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Published: December 23rd 2009
Day 235 - Cape le Grande to Woorlba (Eyre Highway)
We’d done a lot of our packing up last night before we went to bed as we wanted to make an early start this morning to ensure we make as much headway along the Nullarbor as possible. I woke up far earlier than I needed to so decided to go for a walk along the beach and leave Dar to get some extra zzz’s.
The morning is as predicted, very bright with a shining sun and the bluest of blue skies. It looks like it will be a lovely day here today and at least the sun came up before we left so that we get a glimpse of how good this stunning area is at its best.
Walking along the beach seemed a bit too low key so instead I clambered across the rocks to see if I could get a better view of the turquoise bay and the now blue sky! My clambering went well and I very nearly made it right to the top but couldn’t quite find a safe passage for the last little stretch. It had been worth the climb though and down
below I could make out a group of kangaroos on the beach. I’d been longing to get a photograph of that but hadn’t envisaged it being from quite so far away! I took a couple anyway and then ‘rushed’ back to camp to see if I could get a close up but they wouldn’t quite shift into the right position for me and then the battery went on the camera, that will teach me not to be carrying a spare!
Darryl has finished the rest of the packing up by the time I got back so we waved a silent goodbye to the sleeping camp site and headed towards Esperance. We were hoping that Woolworths would be open nice and early for us to stock up on supplies for the next few days plus we need to change the gas bottle as it had run out yesterday morning when for the first time in ages I’d volunteered to put the kettle on! We’ve been using the small BBQ bottle since that point but needed to make sure we have enough to cook our Christmas dinner with as that’s only a week or so away now!
On the journey
back to Esperance we got phone connection and since switching the voicemail option off it means we have visibility of missed calls whilst we’ve been out of range. The only thing that lets this down is when we don’t recognise the number … and guess what, we’ve had a call from a number we don’t recognise! Intriguing! We can however see that Grant’s phoned so we text to let him know where we are and what we’ve been up too.
Woolworths doesn’t open until 8am so whilst we’re waiting I get on with some multi-tasking; blogging, emailing and checking for messages. We get very excited when we see one from Bill (Grant’s wife Anna’s Dad!). He was letting us know that he is in Scarborough (Perth) from Tuesday til Friday! The hotel where he is staying is behind the spot on the beach where we were fishing with Mark and Kenny only last week. Darn and double darn, we would have stayed another night had we known that - Darryl is absolutely gutted. We could have taken him fishing and gotten ourselves another free sand blasting session!
Hold that thought, the phone rings and it’s Grant. With the
time difference between WA and Victoria it’s at least a civilised time of day over there so when we sent the text we knew we wouldn’t be disturbing him too early. We get quick to the conversation of Christmas and have to now admit that we won’t make it back to their home in Melbourne for the big celebrations. We will still be the wrong side of Adelaide so it’s just too far but we will be making a big effort to get back for New Year’s Eve so hopefully this will balance things off a bit with Anna who isn’t going to be best pleased (and we say that with the upmost love and respect!). It’s so lovely to be wanted back for Christmas, we really appreciate it but we estimated things slightly under in terms of this stretch of the journey plus we spent longer than we planned in Western Australia so we’re short by about 7 days which in the grand scheme of things isn’t really that bad at all! Originally Grant thought he was going to be working on New Year’s Eve so our plan of poshing it up in the Rialto hotel went out of
the window but things have changed so my next job is to see if I can re-book the deluxe rooms on our freebie points in the smartest hotel in Melbourne. With fingers crossed I tap away on the internet while Dar finally gets let into Woolies to do the shopping. Result, the rooms are available so New Year’s Eve will be spent in some sort of luxury in the centre of Melbourne. What a different sort of experience that will be to the last seven months and what on earth will we wear!! T-shirts, shorts and Akubra hats of course - what else?!
With some more blogs uploaded, a fresh gas bottle and food supplies safely stored in the cupboards we got on with the drive to Norseman which is the gateway to the Nullarbor. There is an alternative route had we driven out to Cape Arid, another reputedly stunning national park 170kms east of Esperance but that would have meant us dragging the caravan through corrugated dirt roads and probably coming out the other end with just a trailer! Cape Arid will have to wait until the next trip, along with the rest of Fitzgerald National Park, Maningreda
in Arnhem Land, Mitchel Falls of the Kulumburu Road in the Kimberley and of course Dalhousie Hot Springs in the Simpson Desert which is nice and close to Cooper Pedy! Oh the plans are tentative but they are there!
The drive to Norseman is pretty non plus but we saw the Tin Camels on the roundabout as you come in and met a very helpful lady in the fuel station who told us all about the cheap places to get fuel on the Nullarbor. There are four roadhouses in all that advertise their cheap fuel and services to each others customers plus if you stay with them in their accommodation or caravan parks then you’ll get a 5% discount. We’ll certainly be on the look out for the cheapest fuel but it’s free camping for us as we go across. We’ve worked out we can go longer and longer without power which means there will be less and less luxury stops for us!
We sat parked outside the visitor centre in Norseman for a while, and were treated to a great playlist from the chap whose house we’d parked outside. At one stage I was so impressed I
nearly knocked on the door to ask for a copy of whatever it was he was playing! We ate lunch whilst being thoroughly entertained and then we did the only thing that we had left to do today, we headed towards the Eyre Highway and the Nullarbor. We laughed at Tom Tom which told us to turn right in 1193 kms, not alot of point having that on for the journey then!
By the time we stopped for the day we’d covered 500 kms and as the crows flies we were about level with Israelite Bay within the Cape Arid national park. It’s probably easier to find that on the map and then go north to the Eyre Highway to figure out where we are! It’s a rest area called Woorlba, or at least we think it is but there aren’t any signs so it’s difficult to tell. It’s on the edge of the middle of nowhere and there is nothing around us, no towns, no roadhouse, no stations just trees and open pasture land. There are toilets here but frankly just in case anyone is eating breakfast, lunch or dinner whilst reading this we won’t go there but
they left A LOT to be desired. There was an email address and phone number to report damages and filth to but it would be so much easier if people acted like humans and not animals in these rest areas.
As is customary with us we let out a friendly wave and hello to the only other humans parked up here for the night but we didn’t get much of a response so I guess it will just be us playing Rummikub again tonight after dinner for two!
It got dark pretty early and we were in bed by nine, our lamp is still flickering so we really must see about getting a new bulb but until we hit civilisation that won’t be happening so the less we use it the better!
And on that note we went to bed, night night!
Dar and Sar
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