Xing the Line

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DAY 157

The morning was gorgeously warm, and we slept so well, for me that is nothing new, but last night we both dreamt heavily, Caroline about her girls friends, one of them was taking £10 from each of them for a deposit for a trip or a meal and Caroline said she was trying to give them £10.00 and asked what it was for, but they would not speak to her or take the money from her, I think her sub conscious is playing a part here as she said it felt like she was not part of the gang, which even though we know this is not true, to an extent they have to get on and do things as we are getting on with our adventure, guilt must be part of this subconscious. Me I dreamt about submarines, heaven knows what that means, I hope I don’t get that sinking feeling.

We woke up and looked out of the flaps, we knew it was daylight yet there was no sunshine lighting up the tent, we found that it was really foggy out there, we could not see the road. Once the fog had burnt off it would be a nice day.

Strangely enough due to the way the trailer had been put up one face of it was wet so we had to make sure we got the morning dew off before it was packed away, otherwise we would get that damp problem again, we are putting tarps on the bed now which does offer some protection.

I had said to Caroline that instead of having a fruit breakfast, we could save the fruit until lunchtime (scoff and toss before the WA Border) and have something that resembled bacon and eggs in the Roadhouse restaurant before we left, I didn’t have to say this twice to Caroline, in fact I am sure she moved faster when she realised a decent breakfast was on the cards.

We packed all the stuff away in the trailer and hitched up, the only thing left to do was have a shower, some breakfast and hit the road, oh yes and upload the blog for yesterday Scoff or Toss day 156 12 04 2009. We were just about to leave when a Brindle Bull Terrier appeared I heard Caroline speak to it, something about stones, she came around to me and dropped a stone at my feet (the dog that is, not Caroline), so I picked it up and chucked it, in a flash it was back at my feet, so I chucked it again, and again, and again, in the end I chap came over in his ute and thanked us for exercising his dog who’s name was Tanya, he said she expects you to do that all day long, I think he was grateful for the respite.

As we were messing with the dog, a guy took the covers off the little aeroplane and started the engine; Caroline said he was probably going in to town for supplies, which strangely could be true. The little plane taxied down the dirt run way, turned and took off, there would be no messing around with air traffic control or anything like that we were way out in the bush.

We ferreted around for a couple of dollar coins and hit the showers, we could only be 5 minutes as they were timed but I still came out 10 minutes before Caroline (I don’t know how he does that?)

The restaurant was just around the corner, so both clean and smelling lovely we ambled around, 1 flat white for Caroline and a latte for me, a bacon and egg sandwich each, it was sooooo lovely. Sitting there sipping a good coffee watching the trucks go by and uploading the blog.

We came out of the restaurant and started talking to the guy that had been sitting inside having his breakfast; he was just getting himself ready, as he was on a pushbike with a trailer. We felt great for having a reasonably leisurely start to the day, and the thought of cycling across the Nullarbor felt too exhausting.

His name was Pete Ford, he is from Tasmania, and had so far cycled 1700K’s we asked him how long he would keep going and he said until he was fed up cycling. He explained that he is carrying about 12 litres of water, which is mainly stored on his trailer. He found talking to other cyclists that the weight of the water will make the wheels collapse as the spokes cannot cope with the additional weight.

As we were talking the Dingo’s kept coming around scrounging, they did look a frail lot, good coats they just needed some decent chow, regularly!!

Peter said there was a British chap cycling around the world on a bike with a trailer who’s name was Steve and had a web site “Ride with Steve”.

We wish this guy a safe journey and get on our way.

It is 11.30, but we have no time constraints our ethos is to enjoy ourselves and interact with others whilst enjoying this fabulous country.

During the first part of our journey approximately 416kms from Ceduna we see a sign for the RFDS Emergency Roadstrip. Then the road view changes slightly, the peg markers disappear and the rough hard shoulder widens, the bitumen surface remains the same width. Nice to see that the Royal Flying Doctor Service has plenty of room to land.

We make a point of stopping at the first lookout, we have been told that when the opportunity arises we should drive off the main road and down to the edge of the cliffs to see the view as it changes so dramatically.

There are signs everywhere saying that you should not go to close to the edge as the cliff edges are fragile and there could be nothing underneath the overhang so it could give way. I do the decent thing and stay away from the cliff edges, lets face it with my track record standing on cliff edges is not the thing for me to do. I do remember Ted, someone we met in the Warrumbungles (I hope you and Jan are still reading), saying that he also won’t go too close to the cliff edges, he said if anyone finds him at the bottom of a cliff then he would likely to have been pushed as he would not go there willingly.

We drive from one to the next, to the next and so on, one of the scenic views is closed, it looks as if the cliff edge has caught up with the car park.

We jump out of the car at one scenic lookout and find that it is not a steep cliff, but the land gives way to a slope right down to the sea, this looks like a mixture of rock and sand dunes. The view is stunning (as always!) and the sea is so turquoise (as always!), at the bottom of one of the cliff faces the water is more of a milky blue, this seems to be where the sea is crashing against the shore and churning up the sediment.

We drive on and on and on; still we see no camels, no kangaroos and no wombats (there’s a surprise!) maybe our sonic repellers are keeping them away.

The landscape is still amazing even though it does not change much in a hundred or so kilometres.

We munch the fruit on the run, to ensure that we have nothing left at the border, we ate the vegetable last night.

At the border we see a statue of a giant brown Kangaroo, Rooey II, not sure about the relevance, but anyway, we also see a signpost that says London is about 17000 kilometres away, yikes a long way from home!

We get chatting to a young Tasmanian girl, she tells us that she is travelling with 2 British people from Manchester, I think they all met in Melbourne, they are all now sharing the Tasmanian girl’s, little camper to get to Perth, where they hope to find some bar work to boost their finances.

There are some great trucks at this Roadhouse, which also has the most expensive diesel at $1.65. We are ok for fuel so we skip this one.

It’s 3.00 and we are at the border crossing, we stop, a woman comes over and says, open the boot, the fridge and the trailer, she is checking for fruit and veg. You are not allowed to take fruit and vegetable over the border just in case you are carrying fruit fly. I am sure they can fly over the border though.

In the fridge, the lady finds a single corn on the cob, ooops just one we forgot to eat last night, we thought we would get slung inside for such a violation, but all they do is confiscate it. We are free to go.

Just as we jump back in the truck a car pulls up alongside, we see a Labradoodle hanging out of the window. The lady moves over to their car, soon the door is open and Dudley the Labradoodle lollops out. Andy of course cannot resist and hops out to see Dudley. He reminds us of Nala, we both wonder if Nala will be this big when she is full grown.

Just over the border we pull in as we find there is another state border that needs to be crossed, we came through the quaranite area but now need to look at the official dotted line that separates Southern Australia and Western Australia, so we cross back to Southern Australia, drive round then back into Western Australia.

We believe there is a time change here, which could be about 45 minutes, so we think our watches need to go back. That means it will be darker earlier still, so that presses the point about stopping early enough in the day to ensure that you have a site to sleep for the night. If there are any more time changes we will need to get up before we go to bed, what will make it worse is when we drive round the top end we will go through the same changes in reverse, except that we won’t have to worry about daylight savings.

We drive onto Eucla, and both agree that it is still slightly too early to pull up, especially now the clocks have gone back again. We do want to see the old Telegraph Station, so follow the handwritten signs off the main road and down a track to the beach. We can see the sand dunes.

However we see a very derilict building which has no roof, no windows, no doors and is full of sand, in fact there would be no room to live in there. Eventually this will probably be covered in full by the sand. We are both disappointed that there was nothing else to see.

Driving back up to the main road, we stop at the Travellers Cross and the John Eyre monument as he allegedly camped in this vicinity when on his pioneering journey across the Nullarbor.

We drive on to Mundrabilla, we only have 65 kilometres and we know that there is a roadhouse, with camping and cheaper fuel.

We see another landing strip for the RFDS, similar to the first one.

The terrain seems to have a few more trees and looks a lot greener here, we are now closer to sea level rather than high in the cliffs. We are seeing more roadkill, however 2 kilometres outside of Mundrabilla we see something on the opposite carriageway, it looks long, we both think it is a squashed snake, but it is not, this snake is basking in the sun and soaking up the heat from the bitumen.

We find that this Childers Python is about 1 ½ metres in length it has lovely markings. We were quite confident that this was a Python, but as it was lying in the road it would soon be roadkill. Andy turned the engine off and jumped out of the truck very carefully not to cause vibration.

A 4x4 towing a caravan was driving up the road, Andy beckons it to slow down. The driver dutifully does and pulls over the other side of the road and gives the snake a wide berth, they stop and jump out with cameras to take a picture (as we have already done, many times over!!). The driver confirms out theory it is a Childers Python, they are common in this area and he agrees that it needs to be coaxed off the road, Andy tickled its tail to make it move but it did not do anything, so they stamped their feet on the ground so that it would move. Sure enough the snake reacted to the vibration and slithered off the road, under our truck and out the other side into the bushes.

Both happy that the snake is now safe Andy and the other driver jump back in and we both resume our journeys in the opposite direction.

A short way up the road we find the Roadhouse, a welcome sight and we are now ready to pull up for the night both pleased with our wildlife find of the day and we cannot wait to look at the photos.

Let me just reiterate at this point, we knew that snake was a python, if we had any doubt at all then we would have stayed in the truck at a safe distance. You can also tell a Python by the diamond shaped head. This Python did not show any sign of aggression at all.

A site for the night here is $20 and we have key to the facilities so we can shower in the morning, no extra charge for the water. We thought we may eat in the restaurant tonight, however it does look pricey so we decide that we should have a light meal of cheese and biscuits in the tent.

Once we had pitched we sat and had a cup of tea (as always!) and looked through our photos for the day. We were pleased with the results.

Once we had our dinner, we came into the roadhouse for a cup of coffee and some shelter in the warmth to type up today’s blog.

We may get a game of cards in tonight, there is a challenge that needs to be sorted!!

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Photos

Tanya
Isn't sh pretty

Fetching Stones
Go on throw a stone for me

Looking for Food
Scrounging Dingo's

Dusty
A truck arrives in a cloud of dust

Peter Ford
Peter is from Tasmania and is cycling the Nullarbor

Too Tired
Lazy Dingo's

Peter & Caroline
In deep conversation

G.A.B N.P
Great Australian Bight Nationl Park

From the mine
Bringing equipment from the mines

Andy's on the line
The dotted line marks the border.

Landing Strip
The designated road for the RFDS to land in an emergency

Which Way
& How far away from home?

Western Australia
The Official Sign

SA/WA
South Australia
Western Australia

Recumbant
Another Way to cross the Nullarbor

Snake Head
Close up, of the snake head