.... well actually we did not find it too bad (and yes before you start having a go at my spelling I know it is Nullarbor, just thought I would try and get a early joke in).
After travelling from Port Lincoln to Ceduna on the edge of the Nullarbor (which did not have a great deal to offer other than coast line which was nice) and spent a pretty sleepless night in the campervan as there were severe gales (as we found out the next morning on the news) and I had the fear of being killed by a local (Ceduna reminded me of down town LA) we headed off on our eagerly awaited journey across the Nullarbor.
For those of you that don't know the word Nullarbor comes from the latin words for no and trees, which is a pretty appropriate way of describing the journey although I might have thrown in the words for straight road aswell.
So as you can imagine our trip was full of staring out of the window at nothing, pretty much like looking out at the ocean to the horizon, but instead of sea you just saw flat land with a few green shrubs on. You can imagine that we were incentivised to get this trip out of the way as quick as possible!
Despite the above there were a couple of things to keep us entertained on the way. About 300km in there was the whale watching, which was pretty awesome actually as there were a ton of preggers whales giving birth. There was also the Nullarbor links golf course (that term is used lightly) which we went and looked at a couple of holes but didn't fancy playing as I can imagine me whacking the ball in the rough and then getting bitten by some leathal snake. Finally there was the radio, with the one station that we could actually receive. The radio was hardly the most riverting, however for some reason I actually got into it! My personal favourites were the whole morning talk section about how birds get into your house (shut the window I say and put something over you chimney if you have one) and how to prune your roses, which I can imagine for those that own a garden might be an important subject to listen to.
The most exciting bit of the journey was crossing the SA-WA border. It always sounds funny that the thing they are most worried about is an apple, however after pulling up at the border we had our van thoroughly searched for any fruit we were on our way, thankfull that they did not find the kilo of drugs that we had stashed under our bed (that was a joke by the way). I honestly reckon that if we had anything remotely illeagal we would have got it through - good job we are law abiding holiday makers.
After 900km we decided that we should pull over for the night (and the fact that it was starting to get dark). For some reason before we set off we were expecting outback roadhouses, some sort of outback bar and a decent facilities, however it became pretty apparent that we were going to have to settle down in what I can only describe as a car park service station. Yes these was a proper campsite, however these were only stop over points, not exactly somewhere you would take your family as there was so much to see and do in the area! Anyway we settled down in the Caiguna, which was actually okay although I was made paranoid by the sign on the toilets stating to shut the down as snakes will slither in, what a surprise the Gents door was wide open!
We set off nice and early in the morning (although given the time changes we both did not have a clue what time it was, we were literally just going by when the sun rose), starting on the longest straight part of road in Australia. For those who need this bit of knowledge it is 146.6km long. Nothing really happened for the rest of the Nullarbor, other that me proudly getting our certficates that say we concured the trip and that Helen put in a good couple of hours worth of driving and even overtook a caravan!
At the end of the Nullarbor and aftr seeing nothing but tiny petrol stations for the last 1,200km you would have thought that Norseman would be some sort of massive town, bigger than London and New York put together. How wrong was we. It was pretty much exactly the same a the road houses, just had an IGA supermarket and some metal camels!
As you can imagine we arrived at Norseman early, around 11am so we set off to go and see the mining town of Kalgoolie which housed the Super Pit, the largest open mine in the world. After stopping off at a gold mining town and seeing what used to be the goal tree which had sadly fallen down, we ended up in Kalgoolie. Now if I said Ceduna was downtown LA this was te times worse. For some reason I was not a fan, just seemed to be full of a bunch of random people who did not seem to be the most pleasent of people - felt like the van was going to get broken, with or without us in it!
So interesting points of our visit, we saw Australia's narrowest (former as now closed), appropriately named the British Arms, the end of the Golden pipeline which is a pipe around 600km long providing water to the town from Perth, the fact that you can go on a tour to take in the Brothel's (miners must get lonely) and the Super Pit.
The Super Pit was actually quite good, can't really describe how big it is. The gold mine has another 10 years of digging to go, can't remember how big it is or how big it will finally get to. I can imagine that the place employes a ton of people and I wonder what is going to happen in ten years time when the pit closes.
The day ended there really. We was going to stay in Kalgoolie for the even but decided against so we drove down to Esperence for the next couple of evenings. So after two days of pretty much solid driving, just under 2,000km's later and around 3 days ahead of the itinery we are finally in Western Australia - looking forward to the rest this place has to offer.
Steve and Helen
PS. To keep track of the Big Things we have seen here we are
1. Cigar
2. Wool Bales
3. Lobster
4. Rocking Horse
5. Miner
6. Scotsman (Piper)
7. Goanna
8. Gohla
9. Kangaroo (SA-WA border)
