The not so great Nullabor Crossing.

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Many kilometres have been travelled since my last entry in Esperance, and new things have been experienced. Continuing on with our rekindled interest in fishing, we tried our hand at squid fishing on our last night in Esperance. We headed out to the jetty at about ten pm when everybody else in the park was going to bed. Frank was keen because he has never caught squid before, and he still hasn’t. I caught three squid, two good sized and one smaller one. I caught them and Frank cleaned them. He did manage to catch four herrings though. He got to clean them too. Our salt and pepper calamari and herring meal the following night was delicious.
Esperance is a very nice town, very scenic, but oh so windy. The locals told us that it is windy about ten months of the year in the afternoons. Nice as it was, I don’t think we would like to spend any time there in the future. The caravan park was a disappointment. The ablutions block near us had three toilets and two showers for each gender, resulting in a queue for showers in the morning. Our neighbours in the park had sold their home in NSW and were permanently travelling in their very big fifth-wheeler. From conversations we had with them, it was obvious they were not at all fond of Julia Gillard, our Prime Minister. I wonder how they felt about being reminded of the wife’s resemblance to Julia. She could have been her twin both physically and vocally, except for the hair colour.
Esperance was our last stop in a sizable town before crossing the Nullabor Plain on the Eyre Highway. This was our fifth crossing, and it hasn’t got anymore interesting in the last thirty years. The first leg of the journey, between Esperance and Norseman was interrupted with wildflowers again, but there is less around in farming areas due to the chemicals used on the land. We spent one night at Caiguna and the second night at Nundroo. There is nothing good to say about either location. There was a waring on the toilet door at Caiguna to shut the door to keep snakes out. The men’s toilets at Nundroo were out of order, resulting in the ladies becoming unisex. This amounted to one toilet and three showers (without doors) for everybody to use. We bypassed the shower. Our aim was to get across as quick as we possibly could. We have never crossed at this time of the year before, and therefore have not experienced the large number of lizards and snakes on the road, both dead and alive.
We plan to spend about a week on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia before our return home. We have landed in a lovely beachfront caravan park in Venus Bay, on the west coast of the peninsula, and we have fallen in love with the location. Venus Bay has a permanent population of twenty-one, and swells over the Christmas break and school holidays. It is a sheltered bay and offers fishing, boating, swimming and is a good base for day trips over the peninsula.
We went out squid fishing on the jetty this evening, without success. The disappointment is eased by the joy of encountering wildlife. We were entertained for a while by the pelicans and a large seal, which is apparently a regular at the jetty. Our day was finished off by a beautiful sunset. Bliss.

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