South Australia Part 2

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22 Mar - Adelaide for the last time this trip
We were welcomed by our gracious Adelaide host family (Frank, Francis & Liam) once again. Today Leanne went to pick up the car from the repair depot and I took the day to scoot back to Sydney very briefly to carefully consider some important work and career affecting decisions in a brief meeting with my department manager. (News of future developments will be forthcoming as events unfold).
Back in Adelaide, it was appropriate for us to cook the Andrews family dinner after they fostered two transient travellers and stored the entire contents of our car in their back room for two weeks. Frank and Francis, we cannot thank you guys enough!
Thursday 23-Mar, we re-packed the car with all of our gear and headed for the Victoria markets to stock up on the amazingly fresh produce for the next leg of our journey. It was late in the day by he time we reached Port Augusta, so we thought it best to rest overnight and found the caravan park. There is really no other reason you would stop in Port Augusta - once we saw the 2m high, barbed wire fence surrounding the park, we decided to stay put and catch some of the Commonwealth Games in the TV lounge.
T

24-25 Mar - Streaky Bay
Ben & Tina recommended we begin our Nullarbor odyssey from Streaky Bay rather than Ceduna. (Ceduna is designated as ‘SH’ on the Ben & Tina Australian Town rating scale. These guys know, they’ve been on the road for a long time and have seen a lot of towns...oh…and ’SH’ stands for “S¬¬¬¬--- Hole”).
The 500km drive to Streaky is uneventful as we cut across the top of the Eyre Peninsular. Along the way we were reminded of the WA border quarantine that B&T had warned us about - only problem was we had stocked up on a few days worth of deliciously fresh fruit and veg from the markets in Adelaide. Driving into Streaky Bay, we were relieved to find it a typically pleasant seaside town that we could settle in for two days (and eat up all of our fruit).
After setting up our tent in a primo bay view, beachfront site, we walked to the Community Hotel for ice cold Cooper’s Pale Ale on tap. A sunset stroll back to camp had us appreciating the simple beauty of this town and the surprising environmental sensibilities and practices of the local council. With Leanne’s professional interest in sustainability, we were surprised to read on a sign in the park: the thick, lush, green grass we now walked upon was watered nightly with the town’s treated effluent. After all of the fruit we had eaten, we were proud to contribute.
It was raining all off Sunday morning as we packed up camp. There was some consolation in the caravan park’s free Sunday morning pancake breakfast. We had heard the rumours, you had to be in the right park on the right day, which is not so easy, but here we were! It was about as exiting as it got for us as we were headed across the Nullarbor these next two days.
T

26-27 Mar - The Nullarbor
The name “Nullarbor” is derived from Latin meaning: no trees. We had imagined a straight black tar road, cutting a perfectly straight path through a desolate, red sand wasteland, disappearing into the mirrored heat haze on the horizon. Instead, it was green with low-lying desert shrubbery and it was raining as we drove! Our imagined Nullarbor was much more exiting - at least in conjured up the scenes of desert warrior car duels from Mad Max II.
As we neared the WA border, the highway came close to the edge of the Great Australian Bight. Short roads off to our left side led to sheer, sea cliff tops and allowed us to look out upon the Southern Ocean and see the concave curve of the bight toward the East.
At border town we met with the cranky quarantine inspector who thoroughly searched our car to take our honey. She was not pleased with our lack of due-diligence. We stopped for the night at Eucla, just across the SA/WA border so we could have an extra hour and a half of sleep (due to the switch to WA’s time zone). The historic telegraph station that is partially buried in the encroaching sand dunes is only tourist attraction in Eucla.
Monday 27-Mar, the highlight of our continuing journey across the Nullarbor is driving the 90 mile stretch - Australia’s longest, straight section of road. We turned left at Norseman and pushed ourselves another 200km to check in at Seafront Caravan Park in Esperance. We had a great meal at Pink Lake Thai to celebrate the completed epic journey.
T

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