BY BEVERLEY In my younger life I studiously avoided ever driving across the Nullarbor - but more recently, I've just really wanted to do it - to see what's out there and to be in those wide open silent spaces. Turns out it was fantastic! I was very grateful to be making my first crossing in the company of good friends - two couples in their caravans, heading to WA. I was the Troopy in a caravan sandwich.  Lunch stop at Iron Knob It worked really well, travelling this way, and the hours of solitude, which I really enjoyed, were punctuated with occasional banter and commentary about the view over our UHF radios. Then we really had a "karn-voy"!
My problem was that I hadn't invested in a good sleeping bag. I was on the verge of turning back, and admitting defeat! Except a member of our convoy - and a dear friend - offered up her spare (very good) sleeping bag. After that, I was toast - in a good way! Crisis averted, and on we went. PORT AUGUSTA TO CEDUNAOnce we crossed the bridge at Port Augusta, it felt like we were really on our way. A lunch stop at Iron Knob had us looking at a vast open sky and paddocks, but there were still plenty of good towns to come before we were really "out there". Kimba is a lovely town, with two grocery stores and a good pub and plenty more including exquisite silo art. Next was the very impressive town of Wudinna - a stop over at the recreation reserve was adequate. Their IGA was excellent. It's also really worthwhile spending time at their monument to The Australian Farmer, an exquisite and highly symbolic and inclusive testament to wheat and sheep farmers of all ages and stages. A stunning piece of work. Ceduna is the last 'big' town that marks the end of the Eyre Peninsula, if you're heading west. It has plenty of services, and a very good bakery serving impressive vanilla slices - to so I'm told. And a very good camping store right across the road. Most importantly, it has fuel! Best to make sure you're filled up at this point - it can get hideously expensive from here on. CEDUNA TO EUCLA - THE REAL DEALAnd then you're out there...strikingly beautiful mallee trees line the roads, and the towns get much tinier. Many are just sidings, and they may or may not be fuel stops. Penong is a stand out: it has a brilliant collection of windmills, including the largest in Australia. Careful though, it's a 50km zone through town  One of the great things about the Nullarbor trip is that there's loads of free camping, as well as other places to pull off for the night (and cabins and motels of course, but I haven't tried any of those). Nundroo Roadhouse was nearly an overnight stop on the return journey, but it just didn't look good so I went by. Heading west, after Nundroo the land is under indigenous management all through and around Yalata. It is still possible to pull off for an overnight stay in designated areas, but it's not possible to get very far off the road (and therefore, it would be a noisy night with trucks and so on). And then you're actually on the treeless plain, where a selfie is mandatory!  Selfie time The space is vast, the sky feels endless. It's hard to describe, but I loved it - being so far away from a major town was exhilarating. You can just breathe out there. And the hours of solitude and driving are like a meditation. There was enough traffic to make it interesting, but not so much that it was nerve-wracking. Plenty of big trucks, and no overtaking lanes - but the line of sight is often very clear, so it never felt dangerous. I certainly felt that there were so many passing vehicles, if I had been alone and got into trouble, I would have been okay.  Out there... And then you find yourself close to the ocean, and you know the Bunda Cliffs are around here somewhere - glancing to the south, you start seeing rigs parked up for the night, some rather too close to the edge for my comfort. Our convoy pulled off for a most memorable evening at a great vantage point looking west towards the cliffs. Unfortunately, it became increasingly windy, so we were soon inside our cabooses for the night. Lights from trucks shone in the distance - though we were so far 'out there', it was all happening around us.  The Bunda Cliffs on a windy afternoon - still majestic! Still, what a place to wake up...there had been and still was some rain about, but that was followed by a rather spectacular rainbow, than double rainbows! Okay, this place was just showing off.  Rainbow over the Banda Cliffs - pretty magic! On to Eucla, which really had us focussed - not so much on the town, as the quarantine inspection point. This is always a little discombobulating, I find. Back track to the Victoria/South Australian border, and it was a non-event. Warnings were posted - dispose of your fresh fruit and vegetables, honey and maybe other things, it depends. But there was no-one inspecting the day I crossed - however, I have heard that you can be stopped a short distance down the road, and if found carrying contraband, you're fined. Fast forward now to the WA border....the border has becomes a rather pronounced feature of WA in recent years, and we all understand why. But the inspection there - heading west - is punctilious (well, it was the day I went through). An officer enters the vehicle and looks through the fridge - the woman who was on duty that day could not have been nicer or more helpful, it was fine. But as someone who hates wasting food, I always try and not have to jettison my rations if possible. It was all good, if somewhat dismal in the rain, and on we went.  Welcome to WA - show us what's in your fridge! Turns out Eucla Hotel looks relatively impressive, with a chef on duty, fresh pastries, and assorted groceries for sale. In contrast, I was pretty amazed that very few of the roadhouses or fuel stops sell much beyond hot and cold drinks, often including a bar, fried food and sweets. They all seem to sell tourist tee shirts (!!?!) but I would have thought that a few traveller supplies (wet wipes, tissues, freezer bags, tinned fruit and veggies) might be the go. Clearly, they know more than I.  Eucla motel and roadhouse AND ON TO NORSEMAN It's tempting to think you're "nearly there" once you pass Eucla - you are, after all, now in WA! Sure, but then WA reminds you just how big it is: there's about another third of the country to drive across if you're heading to the coast, as most people are. To my surprise, immediately after Eucla I drove down a hill (yes, they do have them out there) and we were now down on the plain, with the Fraser Range on our right. At Madura, keep an eye out for the lookout on your right as you leave, and you'll have an enormous vista to enjoy.  The panorama from the Madura lookout It's a long lonely stretch from there, so even the smallest stops pique your interest! Cocklebiddy, population 7 (people, plus two wedge-tailed eagles), was one such place for us. The campsite is pretty basic, and unpowered sites (that's me) were very close to the highway - but at least we weren't so close to the generator out the back!  Cocklebiddy by night It didn't look all that promising in the retail department either, but actually nothing could be finer than dinner in the diner at Cocklebiddy - they served up a very large and rather good chicken parmigiana. It felt incongruous chowing down on that feast while watching King Charles' coronation on the diner's telly...oh well, the things you do!  Chicken in pyjamas (usually called chicken parmigiana) was a winner at the Cocklebiddy diner Back on the road, and what a very straight road it was - ninety miles of it, or 146.6 km. Let's just say it was a jolly long time before we saw the next bend. And the road goes on and on, with quite sudden changes in vegetation. That change I shall never forget is the appearance, almost sudden appearance, of gimlet trees, scientifically known as Eucalyptus salubris. That remarkable cobalt blue sky, that illustrious red dirt, and those trees with bronze bark - this is breathtaking country. And it goes on for a very long way - all the way to the goldfields in fact, and north and south of Norseman. What splendour! Once you get to Norseman, and if you wish to stay on the blacktop, you turn left to head south to Esperance, or right to go north to Kalgoorlie. As it happens, our merry band headed to Esperance, spending one of our last nights together in the gimlets around the town of Salmon Gums. But on another trip, I might just venture through the centre of these paths, and go to Hyden, then onto the unsealed road that has now been named as the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Trail. It would be very weather dependent, but if the conditions were amenable, this might be a wonderful extension to the Nullarbor journey. THE RETURN JOURNEYWeeks later, Rosalie and I travelled home together - our first time putting Troopy camping to the test. We decided that getting onto the Eyre Highway via Esperance was a good idea, so Ravensthorpe was our first stop. It was fun to have dinner at the pub and mix with the locals, and the workers lodging in the motel. Our first 'real' camp spot was at Ten Mile Rocks, a 24-hour rest stop about 40 minutes beyond Norseman. It was our first foray into free camping, and we were on our mettle - just a little, anyway. We were comforted that there were plenty of others around, including families and other campers with dogs, and we we were all nicely spaced out. At this spot, you could get quite a way back off the road, so the traffic noise was minimal. Turns out we had a campfire, a fun night, and a great night's sleep. What's not to like? Another backward glance at those great white cliffs, and it was back onto that long and unwinding road to Nullarbor Roadhouse.  What was the Nullarbor Roadhouse is preserved alongside the new modern service station. Great to see the history preserved. Our plan that day was to reach the Head of the Bight and try a little whale watching - but we had forgotten to factor in the time change having left WA, and arrived too close to closing time. So, next time! We continued on through the Yalata area, all under indigenous management and opted for a bush camp by the road 5km before the Nundroo roadhouse. The compensation was an amazing sunset as we set up camp for the night. Then, having spent four night's camping in the Troopy, which we enjoyed, we decided it was time to sleep in a normal bed, so we booked ourselves into a motel in Kimba. So that was our trip: here are some glimpses of the silence and the solitude. We enjoyed our Nullarbor adventure, and one of us is very keen to do it again. Can you guess who that might be?
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