We've had a few days of escaping all of technology... as you may have noticed by the lack of blog posts! So stay with me, this one might turn out to be a long one!
As much as I knew about the Nullarbor before embarking on this trip... I really didn't understand what it meant. The plain vastness of it all. The pure insanity it must have taken for Eyre to attempt crossing the region on a mission to get to Albany from Adelaide. I think about the bits and pieces of history I've read where the first 'explorers' that arrived here reported back to their mother countries that this was a desolate wasteland. Having driving across the 1,100km/680+ mi of nothingness, I can now imagine why. Why would anyone progress any further inland if they arrived anywhere along the southern coast line. There is nothing. Nothing that stands out as worth going any further. No fresh water supplies. Minimal edible looking plant or animal life signs. Nothing.
But now, after having made the drive west and staying three nights along the way, I can assure you that there is nuance and beauty in its simplicity. The very slowly changing flora that transcends from low salt bush scrub to spotted persistent gum 'trees' back to vast grassy plains that at close inspection are really wirey bunches of some kind of succulent and then back again. Lucky for me (bad for poor Matt) I often doze as a passenger in a car anyway... so every so often I'd wake up to what to me appeared to be very different landscape than what I observed before my snooze. Matt would call out every so often that he needed a snack or that he'd seen an emu. I'd wake long enough to accommodate my driver's request before drifting off again. We drove along the '90 mile straight' the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. With only the ever so slight rise and fall of a few 'hills' along the way. You only nudge the steering column to pass a lonely road train or a slow RV/Camper trailer. Even then, the nudge you need to provide is barely noticeable.
Now some genius guys a few years back though of putting together the worlds longest golf course. Help break up the trek from Ceduna in S.A. to Kalgoorlie W.A and bring back some intrigue to the trip now that the road is paved and the relative comfort of modern vehicles is so much better. This 'golf course' has a hole at most of the 'road-houses' between Ceduna and Kalgoorlie. The 18 holes covers 1,365km/848mi and is a par 72 course. Some of the holes are one or two holes from a community course, but the majority of them are actually scratched from the outback next to caravan parks or roadhouses along the way. You go inside the road house to get your score-card stamped and at times get directions to the hole. Then you park the car, dig out the clubs (we brought 6 clubs, a 3 & 5 wood, 3, 5 and 10 iron and a putter) place your bottle cap tee on the slab of astro-turf and line up your shot at the astro turf green off in the distance. No need for man made bunkers or twisting fairways... the land mines, wombat holes and cheeky crows that fly off with your ball are obstacle enough. Especially for two golfers who have never put much time or effort into their game (or it's been 15 years or so...) But stomping around looking for a golf ball in the scrub in the glaring Australian sun just makes sense when all you'd be doing otherwise is more miles of endless driving and driving and driving...
A few things I learned on this part of the trip.
Always top up the tank. At one point we paid the equivalent of $8.00 a gallon ($2.12/Litre). Luckily it was for only a few glugs of petrol.
Don't pull a trailer behind a small car across thousands of kilometers unless you know what you are doing... We came across a poor car, literally a hundred miles from any kind of phone reception or place to call for help, that had turned their trailer over. Mind you, this was a particularly straight stretch of road... and there was no wind, so the only way to flip that trailer was driver error. There was already a four wheel drive vehicle that had stopped to help the poor family. We offered to call road side assistance when we got to the next stop but they waved us on.
Road kill stinks. There is A LOT of roadkill too. In some patches every 20-30 meters/yards there would be a Kangaroo alongside the road. I know that puts a downer on this post... but I didn't want to leave anyone with illusions about how great this drive must be. There are serious repercussions for driving at dawn or dusk or even at night along this vast road. Particularly in the dry season because along the road is one of the last places grass stays green and it is a serious attraction for these nocturnal animals.
Sometimes for dinner all you need is a massive bowl of steamed veggies... After days on end of sitting in the car and eating granola bars (muesli bars) dried fruit, chips and gummy bears... well I think you know where I might be going with that... at the Border Village road house just on the brink of entering Western Australia, where we stayed two nights ago... their menu looking pretty bleak and pub-food like and my belly was not interested. So, I asked, do you have any veggies? Yup. Was the short and standard outback answer... Great. Can I have a bowl of them? OK.... Do you want some roasted potatoes with them? Sure. It was the best tasting veggies I've ever had.
Tonight we are in Esperance. You should come here. Seriously. The beaches are Ah.Maze.Ing. White as white sand can be, crystal clear ocean that is the prettiest blue imaginable. Nice small town with plenty of space and activities for all sorts... even a nude beach if that is what floats your particular boat. Definitely worth a trip. But perhaps via plane...
Pictures to come. We have to find the camera cable which we will hopefully do during the setting up of camp tomorrow. Yup. Tomorrow is the first day of the camping trial. Wish us luck!
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