BARBARA'S KIMBERLEY ADVENTURE - THE FINAL LEG - THE LONG WAY HOME

We turned onto the Eyre Highway around midday.......we were heading east all the way across the bottom of Australia, with about 3000km to reach home.....a place that was looking less and less appealing the closer we got.  Seems we have the travel bug!!

We drove for around 1/2 an hour before the trees thinned out and we were on what we would call the Nullarbor, but officially, the Nullarbor, (meaning "no trees") starts from the South Australia border, only 720km away :-)

There wasn't a great deal to see, but it was still so beautiful and rugged, the road was in excellent condition and the music was fairly thumping out of the car stereo, to the wonderful accompaniment of my amazing singing voice ;-)  GM sure is one lucky man :-)

We passed an old telegraph station, which was all fenced off with electric fence so I couldn't get close enough to have a great deal of time with it.  There were a number of old ruined telegraph huts along the way, but none as good as this one.

About 100km up the road, we pulled into the Fraser Range Sheep Station to play our 6th hole of golf at the "Sheeps Back", which was a little par 3 with really long grass either side.  We met Garry & Viv from QLD who were playing the Nullarbor Links as well, but they started from the other end.  They had parked their Winnebago just forward and to the right of the tee.....gutsy effort!!!!  We did warn them that we weren't golfers, but they had the utmost faith in us.....luckily we didn't let them down (phew!!!)  but Garry, GM and I all lost our balls in the long grass :-/   It was all very good fun though and we did find another couple of golf balls while we were looking for ours!!

We cleared out of there and travelled another 100 odd km's down the road to the Balladonia Roadhouse and hole no. 7  "Skylab"  The instructions on this hole say "Through scrub - beware of snakes!!"  Super......just what I need :-{  especially after the Bear Gully debacle!!!!

The whole of the fairway was made up of dunes planted with native shrubs, the odd gumtree and a dirt path running down the right hand side.  GM played remarkably well and me.....well I think I'm the one who did all of the swearing this time.......... I can't believe the words he's taught me......but no snakes!!! :-)

We took off down the road and decided to find a nice spot to spend our first night on the Nullarbor.  We stopped at the Baxter Rest Area, 67km west of Caiguna - the end of the 90 mile straight, the longest piece of straight road in Australia, and our next hole of golf.

This was a really good roadside stop that was well designed for both the traveller and the truckie.
We were up bright and early the next morning and GM drove to Caiguna, so now we can both say we drove on the longest straight in Australia!!

The Hub of the Universe ;-)

The "90 Mile Straight"......hole no. 8......and the instructions say "Through trees - not clear follow the signs".

What Style!!!!!!!!!!!

I played this hole a hell of a lot better than the last thank goodness......good start to the morning!!!!

 :-D

Only 77km to the next hole.  

There were a lot of dead roos on the road and the wedgetails on the Nullarbor are absolutely enormous compared to the rest of the country.  They were almost the size of the kangaroos!!!!  and didn't seem too fazed when we stopped to look at them.

We wanted to look at the Cocklebiddy Cave but it was closed due to unstable ground, but we did find the Murra El-Elevyn Cave.....I don't know why, but I have only ever pictured caves in hillsides!  It was interesting, but not as exciting as I would have liked.  I wanted to go exploring in it, but there was no way of getting back out again so I stayed up the top.

We had a Kangaroo try and race us on our way back to the main road, that was a rather hysterical moment :-)  we also passed quite a bit of our firewood as well :-/ 

We stopped to readjust the logs and salvage the stuff we had left and then we were on our way....next stop...........Cocklebiddy Roadhouse and "The Eagles Nest" ....hole number 9!!!  We were almost 1/2 way through our game, and still had a couple of golf balls left!! :-)

Our Fairway.....you can see they've gone to a lot of effort to pretty the place up ;-)

GM played this hole like a pro!!!  5 shots on a par 4!!!!  What a champion!!!!  Unfortunately this newly acquired skill was not to happen too often throughout the rest of the game and the old familiar swear words were to raise their ugly heads again.  I must admit, it's definitely more amusing and stimulating when he's not playing well :-D

81km's later and we discovered the tablelands after coming around a bend into Madura......one of the most breathtaking sights in my life!!  I would recommend to anyone wanting to do the Nullarbor to do it from west to east, as the impact of the tablelands from this direction is just stunning :-)

Tablelands as far as the eye could see, and we thought we were on the flat stuff prior to this :-)

This was to be my first good bit of golf, but all the noise coming from GM had seemed to stop me from stressing about my own game ;-)

Another 80km down the road and we were at Mundrabilla Roadhouse

Tell 'em they're dreamin'!!!!!

I couldn't even afford this a few years back ;-)

and "The Watering Hole" a fairly nothing hole but we did encounter some dickhead who stood at the green and waited for us to get there so he could talk our ears off.........we yelled at him a few times to get out of the way, but I think he's been hit on the head with golf balls a few too many times.....wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed but very friendly!!!  anyway, fortunately, we didn't injure him, but only just managed to get away from him and back on the road thanks to GM's total lack of tact! :-)

Another 100km's down the road and we were at Eucla and had a bit of a look around.  We were now travelling level with The Great Australian Bight and the wind was fairly vicious......our warm days were definitely behind us :-(  but this just seemed to be another perfect piece of the ruggedness of this trip.  We found a memorial for a couple of sailors who never came home....so sad.....and there seemed to be a number of rocky cairns dedicated to lost souls scattered along the rest of the Bight.

We had to go back up the road and into the bush for a few km's, past the rubbish tip....what a mess this place was!!! and the only truly messy place we saw along this part of the adventure........and then we found the  "Nullarbor Nymph", hole no. 12.  The fairway was made of all this hard black ceramic stuff that had us going for a while, and you want to see the way the balls bounce off this stuff....it was hysterical :-)  It turns out that it's not just a golf club, but a footy club/clay target range.....they sure know how to utilise the land around here ;-)  This story behind the Nullarbor Nymph is the funniest of all the stories that each hole has :-)

The next hole was at Border Village, South Australia, 12km away, our last for the day and our goodbye to the beautiful west :-(  it makes it a bit easier that South Australia is beautiful as well, but so different from the west.

This was a pretty hole of golf and the owner of the roadhouse was funny as :-)  We met a couple who were travelling with their extremely sociable & loving dogs and having a tough time trying to find accommodation that would cater for them.  They had bought a sticker and accidentally had two stuck together, so they gave us one to put with our collection :-)  They were a nice couple from country NSW whose kids have finally left home and now they're having fun ;-)

We took off and decided to find a nice spot for the night.  Very difficult when the only parking spots were bare pull-offs with rubbish bins. 

We stopped to check out the coast.....brrrrrr it was so cold!!!!!

The Great Australian Bight

It was blowing a gale but did settle a little as it got dark.  There were absolutely no trees by this time, only salt bush and blue bush (which burns fantastically fast) so we ended up pulling off the road for a way and found a fairly large piece of scrub that would hopefully help shelter us from the bitter wind that was howling off the water.

This was to be the landscape for the next few hundred km's......not terribly appealing!

Beam me up Scotty!!!!!

We were up at at 'em early the next morning and the next hole was only about 150km away :-)

We stopped along the way to check out the cliffs and the water and look at what we found :-)

Southern Right Whales

Flipper!!!!!!

 

If it hadn't been for the freezing cold wind, we would have thought we were looking at a painting :-)

We got to Nullarbor and had our Certificate witnessed and stamped :-)

Then we played hole no.14 "Dingo's Den" and the instructions for this hole - "watch the Crow - He takes your balls!! Try spraying smelly stuff on the balls, follow the signs"........ and this is just a bit of what makes the whole thing worth every dollar :-)
Not only is there a crow who doesn't like smelly balls, but there is also...............

a Dingo's Den in the middle of the fairway.........

 There's a rabbit warren as well :-)

But then you have to stop playing to let the Royal Flying Doctor's Service cross your fairway!!!!

I don't believe we could have timed this one any better :-)

About 25km down the road we turned off to the "Head of Bight" and Bunda Cliffs. This is all national park and costs you a couple of dollars to get in to the centre, but is worth every cent.  The day had warmed up quite nicely with sunshine and a gentle breeze.  We were so blessed with our timing!!! They had counted 150 Southern Right Whales in the Head that day and it's mating season, so we were given a pretty spectacular show :-)

We headed off again feeling very blessed and happy with what we'd just witnessed.  Only 135km to the next hole.....only two more to play today and the final two were in Ceduna and we have planned to finish this off first thing the next morning.........the end of our serious holiday fun.

We arrived at Nundroo Roadhouse and "Wombat Hole".  This was a very long fairway that went over a hill and had a great wombat hole right in the middle of the fairway.

You can just make out the tee on the right hand side, but the wombat hole was in the slope to the right in the centre of the fairway :-)

There was a young fella from NZ working in the roadhouse....it was only his second day on the job....he'd run out of money so had stopped there in the middle of nothing until he could save enough to keep going.  He was looking forward to playing the hole and had walked it the day before and collected all the lost balls....a bit unfair of him as that's how everyone manages to keep playing.  You lose heaps of balls but are able to continue because you find heaps of balls as well.

We had soup for lunch and then hit the road again.....next stop Penong.

The countryside changed from coastal to rural as we headed further away from the Bight, and we encountered our first shower for the Nullarbor trip......yes, we were definitely heading back into winter :-/ 

We reached Penong which is a town full of windmills (every home has one to pump the water to) and this is why the hole is called "Windmills"....hole no.16......this was a part of a real golf club with real grass on the fairways, but the tee & green were still made of astro turf.  A very easy hole :-)  a bit of a change but not as exciting as the others!!!!  The only service station in town was closed due to a computer meltdown, so we had to try and find where we would get our cards stamped.....not an easy feat......and not done with much grace or civility by the quite unfriendly woman that runs the adjoining cafe....oh well, we were having fun even if she wasn't ;-)

Back on the road and about 75 km's to Ceduna, the end of our game.  There is a quarantine stop where everyone gets pulled over and all cars and vans searched.....being very organised considering that I'm on hols, I had put everything into a bag that morning so that we wouldn't have to open the back up.  We had been eating lots of apples and trying to use up all of our vegies, but there were still a lot we had to hand over.  They let us keep our carrots and mushrooms at least :-)  The man was a bit official when we got there, but once he realised that we had it all ready for him without an argument, he relaxed and even joked a bit :-)  He must really cop a hard time from people not wanting to hand their stuff over, but there are lots of warning signs all the way across the Nullarbor, so really no excuse!!!  I'd hate to think some idiot would bring bugs in and ruin my wine supply!!!!

Ceduna is a busy grain port and quite pretty..........but definitely a place just out of the twilight zone.....there is no other way I could describe the place....it's so hushed and has piped music playing through the town centre like something from a Steven King novel........

Somebody doesn't want to go home ;-)

We had called into the Visitor Information Centre when we arrived in town, and the woman in there was so excited to see us!!  She's a real advocate for the Nullarbor Links.  She works for the SES over there and before the Links, they would have a fatigue related death across the Nullarbor anywhere from 1 a month to 1 a week.  In the last 12 months there has been 1 death.  The Links has been going for 4 years now and cost 1.3 million, of which 1 million has already been recovered with over 7000 games being played.  People also make the effort to stop and check out the holes even when they don't play, so it's been a hugely successful thing.

We got up early and played our last two holes......

The holes are back to front on the Score card.....how to confuse us first thing in the morning :-/

The local indigenous community use the fairways as their path into town first thing in the morning, so we had to wait awhile until they passed by, but they were very friendly and were happy to wave good morning to us :-)

I finished hole no. 18 "Denial Bay" with a corker of a chip shot that landed 1 inch from the hole.....my best shot for the whole game :-) and a fabulous way to end my game....GM.....mmm....well he had certainly improved along the way and the tone of the game had definitely quietened somewhat ;-)

We went and had our cards stamped, our score cards tallied and our certificates printed and signed, and GM declared the winner with the highest score ;-) but apparently the highest they've had was 417 or something like that, so we don't feel too bad :-D

An adventure we would highly recommend to anyone that travels across the Nullarbor :-)

We had decided not to go back through Port Augusta, but instead would go to Cowell and cross the Spencer Gulf by the SASea Ferry.  It would mean a slight change to our itinerary, but was something we felt we should do as we'd already been to Port Augusta on the way up to Coober Pedy and it would be a long time before we were over this way again.

We left Ceduna at around 9.30 on a beautiful sunny morning and drove along the Eyre Highway as far as Kyancutta, then south to Lock where we turned east and headed for Cleve and leftovers for lunch......a very very pretty place, but it was bucketing down with rain by the time we got there....

pretty plants that caught my eye along the road :-)

An even larger one the the machines in the Pilbara!!!!

I just love the old stonework

Another 40 or so km's down the road and we were in Cowell on the Spencer Gulf.  We popped into the Visitor Information Centre to find out about camping sites where we could have a camp fire, and they sent us on down the road to some of the worst spots we've seen so far.  So much for washing Barbara before we left WA!!! 

Mud

More mud.....

You can actually see the swear words coming out of his eyes :-D  The mud was like cement!!!!

It was only mid afternoon so we toodled over to Lucky Bay (where the Ferry departs from) and had a look around.  Not much there but a superb spot for the avid fisherman with a great little beach for the missus and kids :-)  it's only about 7km's from Cowell, so although isolated, it is still situated close to a main town.

We found a perfect little spot on an old road that had been closed off from the main road....thank goodness for 4WD's :-)  It was cold and drizzly, but we were fairly sheltered from the wind by a hill and lots of trees.

We were sitting by the fire when I glanced down at something big and brown on my leg.....FREAK OUT!!!!!!

I thought it was huntsman and went to brush it off but it stuck like glue....EEEEEEWWWW!!!!!

It wasn't a huntsman, it was an alien!!!  I have no idea what it was, but there was a big stinger curling out of its bum and over its back.  It was about 2 inches long with lots of legs and wouldn't get off me!!!!  Eventually GM gained the courage to get it off me.....could have been coz of the god almighty noise I was making......could have been coz he wanted to look like a hero......but it was a stubborn bugger.  Even GM (♥my hero♥) didn't get too close to have a look at it when it was off....Thank goodness for zoom lenses!!!! 

The Alien :-O

After that, it started raining again, so we retired into Barbara and watched another couple of episodes of Sons of Anarchy.....

We woke to a much nicer sky and toodled into Cowell for a cuppa and a look around as we didn't need to be at the ferry until 11.30.

We got there early and had a look around and watched the ferry come in and the cars get off.  It was very windy and chilly but quite sunny.

Barbara's first ferry ride :-)

We travelled across the Spencer Gulf.....2 and a bit hours.....the scotch was nice but the trip itself was pretty boring, so we had a bit of a nana nap along the way :-)

Our map :-)

And then we arrived in Wallaroo.  What a gorgeous place!!  We bought some lunch and coffee from the local bakery.  Lovely ladies working in there, and I came away with 3 jars of local jam :-)  oh, and lemon meringue pie that GM didn't want.....so I ate his too :-)

Wallaroo

We headed off for the 60km's to Port Wakefield....the top point of Gulf St. Vincent, and the end of our big circle around the western part of our country.  We headed east toward Renmark and the Victorian border but pulled over for the night not far before Morgan.  A very pretty rural area less than 100km from the border.  We cooked up all of our vegies as we had another quarantine area coming up. 

I had made a magnificent fire for the night,

A magnificent fire ;-)

but it started raining again when it got dark, so back into Barbara, got the heater going and watched more Sons of Anarchy.

We were up and out early, and were eating the last of our apples as we passed the last quarantine point before the border.

Then before we knew it we were in Victoria :-( 

100km's up the road and we reached Mildura.  We had planned to stay here for a couple of nights, but we had forfeited this for our ferry crossing.  We decided to cross the Murray River and go to NSW as that would mean we'd been everywhere but QLD and Tassie......they'll have to be new adventures......

We drove the 80 odd km's to Euston, then crossed back over the Murray at Robinvale then another 135km's to Swan Hill.  It was getting on a bit by now, so we'd stopped in Nyah and grabbed a bottle of red to have with our final dinner, then found the best camp spot called The Loddon Floodway about 40km's south east of Swan Hill on the Murray.  We had to drive through the "Little Murray" to get there but well worth it :-)  

The mighty Murray!!!

Big old widow makers - beautiful river gums

Up and out early again, but this was it......next stop for the night would be home :-/

We crossed back over the Little Murray River....GM's final river crossing for this adventure.......and drove for awhile through the fog on some lovely back roads.

The more we drove, the busier the roads got and then we were on the Calder and heading straight for Melbourne.

Before we knew it we were there!!

I love this part of the freeway :-)

The spirit of Tasmania tempting us to hop on board ☺

Into the tunnel..........

through the tunnel........

and out the other side..................

The hardest part was accepting the adventure was over, but just seeing Melbourne made me realise how lucky we are to live here....what a great city.....and only an hour and a half from our front door.

We arrived in Warragul and rid both Barbara and the Beast of the worst of the muck & mud and then home to grey skies.......but a beautiful bright garden........

we had spent our last day on the road excitedly planning our next major adventure rather than sulking that this one was over.....Cape York I think ;-)

Stay tuned for the summary....shouldn't take as long as this did as I'm all settled in at work now and the Great Kimberley Adventure seems like a distant dream...........