The treeless plain to Esperance

There are six airstrips on the Eyre highway between Ceduna and Norseman, one kangaroo, two emus, five wedge tailed eagles and the only camels that exist are dead, or hiding. No wombats either, they may have been  in their burrows hiding from the rain. However, there a lot of signs to warn the wary traveller of camels, kangaroos and wombats but I believe they are only there to provide photo opportunities. We started the trip out of Ceduna playing spotto with windmills, yellow cars, emus, camels and yellow cars. We gave up with windmills on the outskirts of Penong which for one reason or another has more windmills than Holland.

Eddie Eyre described the Nullarboor as "a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams". Obviously his impression was influenced by way of him choosing to hoof it across in the middle of summer. If he had travelled by air conditioned car at this time of year his view may have been slightly different. And contrary to its name it is full of trees. But it's a wide open road, a wide open road......

The sky was big and empty

My chest filled to explode
I yelled my insides out at the sun
At the wide open road

it's a wide open road, it's a wide open road.

Thanks to Dave McComb and The Triffids.

When the kids were asked what they saw when we crossed the treeless plains they said "stuff, trees and nothing." There was actually a lot to see. First stop out of Ceduna was The Head of the Bight which was a 12km detour off the highway. Not sure what bit it but it must have been big, the cliffs went on forever above an unbelievably blue sea. Pictures don't justify the sight we saw but I'll paste one in anyway. Bloody WOW is how I can only describe it.

Be warned though, the flies are, well they seek every orifice on your face. 

As you might imagine the stretches of road here are extremely straight and I am sure the bends were only added by the navvies due to boredom. There is a ridge which is part of the Hampton range that runs to the right travelling westwards that goes on and on and on which led me to think about Ridge's career in the Bold and the Beautiful. This ridge actually came to an epic end after the road led us up it and then down again with epic view of the plain that went on forever. So dumbfounded by the view I was unable to gather my wits and take a snap. Then we drove on to the Nullaboor road house to stop for a stretch or to get the fizziness (Finn's term for pins and needles) out of our legs. Don't stop here unless you are desperate or rich, we were simply ignorant. I got a tin of coke out of the fridge and put it on the counter and asked how much it was. Bloke said deadpan "an arm and a leg." $4 was what he actually meant which rivalled the $5 I paid for a middy at the Streaky Bay Hotel.

After driving all day we pegged up at Border Village (100m short of the SA/WA border) had a meal and flaked it.  It is a very weird place time wise at Border Village because they either operate on SA time, WA time or a thing called Our time. I asked a trucky from Brisbane what time he made and he told that it does not matter where in Australia he is it is always Queensland time because if you try to keep up with all these "ridiculous" time zones you'll end up in the twilight zone. 

We had planned to stop overnight at Frasier Range, an old sheep station outside Norseman the next day. Weather conspired against us. It all started off quite well with fine and at the start of the 145km straight we came across three Japanese cyclists on there way to Perth, I had to laugh when I saw them because I was expecting them. To make absolutely certain they were Japanese I got out of the car and asked them where they were from. They all laughed when I burst out laughing. 

A little way down the road it started raining and Amanda took over the driving while I tried to get some sleep, not possible with our children who like  take turns at shouting at each other. By the time we got to Balladonia we had decided that we would push through to Esperance which made for a 900km driving day. It poured with rain for 100km out of Norseman but by the time we got to Esperance in the dark it had abated. Unable to find anywhere open we managed to pitch tent outside a camp ground just opposite a beach. Yesterday we went for a drive and I must say this is a stunning stretch of coastline. It has been raining this morning hence I have had time to update the blog, now the sun is out it is time to go and play. Here are a couple more pics of where we are. I'll post in a couple of days with our experiences here.