Norseman to Streaky Bay

December 17 to December 24

  

We left Norseman last Saturday to cross the Nullarbor, 1200 kilometres until we make the next town, Ceduna. There are plenty of camping and stopping options along the highway, roadhouses every couple of hundred kilometres, but no fresh water until Ceduna. We carry about 110 litres, enough to last us at least four days. We decided to take four days (all things being equal) and travel around 300km each day.

Sunset over the Roe Plains, WA

We noticed early in the drive that the traffic volume was lower than we expected, probably less than we encountered in the remote north of WA. Given the Eyre Highway is the main link to the east I thought it would be “busier”. You are warned to watch for cyclists in the brochures, something I hadn’t thought of. Apparently it’s a “thing” for cyclists to do the crossing. We passed our first cyclist on the first morning, as well as walkers pushing carts (containing their travel needs), and two runners with a support vehicle.

The countryside leaving Norseman was hilly and wooded, as we drove along the Frazer Range and then the bushy plains of the Nuytsland Nature Reserve. We stopped at Balladonia Roadhouse for lunch, and visited their museum. The Skylab satellite came back to earth in this area in the 1970’s, and they have numerous pieces of the wreckage, as well as history of the early explorers and camel train drivers who frequented this route. Not far out of Balladonia we reached the longest straight piece of road in Australia, 145km without a bend or even a kink.

Start of the Bunda Cliffs, Great Australian Bight

Saturday night we stopped at the Baxter Rest Area, near the other end of the “straight”.

The next morning the landscape stayed bushy and a bit boring for another 200km until we reached the Madura Pass. It is here you drive down from the high plains to lower Roe Plains. The road then tracks the Hampton Tablelands, an escarpment that remains within 10 kilometres on your left for the next 200 kilometres. We stopped overnight about half way along the Roe Plains, and witnessed a spectacular sunset on our last night in Western Australia.

Bunda Cliffs

Day Three started with a short 100km drive to reach the WA/SA border. We left early as the time difference was 2½ hours (ahead) as we entered SA. Here the escarpment crosses our path as it heads towards the sea, and we drive back up the Hampton Tablelands.

It’s from here the drive gets spectacular. For the next 150km you drive along the top of the Bunda Cliffs, where Australia drops vertically off into the Great Australian Bight. There are a number of outlooks, with the cliffs only a couple of hundred metres from the highway, to take in the spectacular coastline. We visited every one, each having a slightly different perspective of the cliffs and coastline. Although the weather wasn’t ideal, a strong southerly blowing sea mist onto the cliffs, the views were still mind blowing.

More Bunda Cliffs

We stopped overnight at the eastern end of the Bunda Cliffs. You can stay overnight at the lookouts, but the southerly winds were too strong so we found a spot well off the highway on the northern side.

Day four (Tuesday) the landscape quickly changed when we reached the “town” of Nullarbor. We drove into the true meaning of the Nullarbor name (no trees), the plains were only low scrub and sparse grass. This lasted for only a 100km or so before becoming rolling hills and bushland. We detoured to Fowlers Bay, an early settlement where whaling occurred from around 1840. We spent most of the day there before deciding not to stay (still only 20⁰C and windy) and headed back to the highway and stop about 35km out of Ceduna.

Fowlers Bay, massive sand dunes behind the houses

We had mixed expectations for Ceduna, with some friends liking it and others not, but we were just ready for some civilisation and the need to catch up on some washing. We stayed “in town” at the Foreshore Caravan Park, opposite the bay and jetty. For a remote town, fuel and food was surprisingly well priced. There is a large grain port for the area’s predominant wheat production, and more recently oysters have become a major produce, now stretching throughout the pristine bays from Coffin Bay, some 300km south east. We bought some for lunch on the day we arrived, thumbs up for civilization!

Ceduna Foreshore

We stayed two nights and enjoyed the foreshore and the long coastal walk trail to Pinky Point at Thevenard (the grain shipping port). We had a couple of great weather days, and left with our own good impression of the town.

Friday we drove south-east, tracking the coastline along Laura Bay to Smoky Bay. The maximum for Friday was predicted to be 38⁰C, and we had 41⁰C according to the Iveco as we reached Smoky Bay at 11am! The next three days (including Christmas Day) have the same predicted maximums, so we are keeping as close to the water as we can.

After a walk out along the jetty we planned to buy some Smoky Bay oysters for lunch. There is some fifteen producers operating in the bay, but only one was open on the Friday before Christmas. And they had no oysters! The owner “should be back in 5 minutes” with some fresh from the lease, but he was nowhere to be seen.

We drove to Haslam, a small fishing village at the northern end of Streaky Bay. They have a low cost camp ($5 donation) where you can stay 100 metres from the beach. As we drove in, the temperature dropped 5⁰C in the 3km from the highway to the beach. A couple of fellow campers were fishing for squid from the jetty, but had caught one between them in three days. I decided not to bake in the sun with those odds. The shade and cool sea breeze was our haven for the afternoon.

Streaky Bay, shady park in 34⁰C 

A storm brewed to the north of us in the early afternoon but passed us by, then we heard on the news Ceduna copped it (four hours after we left) with 110km/h winds. The whole western coastline of the Eyre Peninsula (some 500km, including Haslam) lost power around 1pm. It was not restored until 1pm the next day. I felt sorry for the home owners who had stocked up on food for Christmas.

Saturday we continued around the bay another 40km to the township of Streaky Bay. They have a low cost camping area in town, but given we had two more days of heat wave to endure, we tried our luck at the caravan park. They fortunately had a powered site available for two nights (not that they had power until after lunch), so we treated ourselves the luxury of power for our air conditioner for the Christmas Weekend.