21 August, Yunta SA – Leaving Broken Hill on the Friday of The Mundi Mundi Bash was a good idea, because the roads were quiet, especially heading west and into South Australia. As we crossed the border, the road widened and the surface improved. It is so good to be back to the world of good roads. The countryside out here is big, with long horizons, broad sweeping hills and great expanses of open plains. With all the recent rain, it is green and there is no shortage of feed for the sheep and goats that roam the grasslands. The road mostly runs parallel to the trans-Australia rail line.
We settled for the night at a donation park in the little town of Yunta, wedged between the highway and the rail line. We knew that a passing train would be loud, but when the first one came, it was more than loud, the caravan shook. It was a huge east bound freight train with many double stacked containers. It seemed to go on and on for ages. We were expecting a few more during the night, but we only had the one smaller train go through around 5am.
22 August, Iron Knob – The original plan was to drive through to Hawker, in the Flinders Ranges, and explore Wilpena Pound. However, the weather forescast was for heavy rain on an already drenched landscape. Many of the roads in the Flinders remain closed and will only get worse, so we decided to give that plan a miss. It gives us an excuse to come back.
From Yunta, we drove on to Peterborough, once the major hub for the rail systems of three different states, all using different gauges. Changing trains at Peterborough was a necessity and so the town has a lot of what were once quite grand hotels. It has a famous rail museum that we have never managed to see, after two previous visits. Alas, it was temporarily closed for some undisclosed reason.
We drove on through Willmington then down the Horrocks Pass through the Southern Flinders Ranges. Depending on your point of view, the pass is either terrifying or spectacular. We were lucky that the traffic was light, and so even I could enjoy the views while driving. It is still good to reach the bottom.
We didn’t even stop in Port Augusta. It has now grown to a size that getting through takes a while, but we were soon headed west again. Somehow, once past Port Augusta, it really feels like we are headed home.
We stopped for the afternoon and night in Iron Knob. The town is old, dating from 1890, with many houses being little more than corrugated iron shanties. Iron Knob was Australia’s first major iron ore source, with 21% of the steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge coming from ore mined at Iron Knob and processed at Port Kembla. It fed the steel works at Whyalla up until 1998, when the mine closed and the town was expected to become a ghost town. Then, in 2006, nearby deposits at Iron Monarch were revived and the town continues in a very basic form. There isn’t even a fuel outlet, no hotel and no supermarket. They do have a very good donation camping area and their hospitality was appreciated.
23 August, Wudinna – As we crossed the Eyre Peninsula, we marvelled at the excellent crops on the farms. In previous visits, it has either been after a long summer, or in the middle of a drought. This year, the crops are lush and green, mostly wheat, but some barley and canola. The driving is easy, with the road good, and the road train drivers mindful of caravanners. They regularly use the radio and often give us a “thankyou” with their indicators after we have backed off as they come around. We have always found the long haul freight drivers to be good to share the road with.
We refueled at Kimba, drove through Kyancutta and settled in at the Showgrounds in Wundinna. Once again, we are travelling slowly, to wait out an oncoming rain system. We hope to spend some time in Ceduna and do some fishing, so we want to get there with some good weather.
The little town of Wudinna has set up a donation camp at its showgrounds, providing power and water for a cheap $20 a night. There were about ten caravans in, along with a school camp using a large shed and the extensive camp kitchen. The forecast rains came during the night and we awoke to a very wet environment.
It was cold, and for the first time, we sorely missed our heater/demister in the car. With the windscreen fogging up on a regular basis, we had to switch the air-conditioner on for a minute to defrost, then suffer the icy air for 10 minutes as we drove. After a 100km, the rain increased to the point where we took the chance to stop at a rest stop, park up in a swamp, and have a coffee, followed by a snooze, to let the system pass. We even had to put the diesel heater on in the middle of the day.
As the rain eased, we pushed on to Ceduna, booking in to the Ceduna Tourist Park in the middle of town.
24-27 August, Ceduna – Ceduna has never been high on our list of preferred places to stay, with a poor reputation when it comes to petty crime and poor on-street behaviour. However, recent reports suggest the town has improved and we were keen to do a spot of fishing. Boat hire is available through Ceduna Boat Hire. We gave ourselves a day to settle in and let the weather improve, with the Wednesday promising some calm winds suited to the water off the town.
Other than the fishing, we didn’t do much other than heading out to Thevenard to Baldies Seafoods for our oyster fix. We bought a dozen big oysters, a lovely pack of scallops and some bait prawns.
The morning we had the boat, it was cold, as in 3 degrees cold. It warmed up mid-morning, but when we launched the boat it was still bracing. We tried a few spots we had been given without success, or even a bite, before seeing about five boats grouped close in in shallow water. We joined them and soon caught a few nice big King George Whiting. We had to keep moving around to keep finding them but ended up with 9 big fish. Christine tried hard with the squid jig, but they just weren’t playing ball. It was a wonderful day on the water with good results, although a bit of variety would have been nice. The only fish other than KG Whiting was a large salmon that we broke off at the boat because we didn’t have a landing net.
We spent another day doing the washing, shopping and generally preparing for the Nullarbor crossing that was ahead of us.
28-31 August, Crossing the Nullabor – The first night’s stop was at the turn off to the Head of the Bight, a famous whale watching site. We had read that the whales are best observed in the morning so we stayed overnight and drove the 12kmm to the cliffs in the morning. This is where the Bunda Cliffs start, reaching westwards for more than 500km. The shallow waters and clean sand seabed make it an ideal place for southern right whales to spend the winter months to give birth and raise their calves, before heading south back to Antarctic waters. On previous trips, it had always been the wrong season, but this time, there were plenty of whales to see, all lazing under the cliffs. The interpretive centre provided wonderful information about the whales and the migration cycle.
The Nullarbor Plain is green at present, abounding in lush grass. However, no livestock are present anywhere, not even the goats of other arid areas. We didn’t sight any animals other than birds, despite the truckies warning on the radio about a large group of camels around Eucla.
When we crossed the WA border, we scored a very stern and officious quarantine officer. Christine had put a lot of effort into preparing all vegetables and separating out those items that were not allowed. However, the woman chose to treat us like school children and inspected every nook and cranny of the car and caravan. We had three bags of rubbish to dispose of after clearing the fridge of veges but we were not allowed to put them into the border bins. Oh no, I had to carry them back to the roadhouse at the Border Village and put them into SA bins. Something wrong here?
In a rare turn of events, we luxuriated with a strong tail wind, a far cry from battling fuel-expensive head winds. We spent a night at a large dis-used road camp 5kms east of Caiguna. It was a beautiful camp, with a vast network of good limestone roads and lots of sheltering vegetation. However, the rubbish left by other travellers was appalling. It was beyond the usual scattering of toilet paper. This was large scale dropping of litter, bottles, cans and general refuse. Having lost a cap from a water container, I did an extensive walk looking for a discarded container. I failed, but did score a lovely large canvas camping bag, with only a small amount of stitching having come adrift. It was immediately rolled up and stored on the roof for Christine to restore.
Another pleasant surprise was the price of fuel. With the Iran crisis pushing fuel prices up again, we expected to pay up around the $3/L, similar to the trip over. However, prices were a consistent $2.65 all the way across, except for the Border Village, who wanted another 30c a litre.
We spent a wonderful night at the Fraser Range Station. We have been past this spot many times and it has never been convenient to stop. What a gem. The setting is beautiful, nestled under several large hills, with some lovely stone buildings and interesting bric-a-brac around the grounds. The caravan parks sites are convenient drive throughs. We booked the evening meal, chicken parmi on Monday nights, and enjoyed a fireside evening with a great group of travellers. Fraser range Station won us over.
1 September, Dundas Woodlands – We drove to Norseman to pick up some water and vegetables, before heading north through Widgemooltha and on to the Kambalda turnoff, where we camped for the night in a beautiful part of the Dundas Woodlands. The expansive Great Western Woodlands are very beautiful, with both tall straight trunked trees along with malleed forms with their multiple skinny trunks. The woodlands were heavily cut in times past when almost everything relied on steam engines and boilers. The whole goldfields area is crisscrossed with the pathways of narrow gauge rail lines, called the Wood Lines, used to cut and transport timber to fuel the fires. Before the coming of the water pipeline, the big condenser at Coolgardie burnt through 100 ton of wood a day to purify salt water. The pump stations along the pipeline also accounted for a lot of timber before electrification. The Great Western Woodlands are the largest dry woodland forest in the world and are said to be a larger carbon sink than the whole of the Amazon Forest.
2 September, Coolgardie and Southern Cross – It was only a 50km drive into Coolgardie in the morning, so we slept late, even for us. Coolgardie today is a far cry from the bustling town of 15,000 people in 1900. Much of the town was carried away in the 1920s as it declined, but a number of really beautiful stone buildings remain, the most impressive of which is the Court House, now an Information Centre and Museum. At one point in history, it was even a house of Parliament for the break away state of Auralia in 1900, a goldfields separatist movement that had very strong support but somehow was never formally presented to the Queen.
We spent over an hour in the museum. Having been in a great many small town museums in the last 6 months, we can say that this was by far the best. There was no hint that it was a dumping place for old junk. Everything on display was quality and relevant. The bottle display is beyond belief. It is housed in the old court room, which still carries all the lovely wood work fittings. Another display telling the remarkable story of the Varrechetti rescue, when a miner was trapped for 10 days underground before being rescued by a couple of helmeted divers. The story had the nation spellbound at the time.
We overnighted in open space opposite the Railway Hotel in Southern Cross, buying a beer or course to say thank you for the free accommodation. We had a good chat with another traveller, a New Zealand woman travelling alone in a camper van. The publican proved a real hoot. He surprised us when he told us that he also was a kiwi, with no hint of an accent. He had come over when he was 19 and was now in his sixties I’d say. Christine asked him where else he had lived and he blew us away by replying, “I’ve been in Southern Cross the whole time.” He has sold the pub and is looking forward to travelling Australia.
3 September, Kwolyin – It was like being home again, driving through green wheat fields and huge canola crops to Merredin. Things are looking good, although much of the wheat is very young still. It looks as though it was a late seeding for some. We have missed watching the changing crops since leaving Dowerin a year ago.
At Merredin, we turned to Bruce Rock, drove through and stopped at the old ghost town of Kwolyin. We have been to this free camping spot before and it proved just as good, with wildflowers in abundance. Right outside the van there were pink everlastings, donkey orchids, ant orchids, spider orchids, blue stars and so much more. There is plenty of room to find a quiet space. The only thing that remains of the old town is a small church. Somewhere amongst the wildflowers and trees there is a cricket pitch but we didn’t see it this time.
4 September, York – Our last full day of the trip, but we didn’t go far. It was 100km across through Quairading to York. Our target was the 24 hour free RV stop on the banks of the Avon River. As we entered York, we saw the signs advertising the York Show on the 5 September. We wondered if that would put pressure on the free camp, but there proved to be plenty of room. The river was not as high as one would expect for the end of winter but there was plenty of water.
York has what is probably the best streetscape in WA, and it would compete with the best of what we have seen in the east. The town wasn’t crowded, but there was a good sized group frequenting the cafes and pubs, and most street parking spaces were taken up. Christine did not like using the suspension bridge to cross the river. It was a bit like walking after imbibing far too many beers.
It is so sad that this is to be our last night. At a shade over 18,000kms (not including 1000km odd in New Zealand), it has been a long trip, but we have not tired of the daily caravan routine. We do have a list of jobs to do and appointments to keep so it is time to head back to Perth. It won’t be long before we are lured off on a trip somewhere again.
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