Entry 1 – 2026 – January - Driving West across The Nullarbor to Esperance, Western Australia
2026 is the commencement of year 14 of our retirement years.
For us it has been a delightful, wonderful period of our lives.
The 2025 Christmas period was heart-warming. We were delighted to have our whole family together. 2017 the last time we had our family together over the Christmas period.
It was a good family gathering with many of Steve’s extended family also joining us for Christmas day activities. It is a fabulous time of the year, providing a special incentive for the extended family members to catch up with one another’s news. There was the Christmas day special food. Activities for the day included the establishment of a back yard cricket pitch. There were a table tennis table and a totem tennis set up. The kids enjoyed skipping rope challenges. Steve’s mother, 92 years and 10 months enjoyed the activities.
A few days later we fare welled Jude and Corey on a day with an expected temperature to reach 38 C degrees. Around 40 hours later, they arrived back at their Canada home with minus degree temperatures. Corey sent a picture of him needing to clear their driveway for vehicle access. He provided a caption, “I’m missing Australia already.”
Once all our Christmas to New Years activities were over, we were in need of chill time for a few days providing our bodies with a much-needed recovery rest time.
Our tow tug had spent a week with the mechanics, having some major work performed. It was a disappointing scenario; one we had to push, for a satisfactory fix. On the positive, Toyota Australia had recognised the problem and had extended the warranty period on the problematic parts, with no monetary cost to us.
With the return of our tow tug we undertook a couple of distant trial drives, including one with the caravan in tow, assessing all was correct.
The tow tug and caravan were loaded up and we were excited to be off on our next adventure.
Our first stop was at Port Augusta, staying with Port Augusta based friends Sandra and Robert. During day one, the temperature had hovered around 36 C degrees. Day two we stayed put with the temperature reaching 46 degrees. It was an extreme temperature, even by Australian standards.
It seems our departure timing coincided with a heat wave period. We were in need to consider additional strategies to deal with the heat wave. There was consideration of our body requirements and also our tow tug, whilst towing our laden caravan.
Day three the temperature was predicted to be around the mid-thirties. With the alarm set at 5.30 am, we had an early start for the days driving. Within the first 15 minutes we encountered three kangaroos standing at the roads edge, watching us drive by. There was an added level of alertness looking out for those additional dangers encountered during early morning driving along Australian outback roads.
Our stop for the night was at a road side rest area just past the town of Ceduna. The following day the temperature was predicted to be around 47 degrees. The town of Penong was about 40 kilometres down the road and we decided to stay at the Penong caravan park for the day, connecting to a mains power supply to help run our air conditioner.
By 10 am the temperature had reached 42 degrees.
We booked into the caravan park at 10.45 am. The Bureau of Meteorology web site showed Penong’s temperature around 1 pm at 48.5 degrees. A short time later the BOM web page for Penong stopped displaying the temperature.
Recently, we had obtained a thermometer for outside use. Of note all the thermometers we had looked at, had a temperature display capability to show maximums up to 50 degrees. We suspect the Penong temperature on the day had exceeded 50 degrees and the BOM equipment may have imploded? The following day the BOM site wasn’t displaying temperatures for Penong, even though the temperature was much cooler.
Neither of us could remember experiencing temperatures of 50 C degrees ever.
It will be a memorable day for a long time. The Penong caravan park amenities block was about a 30 metre walk from our caravan. When Steve walked to the amenities block, he could feel his fingers tingling from the heat. Attempting to place his posterior onto the rather hot toilet seat was a challenge. The liquid hand soap almost burnt his hand and the tap water was untouchable.
Interestingly, at the same time, Jude and Corey’s Canadian province was experiencing an arctic blast with many locations experiencing minus 50-degree temperatures. Our brains struggled to contemplate that temperature difference on the human body.
We did enjoy Penong’s windmill’s attraction.
The following day we set camp at Scott’s Beach campground located at Fowlers Bay Conservation Park. It was a nice beach setting. During the night strong windy conditions developed, rocking our caravan about. We were grateful for a sand dune protecting us from the direct impact of the ocean winds. It was uncomfortable to be on the beach with the wind creating a punishing sand blasting effect on the body.
We decided to stay put for a second day, admiring our beautiful views from within the confines of our comfortable caravan. The wind continued to rock us about. The strong winds eroding the soil/sand from under our vehicle tyres.
Late on day two, we relocated, closer to a nearby sand hill which helped to eliminate the uncomfortable rocking, providing a better night’s sleep.
In the lead up to our “Nullarbor,” crossing we had read a number of peoples reviews on crossing the Nullarbor and watched even more vlog videos to acquire ideas/highlights worthy for consideration during the long drive. For us from our home base to our first targeted Western Australia location it was a drive of around 2,500 kilometres.
The most consistent publicized highlights had been on the South Australian side to the WA border. It was a distance of around 1,000 kilometres from Port Augusta to the border.
In reality for us, many of the publicized highlights were a stretch of imagination. It was sad to see abandoned, dilapidated buildings with lots of rubbish lying about. Most of the publicized viewing stops were worthy of a few minutes look, all failing to generate any excitement. There was nothing worthy or stimulating to entice us to stop to soak in the setting.
We continued to drive, clocking up the kilometres. There were three lookouts with signage displaying a camera. Lookout 1 for us the best, then 2 and 3 being different.
Admittingly we were travelling across the Great Australian Bight, a huge expanse of ocean. Oceans are generally a windy location with windless periods a rarity. The wind may have been blowing a bit stronger than normal due to a low developed by the tail end of cyclone travelling south through Western Australia at the time. Capturing a good photograph was almost impossible due to the presence of a wind developed ocean mist and the land background shrouded by dust.
We did capture pictures of some unique signage as we drove by.
We had pencilled in a number of different camp locations for consideration. We seemed to be happy, “just driving,” as we hadn’t come across that location to entice us to stop. By the time we arrived at titled “peg 13,” meaning 13 kilometres to the WA border we were ready to stop for the night.
It was a small gravel surface road side stop with no facilities. There were a number of vehicles generated tracks scattered about to the ocean side of the road side stop. We followed one of these tracks a few hundred metres, parking up for the night. There were a number of other campers present, with plenty of separation space.
We had parked the tow tug facing into the wind to minimise the wind rocking effect on our caravan.
We thought it was the nicest setting we had seen since Fowlers Bay Conservation Park. Though it didn’t deliver enticement to want to stay any longer.
We had also pencilled in peg 10 as a location to stop overnight. We decided to “just have a look.” The tow tug was barely up to operating temperature when we were stopping just 3 kilometres down the road. It was another small gravel road side stop with no facilities. Again, we followed tracks off to the rear of the road side stop. We seemed to idle along for around 3-4 kilometres, meandering around low bushland.
When the views of low bushland dissipated, we were greeted by a grand ocean view. It was quite satisfying on the eyes.
The wind was still blowing at an uncomfortable level. We parked up and sat in our caravan, enjoying a hot chocolate drink admiring our view. It wasn’t long before Mary said, “We could stay here for a few days!” Our feel-good scenes appreciated the magnificent view.
Technically we had driven a whole three kilometres down the road and decided the new setting worthy of a stay. One of our shortest drives for change of camp location.
There were a large number of camping areas created by people. Initially we were saddened by the extent of damage sustained by the fragile bushland ecosystem. As we were very close to the WA/SA border our thoughts went back to the recent Covid 19 times. WA had closed their border entry point for an extended period not even allowing WA residents to return to their homes. We suspected this may have been one of those locations people had waited out for the reopening of the border crossing? There was easily enough open space to cater for 100 or more caravans/motorhomes.
Next, we were at the SA/WA border. The WA quarantine officer, inspected around inside our tow tug, viewed the contents of our caravan fridge and many of the cupboards and draws. We were given the thumbs up with no onboard items requiring confiscation. Pictures attached showing the SA side of the boarder and the WA side.
The next two days were occupied with driving duties. For us not much in the way of special viewing. We did take a few photographs of displayed signage.
Our drive across the Nullarbor Plains ended at the town of Norseman. We set camp at Norseman’s RV park for a couple of nights. Once camp had been set, we obtained a much-appreciated walk, stretching out our weary bodies, making our way to the local supermarket, obtaining some fresh food. We inspected Norseman’s iconic roundabout and its occupants. Our second day at Norseman coincided with a 40 C degree day where we spent the day with-in the confines of our air-conditioned caravan.
Leaving Norseman, Mary drove around the camel roundabout heading just down the road to our target destination of Esperance.
No comments:
Post a Comment