time difference I didn't get responds before we left for the Nullarbor and of course, on the Nullarbor you don't have reception, not even telephone !! So we were in a hurry to get to Norseman on the other side and check the e-mails. Finally, after more e-mails and phone calls I hope it's all settled now.

(In the mean time she of course has been here already, so sorry for my delay)

Enjoy my movie about "The Nullarbor";

Just after Norseman we stopped at a free camp again,  there were more people and also this camp happen to be very nice, lot of birds and a beautiful sunset! We decided to stay two nights and did a lot of reading and sudoku's of which we are addicted in the mean time......

or just sitting there, gazing at the amazing colour of the branches of these trees and enjoying the songs of the birds;

  

And now it's time to go to bed, good night, sleep tight.......

Zzzzzzz

Cheers!