Sunday 10th July 2011
Ceduna to 10km east of Border Village 472km
We were packed up and ready to leave by 7.30am, had a long
day ahead of us. Greg played 3 holes of golf today, the first at Penong, one at Nundroo and the last one at Nullarbor. The lady at the Ceduna visitors centre told him to use the end of a coke bottle for a tee as the ground would be too hard to put a tee in and it would save damaging his clubs. The courses are very rough and
ready, the one at Nullarbor has a landing strip in the middle of it. Greg had to wait for the plane to land before he could play his next shot! He is having lots of fun playing the course, even if it is a bit challenging at times.
(He has just got his guitar out to play J has been a few years)
We went to see the Southern Right Whales at The Head of the
Bight. There were 15 to 18 Whales, at least 10 of them were in
close. There were quite a few babies that were breaching and others that were swimming all over their mothers. They are the most awesome mammals, I find it peaceful watching them. It was one of the highlights of my day. A bit less than 12 months ago we were watching whales in the Inside Passage in Alaska. We have been very fortunate. The coastline and vivid aqua colour of the sea
were stunning.
Further along the Nullarbor we stopped to look at the Bunda
cliffs, they have stood the test of time, hopefully we got at least one photo to do them justice!
In this part of the world we apparently have to take off 45 minutes off the time. Now that is just plain weird, I mean who has ever heard of a 3/4 hour time zone shift!!
We are free camping tonight (first time ever) about 10km
east of Border village, it is a great spot, collected some wood and Greg built a fire, we thought of you Von & Tom, you would have loved it! We have limited power, just running off our battery, so we have no heater tonight – will be getting the hot water bottle out!!
There will be no lying in bed with the heater on in the morning, waiting for the van to warm up. Fingers crossed it won’t be as cold as the last few nights!
Monday 11th July 2011
Border Village to 50km E of Balladonia 482km
Happy Happy 5th Birthday Destiny, we have been trying to ring, message and email you all day, but have not been able to get a
connection, we hope you had a lovely 5th birthday and that you
enjoyed your party. Bet you are looking forward to going to school after the holidays. Looking forward to hearing all about it when we get home 🙂
We had a great night sleep last night about 10 hours, best sleep I have had in months – I can recommend this free camping 🙂
We got off around 8.30 this morning. Wasn’t long before we were going through the quarantine station at the border, never seen anything like it inside Australia, the only thing that was missing was them asking for our passport! An inspector went through our van but before he did we put oranges, lettuce and spring onions from the garden in the bin – we ate an apple each before we went through.
Didn’t take too long and we were on our way.
Greg played 5 holes of golf today, think he is going to miss
this addition to our day when it finishes in Kalgoorlie.
Might have said earlier, Greg downloaded some podcasts on the Nullarbor that we have been listening to. They are really
interesting and have added a lot to our journey. Some interesting things we have seen today were the Illuminated white cross that is dedicated to travellers and John Eyre’s memorial in Eucla. Just after Caiguna is the start of the longest straight road in Australia, we did 132km of it at the end of our day, just 12.6km to go in the morning. It is rather boring driving on just straight road. Not that I am driving. I did half an hour on the second day. Because we have been stopping to play golf so often, Greg has been fine to drive, which I have been very happy about. Today wasn’t too bad, but yesterday there were lots of road trains on the road. It is not much fun having them pass or overtake you.
The most we have paid for diesel was today at $1.81 a litre,
thought of you Ash, makes your toes curl! Should start getting cheaper tomorrow – well here is hoping!
We also had to put our clocks back another 45 mins tonight –
so we have gained another 90 mins this last two days – it was dark tonight by 5.15 made it easy to have an early dinner.
We are free camping again tonight, had another bonfire – very relaxing and a nice way to finish the day.
Off to Norseman tomorrow and hopefully will hear when we can
get the windscreen fixed in Kalgoorlie.
