Across Australia's Deep South

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As I write this blog, to help keep the memory of my SA/WA camping adventure alive, I have been back at home and work nearly 3 weeks. I would have expected to have written and finished my holiday blog by now.

But I have certainly spent a lot of time reminiscing about the trip with friends and colleagues since I got home and in doing that other details that I had forgotten to write down as we travelled along, have come to mind. Who would have thought that, that when I planned an Christmas/New year escape from Melbourne, how much I would gain personally from having taken this holiday.

I could see back in June/July that the second half 2016 was going to be a challenging time in a few different ways, so I decided to plan a holiday over Christmas, so I could escape city life temporarily once our Christmas break rolled around. I hadn’t had crossing the Nullarbor on the top of my holiday bucket list, although I had always been curious about the Australia’s vast centre and thought I would see it one day. When I started my holiday research the Adventure Tours camping tour from Adelaide to Perth popped to the top of my google search. The trip description ticked many boxes for me. The timing number one, and our tour would take in the Southern Flinders, driving across the Nullarbor Plain, seeing the Great Australian Bight and spending 2 nights camping in national park near Esperance beaches in WA. The remainder of the trip across south west WA to Perth would be familiar territory. However nearly it had been nearly18 years since I had travelled to WA and I certainly wasn’t going to complain about travelling through the lush Tingle and Karri forests again or finishing up in Perth, which I remembered to be a relaxing city with lots to see. In fact I always wanted to clone my home city of Melbourne to be more like Perth, taking the best of both cities...but Melbourne’s weather, fast growing population of 5 million and busier traffic are not a match to Perth, one can always dream!

My arrival from humid Melbourne on the afternoon of December 27 to even more humid Adelaide, didn’t provide a positive starting image for a 9 day camping trip. I heard in my hostel that 50-60mm was expected that night and the weather radar did indeed confirm some heavy weather was coming. The expected rain arrived around midnight I heard and I woke up to heavy wind at about 1am. My hostel window was fully exposed to the weather and I am impressed the windows held up, the wind was so strong. It rained and blew a gale much of the night but somehow I slept through a lot of it.

Upon our pickup early morning, we learned from our guide we would miss our camping in the southern Flinders due to the weather and that we would drive to stay at our second night spot for two nights at Coodlie Park on the west Eyre Peninsula. I was disappointed that we would not get to the southern Flinders as I had only seen that part of the Flinders Ranges for the day, as part of a larger tour of the ranges back in 2009.

Not to worry though, I was on holidays anyway and happy to go with the flow. I didn’t fancy camping in a heavily flooded camp with some more rain expected.

As I start to talk more about the highlights of the tour itself, I should mention the distances we travelled which I googled after I arrived back home 2 days after our tour ended.



Day 1 Adelaide to Coodlie Park 660km

Day 3 (afternoon drive) Coodlie Park to Fowlers Bay 330km

Day 4 Fowlers Bay to Madura WA 600km

Day 5 Madura to Cape Le Grand National Park Esperance 760km

Day 7 Cape Le Grand to Mt Trio camp ground 470km

Day 8 Mt Trio to Frankland South National Park 240km

Day 9 Frankland South NP to Margaret River 230km

Day 10 Margaret River to Perth 270km

Including all the extra local travelling we did on Day 2 and 6, I estimate that we travelled at least 3,700km across the tour.

We had some long days of travel earlier on, but the days never felt long to me as we were seeing and experiencing new things each day.

Our tour company was as Nullarbor Traveller, a travel company based in South Australia, offering various tours in and around the Eyre Peninsula, WA and the longer Adelaide-Perth, Perth-Adelaide tours. Nullarbor Traveller is now owned 25% by Intrepid Tours after the owner negotiated a deal with an objective to boost tour numbers via Intrepid’s marketing capacity and support. That has certainly worked as most tours have full or three quarters full buses now. I had found the tour via Intrepid’s Adventure tours brand. As I was on the tour though, the vibe I had was that the company was very much local and proudly South Australian.

Unfortunately, our tour was not fully booked, under half capacity, but we still had a nice group of 7 travellers from across 5 different countries.

So we set off on the long journey from Adelaide to Perth.

We broke the long first day with photo stops at a pink salt lake, a circuit walk in Mt Remarkable Range national Park with nice views over the Spencer Gulf , lunch in Port Augusta and finally a stop at Kimba at the top of the Eyre Peninsula which marked the half way mark across Australia before we travelled on to Coodlie Park, the home of Nullarbor Traveller. The scenery changed along the way, views of the Southern Flinders Ranges to the North, then more and more salt bush as we drove further west, occasionally broken up by more green scrub. We struck bus trouble closer to our camp but luckily for us, the owners were close enough to send another bus out to meet us. We changed over buses and about 7pm pulled into Coodlie Park. At least we would be settled here for two nights. We had no more bus trouble on the tour either, by the way.

Our home for two nights was a retreat area with custom built huts for swag sleeping and other areas for independent travellers to pull in for a night or three. The central kitchen building, showers and drop toilets had all been largely built with recycled materials, including wood from a dismantled Oyster farm in the area. The most interesting part about the buildings was the bucket showers. We would bring some hot water over from the kitchen, full the shower bucket, add cold water to suit and we had enough water for a decent wash. It was too late for a shower the first evening but it was certainly well appreciated the next afternoon.

The stars were amazing the first night, probably one of the best nights for stars on the full tour. No cloud in the sky and even though it was chilly, none of the bad weather had followed us from Adelaide. I learned after I got home it was all travelling towards Victoria and Melbourne. From Eyre Peninsula to about Albany on January 4 , I was cut off from all news, a complete break which I do need to do more often.

Our second day, saw little travelling but a chance to see a part of the West Eyre Peninsula. We saw the Woolshed and Tub caves just near the coast. From Woolshed caves, we stood and admired a large ocean swell pounding against the coastline, the swell had almost been certainly influenced by the weather and it made for great viewing once it hit the rocks.

That morning our group also enjoyed some dune surfing with some boards we had on the bus. There were some amazing sized inland dunes in the area and for an hour or so, the group enjoyed surfing solo, duo and in the end standing up for a smaller dune. I was a spectator and photo taker, deciding not to risk aggravating a previous back sprain(which had been no trouble for many months).

In the afternoon, we travelled to a little coast side holiday town called Venus bay. It must be popular name as Victoria has a holiday town also called Venus bay. There we walked along the coastal cliffs, the ocean was even more wild in the afternoon, so more spectacular crashes against the rocks were to be seen. We had a go at fishing on the pier while others went swimming. No luck fishing, unfortunately for us and the seagulls/pelicans milling around the pier.

Then it was back to Coodlie Park for showers and dinner prep. Another tour group driving on tour from Perth was expected that afternoon. The property and tour company owners put on a bbq and campfire for us all that night. The property dog, a Kelpie called Maggie was in her element that night with all these people to make a fuss of her. She has the reputation for finding a swag to snuggle into for the night and apparently found a member of the other group that evening.

Before our drive onto the next camping spot at Fowlers Bay, we took the chance to have a morning tour with a local operator at Baird Bay further north on the peninsula and swim with Australian Sea Lions and Dolphins. It was an overcast day but at least the ocean had calmed from the day before. We took in the sea lions first and enjoyed almost an hour of swimming, kept afloat easily in our wetsuits, in shallower waters watching the sea lions dive under us or just come up to check us out. They had beautiful eyes which showed why they are known as the puppy dogs of the sea. Then it was back to the Dolphins. Our operator struggled to find the clearer water which was an important part of our safety, as we were in deep water and at the ocean end of the bay. The risk of sharks had always been on my mind but I decided this tour was once in a life time chance not to miss. The boat guide stopped in two locations and at the second one I went in. I was first off the boat and myself and one other girl were rewarded with 4 dolphins swimming directly under us, within about 2 feet (60cm). I was in the water for about 15 minutes and saw three other sets of other dolphins, not as close as the first group but I am not sure if I would even witness such a thing again. Unfortunately I did not have an underwater camera to capture the experience, I will remember it forever though, for sure.

We returned to Baird Bay for lunch and then it was time to drive on for the afternoon to our next stop at Fowlers bay.

Unfortunately at that point, we said goodbye to one of our group of seven, who had 2 days into a 9 day tour decided to return to Adelaide as part of the bigger tour group that had joined us the night before. If that was me, I am sure it was decision I would have come to regret.

As an Australian, I had the advantage of knowing what camping in Australian bush can be like and I had also slept in swags before. But I can understand that to a visitor from overseas, often with little camping experience, that swag camping might come as a shock. Each nation has a different diet too and the type of camping diet in Australia may not be as easy for foreign visitors to get used to. For a 9 day camping trip though, we were given a good variety of food, often fresh, which took a bit of organising to maintain travelling across remote Australia.

Even with my camping experience, I had forgotten what it was like to be on the road for multiple days at a time, often with mixed sleep, long drives, changing time zones, early sunrise, early starts on the road and regularly packing up camp to move onto the next one. I started the tour tired and finished the tour tired (happily) but I enjoyed the experience of seeing new country and mixing with travellers of different ages, nationalities and personalities at the same time. I came away feeling I had built more tolerance and endurance on this tour, not thinking too much about the challenges along the way but just enjoying the moment. I can’t help but think that if that person had stuck the tour out, it may have become better for them. They missed the highlights of the tour and the chance to mix with the 8 others who joined the tour at Esperance.

Off we travelled through to Fowlers Bay, with stops at Streaky Bay, Ceduna and Penong along the way.

Penong is a gateway town to the Nullarbor and is start of the Nullarbor Links golf course which extends from Penong to Kalgoorlie, with a hole at each roadhouse/village along the Nullarbor road. At over 1300km, the Nullarbor links golf course is the longest in the world. We also took in the Penong windmills museum which came together after the locals restored a variety of broken down windmills from around the area and more remote outback Australia.

From there it was onto our night stop at Fowlers Bay. It was a caravan park this time but was I was most impressed about with Fowlers Bay was the huge sand dunes which sat behind the small town and extended a few hundred metres south to the coast. Holiday makers were enjoying quad biking and flying kites up on the dunes until sunset.

After a relaxed night and an early wakeup, we drove off at about 7:30am for our New Year’s Eve drive across the Nullarbor Plain. After stopping off to see part of the 5000km plus Dingo fence, which extends through SA, NSW and QLD, we drove further west. Gradually the trees got shorter and less dence until we found ourselves on the treeless remote Nullarbor Plain, quite a sight to see. We learned that the true treeless plain is only 30 or so km long but we drove long remote plain for a few hours, with scrub only appearing again just before Border Village, the border of SA/WA.

Much happened on that remote road. We stopped for views of the Great Australian Bight three times, we stopped at the Nullarbor roadhouse where we met a road train driver our guide knew well. We had learned more about the large road trains on our drive. The maximum size these days is 3 carriages which must be dropped to two once the drivers reach the busier highway at Port Augusta. A couple of my fellow campers got the chance to travel with the driver for about an hour as he was travelling the same direction as us.

Along the way we saw a couple of broken down cars in the middle of the Nullarbor and someone inspecting the car for parts. Our guide explained that if a car breaks down along this remote part of the road, the cheapest option is to abandon the car as the cost for a tow driver to come and back up the car is prohibitive. Ironically though, apparently it does not take too long for such cars to be quickly inspected and stripped for spare parts.

We saw the honesty of others that day too. One of my fellow travellers accidently left her camera and purse on the ground at Nullarbor roadhouse whilst we were looking at the road train. She did not realise until we were about 30 minutes down the road. Our guide was able to ring the roadhouse on the satellite phone and someone had handed the purse and Camera in. It was arranged for another lady travelling west to carry the package and meet us at Border Village at out lunch spot.

We had our lunch, some photo opportunities, the camera/purse met us safely and then it was time to cross though the strictly controlled quarantine station as we drove into WA. We had to make salads out of all our vegetables, in order to get our fresh food though. But we did get through and it was off for a few more hours’ drive to our remote camp. We inspected the historic former telegraph station at the dunes at Eucla, did a couple of more roadhouse stops and good photo opportunity overlooking the Hampton plateau which we had driven alongside for some time. I was fascinated by that as we drove, as the plateau represented the sand dunes and coastline of the past while we were driving along former ocean floor.

We set up our camp in a remote spot just past Madura, got a discreet fire going and counted down our NYE to what we calculated was midnight SA and Victoria time. It had been a big day and we didn’t make it to WA midnight, Eastern time zone.

New Years day was to be our biggest drive. We started driving at 6am and did not arrive at Lucky Bay, Cape Le Grand NP until about 7pm that night. We did a short cave walk along the way, but that day we saw many wild Wedge tailed eagles, including parents and an almost fully grown chick and an Emu. I forgot to say that early evening on NYE just before our campsite we saw an Emu and chicks. They didn’t stick around for us to take a photo, as my fellow traveller MJ often put it, they escaped the tour paparazzi!

There were several roadhouse stops, the highlight for me being at Balledonia where there was a museum about the local area and the famous 1979 crash landing of NASA’s defunct first space station Skylab. I remembered the media fuss and WA landing of Skylab from when I was younger, so it was interesting to read about it from a local perspective. Parts of Skylab were scattered from Esperance to the Nullabor Plain after it broke up on entry to the earth’s atmosphere, so the media attention helped put the area on the international map, much to the delight of the locals.

We still had a long way to go from Balledonia to Lucky Bay, but we were getting closer. A couple of more stops at lunch and turning left at Norseman, then it was the last 2 hours to Esperance. We stopped to pick up supplies in Esperance, I caught up with New year greetings once we were in mobile range and then at 7pm we pulled into Lucky Bay. Even though it was windy, we had clear skies and beach views. The local Kangroos came to greet us as we set up our tents.

Lucky Bay was our stop for two nights. In the sunny morning of January 2, we set off to climb nearby Frenchman Peak. Frenchman Peak is all rock and became steeper as we climbed. I had only brought runners on this trip and found the grip harder as I went on. I decided I was a hindrance to the others and with great views over the coast by then, I was happy to sit until they came back down. As I took in sweeping views across Cape Le Grand NP and coast, I hadn’t felt like I missed out at all by not doing the full climb.

After the climb, we had lunch at nearby Hellfire bay with a chance to walk back to camp afterward after enjoying a swim. The beaches along Esperance must be some of the nicest beaches in the world. The pure white sand in the area brings out the turquoise blue of the water and we enjoyed a couple of swims in the area before moving on the next day.

By that time other Nullarbor traveller groups at arrived in the area coming from Perth. We had learned that 8 other travellers were to join us here, as that tour was also underbooked and we were all travelling the same way. We had all gotten to know each other as group by then, so I wondered how it would go having extras, the other group had come from a larger bus as well. But I wasn’t too concerned. In hindsight, our smaller group probably was a little quiet and having the others join us, two extra nationalities to our group, gave our group another life and even though our bus became space challenged at times, we continued on as a larger group of happy campers.

January 4 dawned and we were up at 4:30am for an early sunrise before packing up and heading west towards the Stirling ranges. It was only an afternoon drive that day, so we enjoyed another swim and lunch at beautiful Twilight beach after some shopping in Esperance.

It was a hot drive across the WA wheat belt after leaving the coast, but once we arrived at our camp ground at Mt Trio, set up on local farmer’s land, we were greated by a new mum Labrador, so the farmer brought the puppies down to see us. After fussing and cuddling the pups for over 30 minutes, we talk in a short walk before helping with dinner. We had great facilities at this camp, a big kitchen with power, toaster and microwave, great tables for big groups like us. The showers were hot and good pressure. Mt Trio was also the one place where I slept outdoors in my swag. It was a warmer night, a clear sky with thousands of stars, but it was actually probably one of the best nights’ sleep I had on tour.

After packing up, it was off early to the nearby Porongurup Ranges where we walked up to and climbed Castle Rock. Ironically along the way, we drove though fog near the Stirling Ranges, despite the warmer night.

Our climb up Castle Rock gave great views of the nearby Stirling Ranges and the surrounding farmland. The final part of the climb was a challenge but despite my increasing fear of heights I made it up the ladder to enjoy the excellent views,

From Castle Rock we had a packed day. I saw parts of SW WA I had seen before but also different. Our guide took us to another excellent beach at Greens Pools which was off the itinerary, we could swim but others also walked along the excellent coastline finding new beaches and excellent bolder formations. We stopped at the Valley of the Giants after that, where once again I saw the beautiful Tingle trees I remembered from my 1999 visit. Then we had the short drive to Frankland South NP where we camped in remote bush that was only recently reopened after bushfire. We had nearby lake many of us swam in prior to dinner. It was another warm night but due to mozzies, we slept in tents. Without predicted rain, we were able to sleep with the fly off.

January 5 was our last full day of the tour. Our first stop for the day was at the Diamond tree, one of the tall Karri tree fire lookouts in the area. Many of our group climbed to the top. I sat it out as spectator and photographer! At that spot we met an inspirational older lady who was feeding an orphaned joey Kangaroo and had about 4 others in the back of her van. She had used an inheritance to setup a rescue farm and told us she had been successful in releasing many Kangaroos back to the wild once they were old enough.

We had to drag ourselves away from the roos to drive onto Pemberton, an early 1900s logging town, After a bakery stop and look around town, we drove onto Hamelin Bay, another off itinerary stop, where our guide handed us some fish to feed the friendly rays who live in the Bay. That stop was one of the highlights of the tour for me. I could have fed and patted the rays for hours. After that it was on to our camp site at Margaret River to setup and have lunch before heading to the wineries.

Our guide had stopped at an opp shop in Esperance after she recommended a bad taste dress afternoon, for visiting some up market wineries in the area. Many of us embraced that idea so in the afternoon, we set off, de rigour in our choice of dress, to take in two wineries and the Margaret River Chocolate company. We had a lot of fun but unfortunately had only 10-15 minutes in the shop trying chocs/looking at products at the Choc Co before an alleged power blackout. It was conveniently near closing time and the shop was packed with holiday makers. I think it was the only way the staff could leave in what they considered reasonable time!

At our final camp dinner, we enjoyed a lot of laughs. Some wind and rain had come in by then but it certainly didn’t dampen our spirits. I thought to myself that night, I couldn't believe the tour was close to ending. The 9 days had not passed too quickly, but yet here we were nearly at the end.

After packing up the last morning we drove out to Prevelly Beach, one of the well known surf beaches in the area which also hosts an international surf meet each year. It was another spectacular beach to see, but what we did notice is the yellower colour of the sand which did not bring out the same Turquoise blue as the Esperance coast beaches. From there it was off to Ngilgi cave on a guided tour by an indigenous guide who had grown up in the area. We had chance to have a good look around the cave and as part of his tour, we received a wealth of info about the area as well as demo of local music, a fire lighting demo aboriginal style and a showing of all the tools his ancestors used to use.

Then it was on the road for our drive back to Perth and tour end. We stopped in Busselton for lunch and a look around the beach or shops. Late afternoon we arrived in Perth and were dropped off as close to our accommodation as possible . We had an hour or so to freshen up before meeting in Northbridge for our farewell dinner.

Most of us were probably tired at the end of the tour, so the night did not go late but we set up Facebook group so we could exchange photos beyond our tour. I am sure like me, everyone left the tour with great memories. It was inevitable that we would all move in different directions after the tour, but it was nice to make Facebook connections with some in our group and by keeping up with what the others do their future activities/travels, having met on our tour, it will also help keep the memory of our tour alive.

In the past week I saw a quote online that pretty much sums my high spirits after the tour. It went something along the lines of ‘I googled my symptoms, it turns out I just needed to go camping’. Three weeks on from the end of our tour, I am already planning my next Aussie camping adventure.

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Photos

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One of the unusual trees at Mount Remarkable Range National Park

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Views of Spencer Gulf on our walk at the Remarkable Ranges

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Half way across Australia at Kimba, north of the Eyre Peninsula

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The wind blowing sand across the dune near our dune surfing spot. We had to move away from blowing sand, but only once

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the coastline as seen from our Venus Bay coastal walk

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A first sign of more long distance to come

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Enjoying our first view of the Bight

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Our third view of the Bight. it is towards the end of the Bight here and the cliffs are gradually turning into sand dunes

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How far we have come. Taken at Border Village looking back east. We had travelled roughly 1400km since tour start 3.5 days prior

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Looking over the sand dunes of old near Madura, the Hampton plateau

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More distance, on the Eyre highway in WA on New Years day

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Part of Skylab on the roof at Balledonia roadhouse

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Hellfire bay, Cape le Grand NP

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Meeting the pups at Mt Trio camp ground

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Getting near the top of Castle Rock. I only had the ladder dlimb to go

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Green Kangaroo Paw at our camp spot at Frankland South NP.

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The swimming hole near Frankland South NP

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One of the first homes of historic Pemberton. This home dates back to the early 1900s

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One of the Rays at Hamelin Bay

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Red Kangaroo paw outside Margaret River Chocolate company

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the views driving back from Prevelly beach

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our guide at Ngilgi cave