South Australia and the Nullabor Plain 9th to 11th Dec
Car Kilometres: 188,820
Distance Travelled: 1736 km
Total Distance Travelled: 20,569km
From Nelson we crossed the border into South Australia, our seventh and final state. By this time we had decided that we wanted to get back to Perth for Christmas, so bearing that in mind this few days was purely about covering the distance. I would like to be able to say that South Australia (SA) was nice, it does sound it in the book, and had lots of interesting things to do, but to be honest we only experienced it from the view point of our car window.
We set off from Nelson and covered roughly the first 500km's that day. On the way the roads were straighter than we had got used to on the coast road and the state was obviously dryer by the fact that the fields and grass areas were already turning a light brown colour. There was also a brief stop in Adelaide. This was for a couple of reasons but mainly because we needed to check emails and this was the last chance we would get until Perth to use the wireless broadband that we had signed up to all those months ago. The second, and possibly more pressing reason at that time, was that over the last few weeks we had noticed that when the brakes on the car got hot there was quite a large judder. Mostly for Australia this was fine as it was flat or at least there were enough flat areas for the brakes to cool before the next hill. It had happened a couple of times in Tasmania but not really since then. The problem was that on the way in to Adelaide there is a 5km downward slope. I have since learned that there is a way of using the engine to brake in an automatic but at the time I didn't know this. Therefore, the entire 5km was held on the now quite seriously juddering brakes. We made it in to town but I was convinced the disks would get damaged or create a bigger problem so I was in fact extremely relieved by the internet forced coffee break, which let the brakes cool a little.
We did drive through the middle of Adelaide but really apart from a few streets looking nice it was far too brief to have any real opinion.
From Adelaide we headed towards the Yorke Peninsula with the intention of cutting a couple of hours or so off the drive by getting a ferry from Kadina and not having to travel all the way up to Port Augusta. We arrived at Kadina expecting a small and cheap ferry but after getting the patronising look and 'well you should have booked' routine off the lady at the desk (this despite the fact there was plenty of room), she then told us that a single crossing that takes about 25 minutes was about $200. After that small shock had worm off we did a quick calculation and decided that money was scarcer than time. The 2 hour saving and additional $200 (even taking the $50 for petrol to go the long way round) didn't seem worth it and we politely declined and carried on driving.
We stopped that night at a tiny town called Merriton. It consisted of about 20 houses, a bar, a shop and luckily for us, a council camp site. We arrived too late to get the toilet keys from the council offices so followed the sign to a small shop/bar. I can't remember the name but think along the lines of Clancy's and I am sure you won't be far wrong. Unfortunately 'Clancy's' had obviously closed and had been closed for some months. It was too late to travel any further as it was starting to go dark, so after a bit of negotiation with the only other campervan on the site, it was agreed that they would leave the toilets open and we would find someone and pay in the morning. Before we had even finished setting up someone had arrived and we paid our $15 and got a toilet key and also entry to the free washing machine. This was good news as we needed a load of washing doing. After about two hours of figuring out a twin tub, figuring out that the dryer is not really a dryer (well it does exactly that, the clothes were all 'dryer' than when they came out of the washer but not exactly dry) and fighting off an army of flying ants, we retreated back to the tent with a bag of nearly dry washing.
The washing didn't get dried until we reached Port Lincoln the next day. Port Lincoln was never really on our itineray but Steve, Our house mate/Landlord and friend from Perth, lived there when he first moved over to Australia some 50 years ago. We found it a nice town where we managed to find an Eagle Boy Pizza ($5 special), a Chinese called Ming In (not keen) and get a haircut (well I did, Jemma said I was due!).
The next morning we got a couple of snaps of what we thought was the house Steve lived in (turns out later he got the wrong address so we actually have pictures of someone else's house, nice donkey planter though!) and the bar where his mum worked while his dad was working on the docks.
From there we started the long drive over the Nullabor Plain. This road is the only connection between Western Australia and the rest of the country (unless you want to do a 5000km detour via Darwin), but surprisingly the road was only fully sealed (tarmac) in the late 70's. We stocked up on our water as we had heard it can be very hot and we made sure we had plenty of fuel and CD's for the drive. As you leave Port Lincoln the towns get further apart and the roads get longer and straighter. Unusually for this part of the world it also began to rain and didn't really stop for the next two days.
We made it to a small village called Pennong on the first night, famous (sort of) for all the wind mills used to bring water up from the bores still used today. It had rained steadily and we had heard that a storm was on the way (thanks ABC radio, you're a star) so we bottled out of setting the tent up and got a cabin. Handily for us the woman only charged us for a tent site. We can only assume that this was because we had also asked about these before booking. A nice if not somewhat battered caravan was our home for the night. The next day we continued along the same road (the whole road was 901km's long without a junction) and the trees turned to shrubs before petering out to just scrub land. This was the same for around 500km's of that day's drive. We did have the occasional road train going the other way and caravan to pass but essentially that was the day. It was made spectacular by the thunderstorms and lightning we got when we were getting close to Caiguna.
We did our Good Samaritan act about 1km short of the roadhouse when we noticed an old couple run out of petrol. We stopped and found out what had happened and agreed to bring them some petrol back. You could actually see the roadhouse so it wasn't really that much hassle. It did nearly backfire on us though as when we pulled off the road we sunk into the, now sodden, gravel and mud roadside. We managed to get off it ok but not without a small sideways moment. That night our home was a not so clean cabin that would be unfair to describe as cockroach infested as we never saw any (but I am sure they were there just hiding).
The last day across the Nullabor was again relatively featureless. We did drive along the world's longest straight road (145km with no bends and still no junctions), take photos of the animal warning sign that was warning us about stray Camels, Kangaroos and Wombats (of which we saw none) and had a quick inspection by the border control of WA to make sure we weren't smuggling any tomatoes into the state. We also realised we had got close to the coast as we stopped and looked out over some cliffs to the sea below. Even that was in between rain showers! But then we reached Norseman and the official end of the Nullabor Plain. We even went to the tourist centre to collect our free certificate to prove we did it. Next stop Esperance. After the last few days even this town of 13,000 people was a sprawling metropolis.