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 3rd or 4th 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.
