Day 107: Balladonia rest Area to Border Village

Today we drove approx 500km to arrive at a rest area 13km east of Border Village in South Australia. We had been in WA for 14 weeks and had a brilliant time. We hope to spend about 6 weeks in SA.

Today we drove approx 500km. When we left this morning, we went directly onto the longest straight section of highway in Australia - 149km without a bend......  We then descended from a plateau and followed this low range for the next 200km before reaching Eucla which is back on the plateau and where we again had a phone signal, thus this blog.

We have seen very few animals across the Nullabor - I think it would be a lot different in summer. We are now seeing signs to beware of wombats - I would not have expected them here in the middle of the Nullabor....  Today the temperature got to 27 degrees but because it is so windy, it doesn't feel that warm.....

We had morning tea at Cocklebiddy Road House and lunch at Mundrabilla. As we were approaching Mundrabilla Road House, we passed a cyclist - we spoke to him at lunch time and he was riding from Perth to the Gold Coast to raise funds for Parkinson's Disease. He looked almost as fit as me.... lol.

Petrol costs today - 183.5c/L at Cocklebiddy.
We have now driven over 18,000km.

Area of few trees on the Nullabor

What we look at from our camp tonight

Our camp

The lookout before we descended the plateau

Day 106: Kalgoorlie to Balladonia Rest Area (50km east of Balladonia Servo)

Today we set off for the Nullabor but before-hand we drove the 20km or so detour to have a look at Coolgardie. Coolgardie is a very small town with a small population but a lot of impressive historical buildings. We could probably have spent a few hours there looking at the buildings, etc. but we wanted to get onto the Nullabor asap.

We next drove the 200km to Norseman where we refuelled and had morning tea, then we were off. Well, there are trees, at least up to where we have stopped now which is about 240km from Norseman - the Balledonia Rest Area - a free camp area with no facilities other than a pit toilet - but it is nice - we love being in the middle of nowhere and completely self-sufficient. We sit in the van drinking wine and playing cards at night and we could just as easily be in a caravan park at Surders Paradise.....

Prior to arriving at this rest area, we stopped to refuel at the Balladonia Servo. Balladonia Station was made famous in 1979 when Sky Lab re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and broke into pieces all over the place. A piece of it landed on Balladonia Station and US President at the time, Jimmy Carter, even rang the property owner personally to apologise.

We arrived at the rest area at 2:15pm and had lunch then went for a walk in the bush and then the blog.

I can't upload however as we have had no phone signal since Norseman.

Building in Coolgardie

Our campsite

Car remains near our camp

Day 105: Kalgoorlie

This morning I dropped the car in for a service, etc. We then went grocery shopping because we will not have access to any big shops for a few days while crossing the Nullabor.


We will probably not have Internet or phone signal for 3-4 days either?????  I'm hoping to be off the Nullabor by the afternon of 02 August if possible so we can take Lorelle out for dinner on her birthday!

At 1:30pm we went on the Superpit tour where we drove in a mini-bus onto the mining site and had a tour around. Well, it's a bit mind boggling to a non-miner. The pit is over three km long, a km wide and almost 600 metres deep. The most interesting thing I found was how the huge open cut had little holes everywhere - this was where the underground miners of the past 100 years had dug tunnels prior to a company digging the huge open cut. These underground miners had dug down to depths of 1500 metres!!!!!

Following the tour, I collected the car ($608) and everything now seems to be working well - very please to have the air-conditioning going again.

At the base of the superpit, machines are digging holes in a grid pattern for the explosives.

I hope this guy isn't reversing.......

The walls on the far side are riddled with old underground mines!

Lorelle ready for action!

I want one of these for Christmas!

Day 104: Kalgoorlie

Today we visited the Information Centre where we had a look at the historic city hall building and then booked a Superpit tour for tomorrow. The tour runs for 2 1/2 hours and cost $55.

We then visited the Kalgoorlie Museum which was OK and entry was by donation. As part of this visit, you can take the elevator up on the headworks above the museum and this provides views of Kalgoorlie.

Following the museum visit, we had lunch and then spent an hour or so exploring the main street.

Next it was off to the Kalgoorlie Hall of Fame - this was well worth the visit - we went on an underground tour (hard hats) which was good and then viewed gold being made into ignots. This was most interesting. You could also go on a guided tour of one of the massive caterpillar trucks but we ran out of time. There was also an excellent display.

Tomorrow we go on the superpit tour while my car is having the front brake pads replaced, the air-con fixed and a 170,000 service.

Looking for gold underground!

We went underground in a metal cage hung from this device.

Gold ignot pouring

Lorelle holding a freshly poured ignot worth $47,000. I told her to run for the door but she wouldn't be in it!

Lorelle and a big cat!

Day 103: Esperance to Kalgoorlie

Today we drove 386km from Esperance to Kalgoorlie. We expected the countryside to dry out a lot quicker than it did but there were still green paddocks for at least 100km inland. These paddocks were gradually replaced by the mallee gum trees which are quite attractive when grouped together along the sides of the road.

We arrived at Norseman at 10:45am where we stopped in the Information Centre for morning tea. Again, Norseman was a surprise - it was a hive of activity with caravans everywhere - it is the first major town you hit when heading east to west across the Nullabor so I suppose a lot a caravanners stop there for a break, refuel, etc. We will be passing through therfe again when we start our trip across in a few days time.

It was then another 180km into Kalgoorlie - we were amazed with the amount of litter along the sides of the road for the 50km or so before Kalgoorlie - it was quite disgusting.

We arrived at 1:30, set up the vans and then went exploring. There are actually three towns in the area - Kalgoorlie, Boulder and Coolgardie. Boulder is like a suburb of Kalgoorlie and we haven't been to Coolgardie so I don't know about it yet.  We were amazed to see how many buildings in Boulder were covered in scaffolding - there was an earthquake here late last year which caused quite a bit of damage to the historic buildings in the town.

We also visited the SUPERPIT - back in the 1980s, Alan Bond started buying up all the smaller mining leases. He didn't finish ..... this was then continued by some big companies who basically bought out the lot which allowed them to open-cut the whole area and replace all the previous underground and open mines - it is massive. The photo doesn't do it justice but it is the best I could do.

We also visited the Charlotte Reservoir which was the original water storage for Kalgoorlie - it is still used today but supplemented by other storage sites - the water to Kalgoorlie is still actually pumped over 500km from just west of Perth.

The drive up the main street of Kalgoorlie (Hannan Street) was interesting - Kalgoorlie is a big place and has all the stores you would expect in a city - we were amazed with the huge pubs on the street corners - they were massive with incredible architecture. Tomorrow we will do some serious sight-seeing.

One of the big tonka trucks at the Superpit

The city from the lookout

Superpit

Bottom of the superpit

Day 102: Esperance

Today we went on a beautiful drive from Esperance called the great Ocean Drive. It was probably only 30km but the scenery was spectacular - refer to heaps of photos. This took us about three hours but it was very enjoyable.

Tomorrow we will go to Kalgoorlie, 386km. Esperance has been a short, but terrific stay.

Day 101: Albany to Esperance

We set off at 8:30am for Esperance. We were going to stop at a free camp overnight but decided to drive straight through, arriving just after 3pm.
We expected to be driving into some barren country, but were pleasantly surprised to see that the countryside between Albany and Esperance is still pretty good country - lots of sheep, wheat and even a few big paddocks of golden canola.

We finished another audio book today - "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson - he is an excellent author and writes in a very humourous style. This book was good because Bill Bryson describes his travels around many of the places which we have visited on our trip around Oz.

After setting up the van at the Esperance Seafront Caravan Park (nice park straight opposite the beach) we walked 700 metres up the road to the Esperance jetty. It was great because there was a sea lion swimming beside the jetty - he is apparently there every afternoon around 3pm to pick up scraps from fishermen. The locals actually call him 'Sammy the Sea Lion'.

It was also good to watch the locals fishing in the crystal clear waters - they were all fishing for squid and we saw a few caught. They use a lure. After winding them in, they plonk them on the jetty where the squid then spurts his black ink everywhere.

Tomorrow we will explore Esperance.

Sammy the Sea Lion

Esperance Jetty

At dusk

Day 100: Albany

Hi All,
Well today is day 100 and we are still in Albany. This morning we went to a couple of lookouts in the city, went to a Flea market (very small), saw Dog Rock...... a rock in the city that looks like a dog ...dah....., and went through the replica of the Amity (the first ship to arrive in WA to commence a settlement).

Wed then did a bit of grocery shopping, did our washing and are spending the rest of the day blogging, reading, etc.

A point of interest about Albany - it is acity of 25,000 people but it does not have one set of traffic lights in the whole city - instead there are ring roads EVERYWHERE! it does seeem to work quite well though.

Tomorrow we leave for Esperance. It's about 500km so we'll take it easy and take two days to get there - we'll probably stop at a free camp site tomorrow night somewhere in gthe middle of nowhere - we are usually not alone - heaps of people do the same.

We may therefore not have a decent phone/Internet signal until Tuesday afternoon. We will probably spend two nights in Esperance before heading to Kalgoorlie where I expect we may spend 3-4 nights before we tackle the Nullabor.

Part of King George Sound

HMS Amity

Albany from a city lookout

Albaby from a city lookout

A maggy who also enjoyed the lookout