Friday 4th January

Today we drove into Norseman, blagged a free shower & drinking water at a campsite, filled the car with fuel, the tyres with air & our esky with ice & hit the road. The Nullarbor is a stretch of road linking West Australia with South Australia. It runs through the outback for almost 1,300km & has no turn offs or towns along the way. There are petrol stations every few hundred K's but that's it. We drove over 700km today, almost reaching Eucla, the border town. Along the way we have been fortunate enough to see some of the finest scenery we're yet to see in this great land & got to drive the longest straight road in Australia. The Romans would have been proud of this bad boy, it runs, without even a kink, for 146km or 90 miles for the imperial bunch. The only downside to this extra-ordinary journey is the number of dead kangaroos lining the roads. Very few cars travel this road, given that it connects 2 states but a lot of road trains (enormous lorries) travel by night & roos just love headlights in the dark for some reason!

We're stopped now, eating a curry & sinking a glass of wine in preparation for another mammoth effort from Terry - & of course me behind his wheel! Berg is chief DJ for the day as always.

Saturday 5th January

Our aim today was to complete The Nullarbor. We woke up really early & skipped breakfast because we were still full from the potato curry last night. We hit the road at 7.30 with a van full of flies & it wasn't long before I left the road because they were such a nuisance I put my concentration into swatting them! Luckily there were no trees, bushes, posts or animals & we swerved back onto the bitumen unharmed.

10 minutes into the 600km drive I performed the almost mandatory gentleman's wave that's aimed at every other driver (very few), only this time to a police car. She waves back & Carly questions my sanity. At that moment she pulls a U-turn & pulls us over. Pretending to be friendly I'm asked where I'm headed, if I'm enjoying myself, if our seatbelts are fastened correctly, if I can blow into this tube & can I produce my driver's licence. I do all of the above & we are on our away, 8th time we've been pulled over during our 2 road trips around Australia & 7th time I've been breathalized.

We get more luck with the wildlife today, spotting a kangaroo & her joey bounding across the road ahead, then 8 emu's & a dead dingo!

We crossed the border to South Australia shortly after this & stopped at several lookouts on the South Australian Bight, a seemingly endless run of 90m high cliffs running straight down into the sea below. A spectacular sight & it broke the journey up nicely because 7 hours of driving with virtually no other cars or even bends in the road, you can get complacent! It was a prettier drive today than yesterday but crossing some of the plains near the coast meant it was very windy so driving was an effort at times.

We made it across the Nullarbor with Terry still wanting more so we re-fuelled & headed south toward Port Lincoln. An overnight stop in a rest area all to ourselves & we'll crack on tomorrow morning to the seafood capital of Australia apparently. Quite excited about that!