Bang! Just like that, the wind was gone. We woke up to a perfect, calm day, so we took a look around Fowlers Bay. This doesn’t take long.

It’s quite historic, having once been an important port when transport to this region was mainly by sea. The local community has done a huge amount of work to produce a range of information boards along the foreshore with the story of the town.

Fowlers Bay old Post Office, now a private residence

They have a long jetty, and the locals were busy sweeping up after the wind storm the night before. The town sits at the foot of advancing sand dunes, and I fear for its future. The main street has already moved once after being consumed by the sand.

John and Ferg atop the dune next to town

At least the boys had a chance to climb a dune – one of their favourite activities.

A Southern Right Whale waves to us

Towards the western end of the Nullabor Plain is Head of the Bight. This is the sort of northern scoop out of the land mass and provides warmer and protected waters for Southern Right whales to breed and calve (sometime later). They were hunted way back in the 1800s. Eyre even saw remains of their bones washed up here after the Dutch and others had been whaling in the Southern Ocean. They are so called because they were the ‘right’ whale to catch – good for oil and whatever else they used to harvest. This area is now a major breeding ground for them and they have built a great information centre and viewing platforms to get quite close to the whales.

A Southern Right whale and her calf.

We saw about a dozen mums with their young calves. They stay close together, and slowly drift along the cliffs in front of us.

A Southern Right Calf flapping its fin.

The calves roll around and flap their fin on the water making a huge noise we can hear from the shore. Their fins must be a couple of metres long. And the size of the adult whales is about two double decker buses.

We watched for almost an hour. We ran into the Slovakians we helped through the mud a few days ago near Balladonia. They had been watching the whales all day! They might get really old houses in Slovakia but, clearly, they don’t get whales.
After the whales, we continued across the Plain. Somewhere it suddenly changed from treeless to thick bush. I was driving but I really can’t say where it happened. It was very, very, very windy. The wind got stronger and stronger as the day went on. We came across the western extent of cultivated land as we passed huge fields of wheat. It was  more golden here than the crops we had seen near Esperance and not far off harvest.
We left the Long Straight Road and went south after Yallata Roadhouse, which isn’t a roadhouse anymore. It still gets a dot on the map though. We went towards Fowlers Bay, with the wind gathering momentum. If you heard about 100km/h winds lashing Adelaide – that’s the wind we had, but we got it first. I still don’t know how the kayak and surfboards stayed on the roof. We got caught in a web of tracks trying to find a place to camp near Fowlers Bay. After at least an hour, maybe more, and just as it was getting dark, we plonked ourselves in a spot among some rare bushes. It was awful. The relentless wind made it a night we all wanted to forget. At least it wasn’t raining.

Bunda Cliffs. Huge.

This morning’s highlight was the incredible Bunda Cliffs that tower over the Great Australian Bight. I’ve been here before, and I’m sure you might have too, but it’s a gob smacker of a view. No question.

Putting things in perspective

The size of the car and the boys in the photo above gives these massive cliffs their dues. We spend most of our lives right on the edge of the Australia, but this particular edge makes you feel quite insignificant.

The boys took some very close peaks over the edge. To be sure, it’s a long way down.

A long way down

And of course they just had to look right over.

Up close.

Here’s the video Fergus took while peering over the edge.

There are five official spots to stop and look at the Bunda Cliffs. We did one of the official ones, where you get lots of fences and signs and warnings, and the other few times we found a track and drove along the cliff edge. Well, near the cliff edge, hence our excellent photos and video!

And now for family photo time. Apologies for the pink and red combo. What was I thinking?

Aside from stopping to see the cliffs today, we were joined on the road by the optimistic Fremantle supporters who are making the trans-continental dash for the big game on Saturday. We read that even the budget airlines were charging up to $800 one way for Perth-Melbourne, and that was before Fremantle made it into the grand final, so no wonder you’d round up your mates and drive a car over. You can spot them. They’re the ones without a caravan, camper trailer, motor home, fifth wheeler, B double or road train. Actually, not many of us have a road train, but you sure could take a few extra toys with you if you did. They travel light, and fast. Whereas we just cruise along and find things to do on the way.

Like playing golf. There’s the Nullabor Links here – the World’s Longest Golf Course. It’s 18 holes across 1365km from Kalgoorlie to Ceduna. Each town or road house hosts a hole, and you get a certificate if you do them all. It’s a great tourism initiative and a good way to enjoy the trip across the Nullabor.

Nullabor Links Hole at Border Village – Par 3

Bet you thought there wasn’t much out here on a day’s drive from Balladonia to the South Australian border. Wrong. We had an exciting day on this very straight road. We got through the longest straight stretch of road on Australia – 145.6km, or 90 miles in the old. In fact, the whole darn thing is straight really.

We camped last night in the bush east of Balladonia, and this morning moved on to explore the caves near Cocklebiddy. Now I have to admit to complete ignorance of these caves, but John assures me everyone’s heard of them. They are not publicised, nor sign posted, so you have to be committed to finding them – which of course we did!

The huge opening to Murra El-Eleveyn Cave

There’s at least a 10m drop into this one, with no steps or ladder to get in. But we read that once you get to the actual opening of the cave, there’s a 300m walk to an underground lake. Now that’s a carrot.

We used the electric winch to lower John, Fergus and Harry into the sinkhole. I volunteered to stay above ground and operate the winch. Someone had to make a sacrifice.

Organising the winch cable to lower themselves down

John fashioned a harness out of some rope to sit in, and used a bike helmet to make them look safe. Ha.  They disappeared underground, and I didn’t even get half way through my new House & Garden magazine before they were yelling to be winched up.

Fergus at the end of the cable being winched back up

In the cave there were puddles so clear and so still that they couldn’t be seen. There was calcified limestone of which Harry brought me back a sample. It had a big open cavern, and the descent was about 50m down under the surface over rock and rubble. Oh, and it was dark. So if you’re passing Cocklebiddy, be sure you have a winch and a torch for an unusual excursion.

We stopped for lunch at Madura Pass, where the view is magnificent.

A glimpse of our wide brown land….and sweeping plains

The wind was insanely strong and we cowered in the lea of the trailer eating our sandwiches while our calves got sandblasted. Not pleasant.

Next up was Eucla. Another roadhouse, but with the added reason to stop of visiting the remains of the Overland Telegraph Station, which may or may not be covered in sand. We tried (and failed) to find a track to the beach to see the remnants of the old jetty. Yes, I hear you say, we should have walked.

Telegraph Station at Eucla in varying states of burial

We crossed the border into South Australia and I made the boys do silly photo poses for me. Again.

This is where we did find a track to the cliff tops. To Wilson Bluff in fact. The explorer, Eyre, and his aboriginal companion, Wylie, passed through here on their epic journey from Adelaide to Albany in 1840.

The Great Australian Bight was a magnificent sight, with dead calm water. The wind had finally left us, although the flies moved in instead. I walked along the cliff top looking down on the ocean in the late afternoon light. We were just 4km from the Eyre Highway, but a world away. There are no signs to these tracks. You just have to look a little further than the bitumen.

Our camp site view of the Great Australian Bight

On such a perfect evening, and after a few days without a shower, we thought it was time to use our own shower. We have a small hot water system and shower rose that has been stowed until now. I did take some photos of the shower being used, but Harry won’t let me put them on our Blog. I can tell you that a hot shower, on a windless evening, on the edge of the continent with a view of the ocean is a beautiful thing.

We had a fire that night, a great chicken curry, and a
pretty good sunset.

It’s time to leave Lucky Bay, fuel up and hit the road for the Nullabor. The weather has turned nasty, yet again, so it’s not hard to leave these stunning beaches today.

We filled up everything that was empty back in Esperance, and from there, there are two ways to get to Balladonia on the Eyre Highway: the bitumen via Norseman (about 400km) or the dirt to Balladonia which is a much shorter route, being one side of the triangle (about 260km). The short one is not passable after rain, so they say.

Now I heard on the radio that this has been the wettest September in 82 years. Yippee. Consequently, many of the unsealed roads are closed.

We decided to go on the Parmango Road as we qualified for the 4WD status, and as we left town we waved to some folk we had camped near at Lucky Bay. They were doing the ‘long’ route on the bitumen. Remember this.

East of Esperance is timber growing country. It was one plantation after the other for kilometres. It was strange to see tall trees growing so close to the coast where the native scrub is low and wind blasted.

It was somewhere near here that the Landcruiser had its first malfunction of the trip.

Not really a flat, more of a complete blow out. Funny thing was that this tyre has only been on since Perth when John rotated the tyres. It wasn’t the smoothest change. The car slipped off the jack as the wheel was going on, and bent the brake disk guard. Anyway, John bashed that back into shape and finished the job, and off we went.

About 60km from town (past the sign about which roads are closed) we turned onto the Parmango Road, and promptly found a “Road Closed” sign. Urghh. After calls to several sources of authority and a visit to the nearby pub (always the best authority), we decided to give it a go. The lady at the pub said some people had got through this morning. That was a good sign.

About another 60km down the track, which was an excellent road, we met some Slovakian tourists (it’s a melting pot out here) coming the other way who had just done a U-turn, said the road ahead was impassable due to a big patch of mud 5km further on from where we were. They said they were sliding in the mud before even entering the water. We took one look at their tyres and told them to follow us and we’d go through together. It turned out to be a biggish bog hole, but with an easy route on the high left – just making sure you don’t slip into the mire. We all got through, easy as.

The Slovakian tourists continued on behind us till we stopped to look at the historic ruins of Deralinya Homestead.

They had no interest, pointing out that their grandfather’s house back home was over 400 years old. Puts it all in perspective really. At least they find the landscape interesting!

The landscape has now changed from tree plantations to fields of wheat as far as the eye can see. And it’s a bumper crop! Looks thick and healthy. It really shows you why this region is called the wheat belt. An awesome sight.

There’s not a lot else to capture your interest on the Balladonia Road, so I’ll show you this farm gate that travellers have adorned with, well, underwear. You never know what you’ll find out here.

We made it to the highway, watching the Nomads driving across the bitumen road as we approached the T intersection. And guess who we saw driving east? The same folk we waved to this morning as they began their two sides of the triangle. Hilarious. But I think we had more fun.

And lastly, today’s wildflower. I saw this one by the side of the road while we changed the tyre.

Narrow-Leaved Squill or Chamaescilla spiralis