It was overcast today, although it fined up this afternoon. A camper trailer that was in the rest stop last night was up and away by 4.45am. A bit out of our league.
It was good to have a loo at the rest stop, but we had to avoid the red back spiders building nests around the walls.
Today we drove through two time zones, and crossed the border to South Australia. I have now been to every state in Australia.
Tony and Val caught us up at our first stop, Mundrabilla, and then again at Eucla, but we haven't seen them since.... they know where we hope to spend Christmas, though.
Australia's largest meteorite was discovered near Mundrabilla, weighing over 10 tonnes.
Eucla is the closest we'd come to the coast so far, and is also the site of a ruined telegraph repeater station that was built here in 1877. It was use
d by both the Western Australian and South Australian telegraphs, to get their messages over the Nullarbor. It was very remote and a ship would come past and drop supplies on the jetty. The old sandstone ruins are slowly being buried in the sand dunes.
After using the Internet (we haven't had any for a few days) and the incredibly scary playground equipment that looks like it might have missed a safety standards inspection, we moved on.
Just after Eucla we crossed the border between WA and SA, but fortunately we don't have to hand in fruit and vegetables until we reach Ceduna so we have another night to eat it all up. 
The South Australian side of the Nullarbor seems more remote than the Western Australian side. Roadhouses are spaced further apart. There are less trees. But it is closer to the coast, and there were a few lovely places to stop and view the cliffs in the Great Australian Bight.
We stopped and looked at the Nullarbor Links hole at the Nullarbor Hotel, then turned right to drive out to the Head of Bight. Unfortunately it was closed, with a big STOP sign across the road. The Head of Bight is on Yalata Aboriginal Land, and they charge a fee of $5 per person to go and look at the whales that swim 
past between April and October. I'm not sure if the road was closed because it's now December and no longer whale season, or because it was pretty late in the day when we tried it. It was a bit disappointing, but that’s the way it goes!
Back onto the Eyre highway and eastward we went. Our car clock says 7.15pm, but I think Western Australia might be 5.30pm, and I've lost track of the time in Queensland. I'll worry about that tomorrow. The sun's still up and the sky is blue, so we're still driving!
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Vicki
That is a great commentary. I like the photos of everyone at the border. The way the kids are jumping around you will need to be careful that they are not confiscated as a wild-life threat! :-) Just kidding. It's so good to see them so enthusiastic.
ReplyDeletegreat photos - i remember a slippery slide like that - it used to have concrete at the bottom and when grant and I went head first we used to crack our heads open and run home to mum with blood everywhere! It took us a long time to learn our lesson because it happened more than once!!
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