Advertisement
Published: January 28th 2007
The good news is that I've made it to Adelaide. The bad news is the car did not.
We left Perth on Monday the 22nd. The first day was a fairly ambitous one and we managed to get an early start despite a goodbye celebration the night before. After the aggravating drive through the eastern suburbs we hit the open highway. The plan was to take the secondary highway route and stop for lunch at a small town called Hyden. Once you leave Perth, the rest of Western Australia is pretty vacant of other people and buildings. We did pass through a small town called Corrigin which is slightly famous for it's dog cemetary. It took 3-4 hours to get to Hyden, which is practically a ghost town. Hyden is most famous for the spectaculur wave rock which is just past the city limits. It's a little difficult to describe the formation so I'll let the pictures do the talking. After leaving Hyden we really went off the map, and the highway. The 300km direct route to Norseman, the last stop before the Nullabor, is a seldom used dirt track. Imagine 300 kilometres of dusty dirt driving with literally not
a single building along the way. It took nearly four hours and we probably passed only 4 other vehicles along the way. Because of the heat and a useless airconditioner, we had the windows down the entire way. By the end of the day everything in the back of the car was covered with an inch of dust. That evening we stayed in a pub hotel in Norseman which was great. It felt like the kind of place one would stay in 100 years ago.
Day two was another big driving day. We got our last view of civilization in the rear view mirror as we passed the sign saying "Adelaide 1969km." My guide book has a quote from an early explorer which describes the nullarbor as a "hideous anomoly, a blot on the face of nature." Yeah that pretty much sums it up. There is literally nothing out here. Just a massive, flat and dry plain covered with bushes and the occasional scraggly tree. The only sign of humanity's influence, decides the well paved highway, are the road houses spaced out every few hundred kilometres. The traffic was actually a little more regular than I had expected. There
were lots of road trains and campervans along the way. With not much more to see than kangaroo corpses, we made good time and covered close to 1000 kilometres. The driving highlight of the day would have to be the 150 kilometre stretch of highway without a single tiny turn. This is the longest stretch like that in Australia and very possibly the world. We Ended up in a road house called Eucla to spend the night. The Eucla was located atop the first hill of any size we had seen all day. The ocean was visible from the lookout and it was a great spot for a sunset. A quick note on the night time in the outback: Although the days consistently push 40 degrees, the temperature drops rapidly during dusk. By dark you are shivering even if you have a jacket and long pants on. The cold is worth suffering through to see the stars though. I had no idea there were so many stars visible from earth.
Day three: disaster. The plan was to make it to Ceduna; a simple 700 kilometres. Ceduna is the first town of any size you reach after leaving norseman. The
car gods had other ideas. The day started off very well. For the first hour we were far enough south to see the ocean out of the right window. At one point the nullarbor simply ends at a huge cliff which plumits strait into the water. Pics included. The sight-seeing put us in a good mood. Soon after we crossed the border into South Australia, making it my fourth of seven states to visit. After a care free two hours, and with absolutely no warning, the engine shut off. Hoping it was a simple problem, i pulled up and popped the hood. I was greeted with a nice burst of steamed coolant in my face. It smells remarkably similar to burnt popcorn. The radiator was completely dry so I grabbed a jug of water and poured it in. The problem became obvious then as streaming water instantly shot out of a huge crack in the side of the radiator. Luckily I had just passed the sign saying the next road house was five kilometres away. I attempted a desperate scheme of dumping my entire water supply into the radiator and drive like mad, hoping to get there. Unfortunatly, the hole
was leaking water almost as fast as i was pouring it in and starting the engine was hopeless. A nice couple stopped and I meekly asked them to send someone back for a tow. Thankfully here is where the bad luck started to change. Country Australians are without a doubt the friendliest and most helpful people on the planet. Knowing the only way I was going anywhere was with a new radiator, the guys organized the supply truck to bring one in the next day. Thankfully, the once weekly supply truck was due the next day so the wait would be mercifully short. The parts and repairs were to cost me less than if i had the same problem in a large city.
Day four was a day of waiting. We got set up in some meagre but free accomidation. The road house, called the nullarbor road house, is no more than a few buildings in the middle of the desert. The landscape is ruler flat for as far as you can see in any direction. Not so much as a tree marred the horizon. There was a small shop, a few motel units, a caravan park and an
Decorated Tree
This tree is even more strange as it's in the absolute center of nothingair conditioned pub. With the temperature soaring well above 40, can you guess where we spent most of the day? We passed the time playing ancient video games and watching the Australian open. Our new mechanic and road house friends spent a lot of the day there as well as there isn't much else to be done during the days. These guys are as rural as they come, with such names as Jed, Mick and Sponge. Sponge's namesake of course comes from his ability to drink a shocking amount of alcohol. The radiator came as promised at six pm and the mechanics set to work replacing the old one. Unfortunatly, this is where this sordid tale takes another turn for the worse. With a new radiator, the real problem became obvious. With nowhere else for the coolant to escape, it started flowing out of the side of my engine. This car was at the end of it's days. With the sun already droppings, we resigned ourselves to spend another night in paradise.
Day five was one of those "at least it can't get any worse days." Actually, it got a lot better. I sold what was left of my
car to sponge for far more than it was worth. We both knew it but he felt bad for not being able to help more. He got a good deal as well as I had just replaced all five tires. Also, the chef from the road house was going to Ceduna that morning and offered us a free ride. After giving thanks and goodbyes to the roadhouse staff, we were once again on the highway with Scott the chef. It was good to meet Scott as we had been eating some surprisingly high quality meals in the restaurant. We got to Ceduna at 10 in the morning and Yumi booked us an overnight ticket to Adelaide leaving that night. Scott offered to keep our bags in his car all day and we gladly excepted. We now had the next 10 hours to explore the thriving metropolis of Ceduna. We quickly learned that the only thing worse than trying to kill 10 hours in Ceduna is trying to kill 10 hours in Ceduna on a public holiday. The only business in town which was open was the pub. At this point we were pretty much sick of sitting in pubs. Six
O'clock finally crawled around and Scott helped us out one more time with a lift to the bus stop. Did I mention how friendly and helpful country Australians are yet? After twelve hours on the bus we showed up in our intended destination, Adelaide. We haven't had a chance to explore too much yet so I'll save anything on Adelaide for the next blog. It's a bummer losing the car but it definatly could have been much much worse so I consider myself a bit lucky. I'm off to do some exploring now. Until next time...
Just a quick note, i tried uploading a video this time but am unsure if it is working our not. Check it out if you can, there's a small link next to my picture at the top of the blog.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 66; dbt: 0.0408s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Granny
non-member comment
Video plus
Hi Brian, Your video works just fine! I've been following your trip on Google Earth and you certainly are covering some amazing and unusual country. Your 40 degree temperature sounds a bit much, but as we still have a lot of snow on the ground we could use some of it. I'll be interested to read what you think of Adelaide when you get round to the next instalment. I hope you will make an album of your picrures - I think you could make a career out of photography. Love, Granny.