015 - Fowlers Bay to Eucla

Today was the day I’d been thinking of for quite some time. Years without a doubt.

Today was the day we’d start our crossing of the Nullabor. The epic treeless plain that dominates any East-West crossing of Australia near the Southern coast.

We left Fowlers Bay with little fuss and I’m very pleased to say that the Stone Stomper was excellent in protecting the front of the van and allowed us to sit comfortably on 60kph on the gravel roads knowing the van wasn’t copping a beating.

Now I’m sure most would say that crossing the Nullabor would be with few and far between talking points. And don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of ‘nothing’ periods but there were some rippers in there as well.

The first was not long onto the highway  and whilst fuelling at Nundroo seeing a huge Tonka truck, bound for the mines, thunder pass on the back of a truck with associated pilot vehicles. Sure enough, we caught him pretty quickly down the road as I think they were maxing out at around 70kph. You think we had a long crossing ahead of us!

I’m not going to deny, I reckon I could have sat behind it for quite a while before I got sick of it, and judging by the faces from the back seat, I wouldn’t have been alone. But over the UHF came the call of “good to go mate” and we were obliged to ‘come around’.

This was about the 3^rd or 4^th time the radio has come in handy when negotiating trucks and other vanners and I wouldn’t be without one if towing a van or something of similar size.

No.. .this photo is not staged. They were pretty excited about the Tonka truck 

And around we go... I reckon the driver of the pilot van has shares in O'Briens Windscreens...

Not much room here with The Big Green Lizard on the back...

The truck driver informed us there was another Tonka ahead somewhere, and sure enough we found him parked just as the Treeless Plain started near Nullabor. No negotiations required to pass, but it didn’t stop us admiring the sheer size of the heavy machinery. Can’t wait to see the kids faces once we hit Kalgoorlie.

"Sam... why do they put the truck on a truck?"

"Not sure Bob... not sure."

Was quite strange to see a whale in the middle of the Nullabor...

One of the many warning signs we saw. It became James' job to identify them and tell us what to look out for.

Then it was definitely a few hours of nothing as we happily chuffed along the highway with a significant amount of other nomads, heading both directions. Weather couldn’t have been nicer, gentle breeze and moderate temperatures. 

I had put John Williamson on for most of this part of the journey,as I've always loved his music. He has a song for just about every part and style of Australia, and as I lived and experienced another new Australian landscape, I felt even closer to his songs.

There is certainly a lot of nothing out there.

See?

We stopped over at the first three marked lookouts for The Great Australian Bite to admire one of the most recognisable and unique pieces of landscape. The sheer cliff faces are jaw dropping and whilst I like most have seen pics of them before, to finally see them in front of me was an important moment.

Iconic. Breath taking. Jaw dropping. Take your pic. Truly amazing.

At this point I could tell James that we were on the "edge of the middle of nowhere"

Cheeky group selfie!

B wisely took a panoramic shot. Hopefully it turns out OK on the blog.

We were now definitely on our adventure. We were now going boldly where we’d never been before.

We were aware of the quarantine checks at the WA/SA border so B had chopped up all the salad into a tub for an impromptu salad. We plonked it in the back seat a little out from the border to see if anyone was keen for a snack. It was like a plague of salad eating monsters lives in the back of the truck as the tub came back 10min later with little more than a few carrot sticks left over…

Stopping a Border Village for a shot with the Big Kangaroo and a top up of fuel, and quick check of the van by Border security, and we were good to go.

Or so we thought.

Moo and a roo.

The most expensive Callipo's in the country. Still, cheap reward for continued patience and persistence from the gallery in the cheap seats.

No sooner than firing up, and trundling down the highway a kilometre or two and the orange engine light came on out of the blue… Oh great… Thankfully the township of Eucla is only a short trip down the highway. No issues noticed with the truck, but I wasn’t passing without checking things out. The next stop is 65km…

Trouble is, we’re still without reception so no way to read up exactly what the cause might be. The highly-detailed manual in the glovebox simply instructs you to “contact your nearest Holden dealership”. Umm… OK…. Thankfully Eucla has a pay phone, which I used to call Kalgoorlie Holden and my brother Mark to sound them out. Both indicate that if no loss in the truck’s performance has been noticed, then we should be safe to push on.

Given we had already been in Eucla now for a good hour or so, and with the arm on the clock nearing “Roo O’Clock” we decided that the Eucla CP would be a nice enough pitstop. Finding out the roadhouse actually had a bar and we could have a couple of drinks whilst watching the kids play happily over in the park made it so much better.

We managed to snaffle a spot that had it's own "garden". Our staple of pasta and sauce was had, and was quite the unique setting...

The Rock Truck and Big Green Lizard discussing the days events. Hopefully talking over some dodgey fuel or similar that called an impromptu end to the evening.

Evie and the old school "death slide"... This thing was like all slides I grew up with... have your wits about you at the end or your face was in the dirt. Suffice to say, the big kids loved it.

"Yep James... we're officially in the middle of nowhere"

And here in lies what we will need to adjust to. Things popping up and just being flexible and calm enough to work your way through it. We’ve got a bit of buffer in our Easter timelines so there’s no issue in being a few 100kms short of where we thought we might be.

One good bit of advice I read, and confirmed by an experienced traveller at work, was when something goes wrong, the first thing you should do is make a cup of tea or coffee. People who know B, know that it wouldn’t take too much to make that Step 1 of any action plan, regardless of the situation!

So we’ve “made a cup of tea” here at Eucla and we’ll be up early tomorrow to hook up and try to continue our way across the Nullabor. Fingers crossed The Rock Truck has a good night’s sleep and I’ll be able to find some reception and report in that everything went well.

014 - Fowlers Bay

A new week (I think it’s Monday isn’t it??) dawned on us, and it was a quick impromptu class for Sam and Evie whilst James and I went in search of all things related to ‘7’. This is fast becoming a bit of schoolwork norm with us, and I enjoy spending the one on one time with James. I get a rough outline of the things we should be doing and questions to be asking from Mrs White (who is also the teacher of the Grade 2 and 4 classes, and Principal of the School of Gecko) and away James and I go.

Following school, I left the kids with B and took off to the Jetty. No takers or little accomplices on this trip, as I assume the lure of hanging out with the other kids proved too great. It’s one thing to monitor actually, ensuring that we still allow them time to interact and play with other kids around their age. I think 7 to 11 appears to be the popular age, but James doesn’t seem phased. He just tags along where and when possible.

Still it afforded me a good couple of hours solo on the jetty to allow me to catch… sweet buggar all. Only pulling in one rubbish Trumper and that was when B and Sam joined me. Maybe Sam is my Talisman as well as he was around for most of my other fish as well. I suspect Pop might support this theory.

Still it was nice for some quiet time. No actually, it was great for some quiet time.

We left Sam on the jetty with Derick and Christine and B went off to make some lunch whilst I decided now was the time to fit the Stone Stomper onto the van and truck. Arriving a little too close to departure date (through no fault but my own) it’s been carried around on the roof of the car for the past 2 weeks just adding drag.

For those not in the know, the Stomper is simply a net that hangs between the car and the van, and stops stones and debris from flicking up and hitting the van, damaging it, or even worse, rebounding stones back onto the car. Unfortunately, our front lid has already borne the brunt of some stones from previous trips but we still want to protect it as much as possible. The road into Fowlers Bay included 12km of reasonable graded dirt road, so I was keen to fit it so I didn’t have to crawl along that stretch on the way out.

After finding the bracket a little narrow for the hitch on the back of the car, a little “persuasion” from some screwdrivers from Derick and some good old work from the universal spanner, it ‘slid’ on. As I parked the truck to measure and fit the net of the stomper, it caught the eye of some other Nomads who had just arrived. Now I had an audience…

Still, I think it went on reasonably well, but the true test will be tomorrow when we hitch up and head off. The front of the van connecting to the truck is now getting quite crowded and there’s fast becoming more time to set it all up. Still all of it’s important from either a safety or protection point of view.

The Stone Stomper fitted. Already has proven it's worth on the road out of Fowlers Bay as well as a couple of other side tracks. Great product.

Also managed to sort out a key organiser. Anyone who has owned a van knows of this frustration and picking this idea from online somewhere has proven to be a godsend. Great little addition for the princely sum of $3 from Cheap as Chips.

Following that it was a simple round of showers and domestic duties before we headed off to the campfire area to hopefully cook the baked potatoes we promised everyone (you can’t take spuds into WA, so having plenty, we decided we’d feed the hordes). Only issue was… no campfire had been started. Not. Happy. Jan.

After a bit lolling around, I took (fire) matters into my own hands, such is my want at times, and started it myself. I was a little worried it wouldn’t take, but eventually it came good and before long we had throngs of Nomads around going “geez, this is a nice fire”… My work here is done.

Another good little day, but like Ceduna, we’re ready to push on. It’s funny how some places hold your heart and mind, but others you simply go “OK, been here, done that”. 

I had earmarked a hollow log in the wood pile and told James that this would be our "party piece". Worked exactly how I'd hoped and flames were soon spitting out the top.

Derick and Christine showing James about "Twisties". Must admit, I'd never tried them before but a huge hit with the kids means they'll probably get done again. 

Gracie, Evie and Bailey. Anyone would have though that they'd known each other for years.

Port Lincoln was definitely a place we didn’t want to leave, but most others we’re keen to keep moving. I look forward to seeing how that develops over the trip and see how many places hold our hearts to stay.

013 - Ceduna to Fowlers Bay

And so it was with little regret that we decided to move on from Ceduna. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough town but really I’m not sure it can shake it’s “stop over” tag without some significant face lifting and enthusiasm injection. In what should be a thriving tourist hub, to find nothing open on a Saturday afternoon and absolutely nothing other than the Foodland, Servo and Bottleshop drive-thru open on a Sunday, it was very ghost town like.

So we fuelled, stocked up and casually hooked up and rolled out of town with not too much of a fuss.

It was only a short (relatively speaking) jaunt down the road to our next stop. With Easter now booked in at Kalgoorlie we are now in not too much of a hurry to cross the Nullabor before Saturday. Hopefully this means we can break it up into a number of smaller “chunks” and fully appreciate one of the more unique driving experiences in Australia.

Evie was practically cart-wheeling out of Ceduna...

So mere 150km down the road we end up in Fowlers Bay, a small sea shanty town first established with pastoral grazing and land development in mind. Now, it’s another small fishing alcove and an area where whale watching (season dependant) launches from.

First impressions weren’t overwhelming and our initial booking of two nights was coming into question early on. This was particularly related to our neighbour who was “overly chatty” (definitely alcohol induced) and was booted out shortly for bad language and attitude issues to the park owner. One redeeming feature was the lack of reception, which is why, if you hadn’t guessed already, is why this post is coming a little late.

The road in to Fowlers Bay was a pretty good quality dirt track. Still, it didn't stop the Truck adding to the Lizard's war wounds on the front lid.

But once set up in a bit of a dusty park, we went exploring Fowlers Bay two immediate features. It’s sizeable jetty and its enormous sand dunes, which loom over the town with a seemingly constant threat by Mother Nature to get it right or risk being engulfed Atlantis-style. It should be noted that the park we are staying in as apparently “eco-friendly” which means it has little to no carbon footprint. Solar panels everywhere charge a huge battery bank, whilst water is piped from a ground water bore offsite. Suffice to say, we’re drinking the van’s tank water due to lack of inlet water filter (for now).

The sand dunes were a huge hit with the kids, but probably more so with B. The boogie boards had their first use of the trip, ironically not in water. With a bit of practice they got going but not before a plethora of nose dives and mouthfuls of sand. Still, so many laughs were had, I reckon we could have filled an episode of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos without too much trouble.

The dunes do really encroach on the town!

 

A good shot down from dunes to the jetty

I eventually climbed the dunes. Somehow those of us with slightly stronger ties with gravity have to work a little harder.

Unlike those with mountain goat legs and youthful enthusiasm who simply scampered up them.

A quick trip out on to the jetty for a quick fish was also had, with only James coming up trumps, for use of a better word with his Trumper. He was pretty stoked about it, and when all others called it quits due to a building squall, James borrowed B’s jumper, dressed like a Thneed from the Lorax, and said “can we stay a little longer Dad?”. How can one resist that? So we toughed it out until the chattering of James teeth became overwhelming and we called it an afternoon.

James, Sam and I left the girls up there. I think we could hear them laughing from where I took this shot. They were enjoying it!

James and his sizeable Trumper. You can see the shivers in his teeth.

The park boasts a nightly campfire which we attended happily and where we made some great new friends, particularly through the kids. Evie’s new “Best Friend Forever”, Bailey was travelling with her grandparents Derick and Christine, and the two girls were almost inseparable. Absolute peas in a pod, they also adopted Gracie from another travelling family and an enthusiastic trio they were.

And based on that, we decided that Fowlers Bay deserved at least a second night.

012 - Ceduna

So today was earmarked to check out Ceduna. Morning was relatively uneventful as the bigger kids did some school work and James and I did the dinner/breakfast dishes and hounded people in the caravan park as we looked for things starting with the letter ‘C’.

I had got into discussion with Kirk from the front desk who offered to lend us some crab nets and gave us some bait and said “head down to the jetty with the kids and try your luck”. What a very generous offer.

So we loaded the fishing gear into the truck and trundled off to the jetty to check it out.

The end is out there somewhere. We found it and sat there for hours.

A very impressive jetty it is, the pick of any of the ones we’ve seen or fished from so far in my opinion. And there we stayed for four and a half hours. It’s an amazingly fun and engaging way to spend time with your kids, providing the fish are biting and in this case, we had a couple of local lads around Sam’s age to talk to.

And I tell you, those fellas could fish… Certainly gleaned a few tips from them.

These guys were great with our three and the older of the three (obviously the chaperone) had the right balance of respect and cheekiness. Nice to see independent kids like this that could still hold a great conversation.

Evie admiring the effectiveness of her squid jig.

Yep... I'm definitely struggling adjusting to this.

Our attempts were pretty fruitful too with a crap load of trumpers (zebra fish – or sh!tfish if asking the local lads) but probably around 5 Tommy Ruffs (Australian Herring). The boys spotted a few squid chasing the fish, and borrowing one of our squid jigs managed to hook one almost immediately.

But the highlight by far was pulling up the crab nets and nabbing two very nicely sized Blue Swimmer Crabs. A small quantity by locals standards, but the size impressed the lads so the must have been reasonable.

Was going to write something about catching crabs in my past, but I think I'll rephrase it to just "check out these blue swimmers!"

Pots, burners and gas, as well as cleaning facilities all supplied for free. Certainly made those of us not travelling particularly kitted up, very easy to enjoy the process.

Yum!!!

Coming back we were helped by some knowledgable Nomads who gave us some tips on how to cook them and use the provided crab cooking facilities, a new for caravan parks I’ve attended.

Teamed up with some roasted spuds and leftover roast and salad and we were pretty happy campers I can tell you.

But as for Ceduna… Nup. Not many redeeming features I’m afraid. If you don’t like fishing, there’s not much here for you other than a bit of a refuel and refresh before or after the Nullabor and then time to move on.

We’re ready to take on the next phase nice and early tomorrow morning. Just need to work out how I can snaffle a crab net off Kirk…

011 - Port Lincoln to Ceduna

And it was with quite a bit of disappointment that we said goodbye to Port Lincoln and the surrounding area today. It really is a remarkable part of the world with some real world class wilderness, beach, fishing and 4WD right on the doorstep.

We had a bit of a slow pack up, as we continue to find our groove with life on the constant move. It’s a different feel and motive than a normal pack up. Often at the end of a holiday, you just want to get home and as such, just throw things in the car/van such that it looks like the rubbish compactor scene from Star Wars.

B and I how we usually look packing the van and truck.

But on the road, you need to consider where you are going, for how long and what could go somewhere else. I think it will take a little while to work out the ideal spot for things, which will be directly proportional to the level of frustration I have trying to find or get something.

Either way, we packed up easily enough and were just about ready to roll when Joe McGuirk walked up to invite us to morning tea and also donate a long 3m hose for the Weber. I really need to make sure we catch up with them more often in the future with gifts like this!

Teresa, myself, B and Joe looking pretty comfortable. Their impressive pairing in the backdrop highlights the differences between a travelling family and footloose and fancy free Nomads.

Joe and Teresa bravely left these three whirlwinds of mess inside their van scoffing pancakes... Very very brave I thought...

So we went and enjoyed a great spread of pancakes for the kids and coffee and croissants for the adults. These guys certainly know how to travel and seemed to have their set up well understood and well balanced. A beautiful Lotus Trooper is now on the short list for our nomadic life in around 20yrs time when we can boot the kids out.

Bidding them farewell, we hit the road.

And that was pretty much the day. A solid 400km or so up to Ceduna was relatively uneventful but I could feel the pang and want to stop as we passed many a sign to another bay or cove. We just know there is another plethora of places we are bypassing in the interest of heading west and focusing our efforts over there.

The Elliston Information Centre - Quite the mural I reckon.

My view for most of the afternoon. An impromptu spelling bee and the dulcet tones of John Williamson helped pass the time no problem.

Ceduna appears at first very much a “stopover” town. Not many redeeming features from early impressions.

Had some squishy parks in the time, but this is the new benchmark. Still I managed to impress the nomads mulling around with my ability to chuck the van on the site with little fuss. Was quietly chuffed with that.

But I’ll reserve judgement until we see it fully in the daylight and when we can give it a bit of a tour around.

010 - Coffin Bay

Day 10 came and we had decided that we loved the area so much we’d have another day in the region before moving on. Originally thinking we’d drag the Lizard to Coffin Bay, we decided at 40km or thereabouts we’d just day trip it and keep our premo spot on the top of the hill.

A reasonable lazy start, but we got away and were in Coffin Bay by mid morning. To use the cliché, I found Coffin Bay “sleepy”. Not much going on around here midweek, although the Caravan Park looked busy so a few people must have been around here somewhere.

It was stunningly tranquil and peaceful though, and on a beautiful day like we had, there are certainly worse places on the planet to spend a day.

We pottered around for a little while on the town jetty, having a bit of a lesson in marine life. Like Port Lincoln, the water in the bay is ridiculously clear, and we could see an array of fish, crabs, starfish, jellyfish and the strange peg-fish, sunglasses-fish and beer can-fish. It was like an impromptu aquarium.

The mythically flat and peaceful Coffin Bay

"What is that thing?"

"That's a peg Bob."

We decided to take a trip out to the National Park for lunch and see if we could find a nice spot to eat our rolls. Well, that was like going to a library to find a book. To only have spent a few hours there is almost criminal in hindsight. Just flat out spectacular, it amazed me how two pristine national parks on the same peninsula offered such constrasting styles. Coffin Bay is far more “sand dune” style in my opinion, as huge dunes dominated the backdrop to with sandstone drops down on to just phenomenal beaches.

Our first stop was Templetonia Lookout where you are afforded a spectacular 360 degree of the lower part of the National Park.

Not sure if the panoramic shot will work, but hopefully it zooms in and you get the idea of the size of the place.

I love when Evie's in a studious mood. We didn't even ask her, but she jumped out with her notebook to take notes off the sign! 

On to a few more lookouts, Avoid Point and Golden Island, as we then decended down on to Almonta Beach to once again have the beach to ourselves. Sure it was a random Thursday to the locals, but to us, it was amazing. We strolled around and waded and paddled in the water, explored the rock pools and had plenty of laughs and giggles. I think B even checked her eyelids for holes at one stage as we were at one end of the beach.

Exploring the rock pools, always a favourite pastime with the kids, regardless of the beach.

We go around the corner and the coastline takes a rugged and aggressive, yet attractive tone...

James loving the fact he could "walk through this rock Dad!"

Saw this creature lying down in the sand with a hat over her face. We gave it a wide berth for fear of waking it from it's slumber.

A great shot, capturing the essence of their personalities walking up the beach. Sam straight to the point, shortest route. Evie, all over the show, but full of dance. James, inquisitively distracted all the time.

A rare moment in time when these two occupied space near each other... and were quiet! 

The view from the Golden Island lookout (over the cliff faces seen above). I loved this location as waves were coming in from the left and right of the pics as water surrounded the island. Waves crashing into each other in a show of strength.

Just a complete and unique landscape.

The highlight, was not the beach though but a impromptu game where I challenged the kids to walk back to the car (maybe around 100m from where we were) leaving only on set of footprints in the game. I thought they’d get sick of it, but it soon became quite the escapade. People looking down from the carpark (had they been there…) would have thought we were doing some sort of contemporary dance routine. Twists, turns, backwards running, jumping. A simple moment but one of the real special moments on the trip so far.

 B said I looked like the Pied Piper at times. These moments... these exact moments were why we wanted to do this trip. 

After washing the kids like the disciples, we trundled back in the car, and headed back towards town. Before leaving the National Park we took a quick squiz at Yangie Bay, which was nice, but popular I think only because you can get there on tarmac. This is where it becomes 4WD only into the NP, and as I reached over to the tyre deflator, B slapped my hand and said “it’s Oyster time!!” We’ve since decided that the Eyre Peninsula is a complete adventure in itself. I feel we need to spend far more time here in the future, and being within striking distance of Victoria within school holidays, have committed to come back here at another stage.

We also managed to see a small goanna native to the park trundling across the road so that was another animal off on the fauna bingo card for the kids.

Oysters were then bought from one of the farmers out the back of town, where there more oysters than I’ve ever seen before. The young fella at the “oyster bar” they had set up, shucked oysters like I set up spreadsheets. I was amazed (although no one says that about my spreadsheets…) at the technique and efficiency and was happy to pay the extra $4 per dozen for him to it for us.

I loved this sign. A great play on words.

So 2 dozen oysters found their way into the car and like precious cargo, rode in the front seat of the car with B, not to be relegated with the rest of the pleb cargo and shopping in the rear if the truck…

We managed to scoff a dozen before our first dinner guests for the trip arrived. We’ve been a few steps ahead of the McGuirks (Joe and Teresa) , family friends from the halcyon days of living in Alice Springs, ever since starting our trip. They’re currently a few months into their nomadic trip but we managed to cross paths for at least an evening in Port Lincoln as they were booked into the same park.

I knoew it's NZ wine, it seemed fitting in name and quality.

A somewhat haphazard roast dinner was served for them, but plenty of chats, laughs, and spoilt kids were had as we stayed outside talking until condensation started forming on the furniture! Such is the penchant for a great Alice catch up, I feel this won’t be the last time we catch up with Joe and Teresa on this trip, and I hope to at least have a round of golf with them somewhere in WA.

Another beautiful day done and won.