The end of The Nullabor

Right now we are about 100km from the considered end of the Nullabor crossing at Norseman, where we can collect our certificate of achievement. We’ve stopped a little earlier at a caravan park that soooo many people recommended to us. Its called Fraser Range, is on a working sheep station and is so lovely that we have extended our stay to 2 nights. When we booked in, the manager asked how many nights. “Just the one” “Yeah. They all say that the first night” was the reply. We really only wanted to charge the batteries a bit, but then discovered that they cook dinner and last night’s was lamb shanks. Dunc can’t go past lamb, Lexie was ecstatic at the prospect of mashed potato and we were ALL rather keen on the pavalova for dessert.

It’s just beautiful here. Someone has a lovely sense of aesthetic and an endless supply of old machinery, so there are wonderful gates, archways and displays all over the place. Dinner was great – it was served in a covered and somewhat-walled camp area with a toasty warm pot-belly stove. There was a guy playing guitar and singing songs and the tables were large and communal which encourages conversation. It was so nice that we have just been convinced to go back again for dinner tonight! Its not cheap ($25 per head for an adult) but it was so nice to sit down over dinner with adult conversation. The kids flaked out completely at 7.30pm  (which was 9pm once you accounted for jet lag) so I was able to tuck them into bed and return for some quality me time.

Yesterday we completed the long straight stretch of the Nullabor. Its 145 km then a bend or two and another stretch of about the same. Dunc has been playing with his GoPro, but the resulting movies might be too big to get online. Certainly waaay too big until we have our Telstra wifi back.

We also stopped at the Balladonia Roadhouse, which has a great little museum in there. Its by far the best of all the roadhouses, and actually has a coffee machine for real coffee (Mundrabilla Roadhouse will charge you $4 for a spoon of Nescafe!) The museum has info on all the local stations and the outback camels and, to Duncan’s great delight, a big chunk of the Skylab US Space Station which fell to Earth quite nearby.

We have been incredibly fortunate with the weather as we have crossed the Nullabor. There has been a high pressure system in the bight almost the whole time, which has resulted in a tail wind for us. This has made Dunc’s job driving much easier. The short 80km drive into Ceduna was straight into a head wind and Dunc looked like he was wrestling with the steering wheel the entire time. Bertha’s temp was higher and we were anxiously watching the gauges the whole time. Thank goodness it was such a short trip, or we would have been pulling over to stop regardless. We’ve had NOTHING like that on our crossing. Tail winds have resulted in a happy Bertha and she’s been purring along at about 90 – 100km/h the entire time. She really does love highway cruising and it is very obvious that she was built for that sort of travel. Just quietly, Dunc loves highway cruising as much as Bertha!

Tomorrow we head towards Esperance and make our way slowly around to Perth. We are all quite excited as we will be catching up with Hilly and Pop and meeting up with Rene and Christobel. Some family time will be good for Lexie, as she had a little bout of homesickness at Easter. We are very much looking forward to some grandparent kisses and hugs.