Week 7 – 1st Jan – 7th Jan

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Happy New Year to everyone! I eventually surfaced at around 2pm! Predictably, today was dedicated to recovery! We did virtually nothing all day except eat and watch films etc. and I eventually started to feel somewhat more human around 8pm! I went up to Mt. Melville to watch the sunset, which was awesome. The sun sets behind a wind farm, so the turbines were silhouetted and there was a cool reflection over the bay. A little after midnight I went up to Mt. Melville again as I thought it would be a pretty cool view of the city at night. I went up there with Dominic, the gayest German guy you could ever meet, and Veronique the French-Canadian girl. I got some cool photos of the city all lit up, then we drove down towards the shoreline were there’s a reconstruction of an old sail ship, about 30 metres in length. The public is free to climb aboard anytime of day or night, which is cool. You can climb the rigging and sit in the crow’s nest and everything! That was that, and we headed back for some sleep.

We needed to start making decisions about how long we would stay in the south-west, when we’d cross the Nullarbor Plain and where we’d celebrate my birthday. The weather had the audacity to turn somewhat cloudy on the 2nd, and we had heard that it would be a bit rubbish for a few days. Having had our fill of stuff to do and see in and around Albany, we decided to head for Esperance, a little under 500km down the coast. I would have liked to go via the Porongurup and Stirling ranges to the north, but as the weather was a bit rubbish it wouldn’t have been worth the trip. There are some great walking and climbing spots, as well as the highest peak in the state, Mount Bluff, which offer some stunning views. However, I think they’re going on my ever-growing list of places to go either later in the trip or if and when I come back in September/October. It’s just impossible to do it all!

I wanted to be in a decent-sized place for birthday so we could hit a few pubs and indulge in the usual kind of behaviour. Before the long drive, we went to a couple of rock formations called ‘The Gap’ and ‘The Natural Bridge’. These have been formed over years of the Southern Ocean battering the coast - it’s pretty spectacular to see the power of the waves against this solid granite wall! The drive to Esperance wasn’t the most thrilling, but we eventually got there around 6pm and checked into our accommodation. On returning from a trip to the shops, we realized the engine had virtually boiled dry; the water pump had died on us - another thing to get sorted! There are some absolutely stunning beaches in the area, but again it’s not worth checking them out when the weather isn’t at its best. We made the decision to see what the weather would be like in the morning: if it was nice, we’d stay in the area; if it as crap we’d bite the bullet and make the long journey to Adelaide.

On Wednesday, the first thing we needed to do was get the car fixed. Fortunately there was a bloke that could do it that morning, once he had got the part. The repairs cost us $280 and we got some new windscreen wiper blades as it began to look like we’d be needing them a lot over the next few days. I think it was fate that we had the fuel leak and knackered water pump before we headed east. It wouldn’t have been cool being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken van and no-one for hundreds of miles to fix it! And so our expedition started. Around 1400, we left Esperance for Norseman, which is about 200km to the north. Not long after we left it started pissing down. In Norseman we went to the visitor information centre to get some information about accommodation and local up-to-date knowledge of weather conditions and advise on driving across the Nullarbor. It’s not the journey of decades ago where you had to navigate your way across on nothing but dirt tracks and prayer for a lot of good fortune. Slim, the old boy in Nannup, told us about when he drove across with a couple of mates back in the 60s or 70s - it was a real adventure, made worse by the fact that one of them snored intolerably, the other had smelly feet and Slim couldn’t stop farting!! Nowadays, it’s a properly sealed road with roadhouses every so often - there you can get petrol, a decent meal, a beer and somewhere to sleep. The longest distance between stops is 180km.

The tourism agency, or something like that, publish a big fold-out pamphlet containing all you need to know about the drive, including what facilities are at each stop, distances, a little bit of local information and all that kind of stuff and everything. I suggested that we get to Balladonia the same day - that way we can get 180km under our belts by the time the sun goes down. I had seen some weather charts and spoken to some locals about the weather forecast - I was looking like it would be turning stormy! The nice lady in the Norseman had told me that these conditions were totally freak, but they were loving having the rain. Australia’s in the middle of a very serious drought - it’s been going on for decades - so any rain is a blessing for them. I made a judgement that we stood a good chance of missing the worst of the storm - we’d either outrun it or travel on the periphery without getting caught up in the middle of hell! It soon transpired that there was a cyclone making its way from the Indian Ocean just north of Perth, traveling from a west-north-west direction. Oh yes, and there was also one coming off the Southern Ocean just west of Adelaide - the two were going to meet at some point on our journey - haha, wicked!!

We left Norseman, greeted with a sign saying ‘Adelaide 1986km’! We got to Balladonia just before it got dark and got into what was probably the shittiest place we’ve stayed in! But hey, all we needed was somewhere to get our heads down, a bit of scoff, some beer and some petrol. Tom and I decided to treat ourselves to the mixed grill (the menu informs you of the fact that it’s been voted by some magazine that it’s the best in all of Australia!). It was the biggest, fattest, tastiest plate of animals ever!! And only $28! Having washed it down with some delightful red wine, Crown lager and a spot of bourbon - and 7-balled a German bloke at pool (well he won 4 out of 7 games, but I demolished him on one - he refused to do the customary pants-down run round the table for being 7-balled!) we had a chat with some of the road train drivers. There was one guy there who was being paid $1000 a day for 3 weeks to supervise some roadworks - sweet! He told us that these cyclones happen every 25 years - and we’d run right into them! Apparently, last time it happened, there was local guy with had a light aircraft who had got a mayday message over the radio on an emergency frequency from some desperate guys saying they had nearly run out of beer and cigarettes and needed a newspaper - absolutely dire for an Aussie bloke! They had been cut off for 4 days due to the wind and rain. This bloke got in his plane and a mate of his attached crates of beers, boxes of fags and a paper to a parachute and chucked it out of the plane. When they flew over them they were holding up a massive sign saying ‘2 beer left’, or words to that effect! Just like something out of a Castlemaine XXXX advert! Another road train driver had been driving from Norseman and was carrying hardly anything on one trailer, while the other was empty - as a result he was really light. He had met another full-laden road train coming in the other direction and the combination of the high winds and other vehicle had literally blown him into the ditch. He had been there for 5 hours waiting for someone to come and pull him out! That gives an idea of the condition!

We rose early on Thursday, put a full tank of petrol in and went on our merry way. I drove the first stint and it soon turned awful. The cross wind was seriously strong, it was pissing down, the road was drenched and I was battling to keep a straight course. In the van, you’re always trying to drive economically while making good progress. We’ve found that on normal conditions, 100km/h is a good trade off. Today I was struggling to get anywhere near 80km/h and that was with my foot flat to the floor, which obviously guzzling gas! I was sat at around 60-70km/h and we just made it to our next stop - it was a fine cut thing! We drove out of the storm briefly by the time we got to Mundrabilla, where we stopped for some scoff and petrol, before carrying on. I made an executive decision to do as many kilometres as we could that day - we managed to do 1000km, which was a good effort, and were now in South Australia (SA). That would mean that we would get to Adelaide the day after, what with having just 700km left. We stopped in Ceduna for the night and caught up on some sleep. On Friday, we got back in the van for the final stint, passing through Port Augusta for a cash point. Anders had forgotten to take out money before we left, so we had to lend him money and virtually all the petrol had had to go on my credit card since Esperance - about 8 tanks’ worth! We arrived in Adelaide around 6pm and were very, very happy to be out of the van, showered and in fresh clothes. We had spent 3 days in a row in the van, and it had been pretty dull. There’s nothing to look at as you drive across the Nullarbor, and the weather fluctuated between ultra-stormy to boiling hot - Anders was down to just his pants at one point - not a pleasant sight!

Adelaide seemed like a pretty cool place when we got there. The road leading into was dual carriageway, which was a bit of a novelty - the first I’ve seen since being here. All of a sudden I had to have my wits about me - people cutting me up left, right and centre. It was nice to be back in the city environment, having not felt like we’ve been near civilisation since Perth. I was looking forward to having a decent piss-up for my birthday, before finding work. Tom and I got up on Saturday morning to have a bit of a look around and a recce for the Saturday night alcohol-fuelled entertainment. The place was dead at 11am on a Saturday - it seemed like no-one was around at all! We found a British pub called ‘The Elephant’, just off Rundle Street and thought that might be a suitable establishment to return to in the evening. And that was exactly what we did - we hit the town around 2100 - I had even treated myself to a shave! We ended up staying all night as it was a pretty good vibe - there didn’t seem any point in moving on anywhere else. We ended up drinking with a bunch of local guys, which was great fun. Tom and Anders went home around 3ish, and I eventually made it back just after 5am, just as it started raining! Sunday was actually my birthday, but we just had a couple in the evening, happy that my 25th had been suitably celebrated the night before.

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