Saturday 22nd - Monday 24th April

An early start today for a short drive (290km) to Fraser Range Station.

We are now on the 90 mile straight, the longest straight stretch of road in Australia, 150kms of it. And sure enough it is very, very straight and long. The roads here are excellent and it is very easy driving. Unlike far north Queensland, there are hardly any road trains and very little traffic.

We are however, totally unorganised as we have wet towels everywhere, lots of washing and messy cupboards! We need a 2 night stop to sort ourselves out.

We enjoyed morning tea at Balladonia and this little town was full of A'Vanners pulling up for fuel and morning tea. This is the fun part of A'vanning as we are now meeting this slow, steady stream of vans heading West.

We are running out of fresh food now, so tins of salmon are handy, corn thins for lunch, and pasta, tuna and tinned vegies for dinner.

The Roadhouses do have some supplies, but the quality leaves a bit to be desired.

Fraser Range is just stunning and we have both been looking forward to this stay. The weather is just beautiful so obviously the washing needs to be done first thing!

Fraser Range is described as being the Western Nullarbor Plain, but bears very little resemblance to the rest of the Nullarbor Plain.

The area is covered by dense hardwood eucalyptus forest composed of
blackbutts, salmon gums and gimlets. The trees are substantial, some towering 20 to 30 metres tall with dense undergrowth making vehicle access off cleared tracks impenetrable.

A range of granite hills the highest of which is Mt Pleasant 579m rear up
out of the forest gums presenting a spectacular monolithic feature. Along the range of hills that run south west to the north east, is Fraser Range Station.

Originally founded by John and Alexander Forrest on their expedition to
Adelaide in 1870, the property Fraser Range Station was first settled by the Dempster brothers in 1872 making Fraser Range the first station to be founded on the Nullarbor Plain.

The largest hardwood forest in the world surrounds Fraser Range all which is crown land.

At the time of settlement Perth was a penal colony and men with a 'ticket of leave' were employed to assist the Dempster brothers in developing the station and building a number of impressive structures out of stone.

Several of these dams and buildings still exist today, bearing testimony to
the engineering skills and the building ability of these amazing pioneers. On our 4 X Drive tour of the property on Sunday we were just amazed as these structures and the actual remoteness of them.

There was a very quaint shepherd's hut, which was our morning tea stop. Currently a lot of the income for the station comes from a mine located on the huge property, (no sign of the mine anywhere), and the caravan park, but the owners are slowly putting cattle back on the property as it regenerates.

There are lots of A'Vans here tonight so a very fun happy hour around the campfire.

We had a delicious lamb roast for dinner plus dessert in the restaurant here, then back to the fire for a few good reds and to warm up before bed.