Week 38 (10th - 15th December)

The weather man got it right! By Saturday evening banks of clouds were moving in on Ceduna and that night temperatures plummeted from 45°C to 25°C, the air conditioning went off and we awoke Sunday morning to very overcast skies and a change in wind direction. It appeared to be a good day to travel until we were on the road dealing with strong crosswinds! Approaching Yulata we somehow missed the longest fence in the world - The Dog Fence which stretches 5 300km across three States – for the second time! We missed it on the Stuart Highway near Coober Pedy and again on the Eyre Highway. We must have blinked at the wrong moments! Since our first sighting of the dingo fence in April we have learnt that solar powered electric fencing is used in some places and boxes emitting high frequency sounds to deter dingoes in others. Heavy rains may sweep away kilometres of fence and patrolmen must get there to fix it as soon as the boggy ground allows. In 1989 some 20 000 sheep were lost to dingoes when the fence in South Australia was washed away. Predictably, without dingoes to keep foxes, cats and kangaroos in check on the other side of this 1.8m high protective fence, their numbers have proliferated. Second time along this route and our timing hasn’t coincided with the whale watching season. Hopefully, third time lucky next year!

We chose to overnight in one of the scenic lookouts on the edge of the Bundy Cliffs and suffered a very disturbed night with heavy gusts of wind battering Getaway. The noise and the motion wouldn’t let up, even the clothes hangers in the cupboards were rattling and by first light we wanted out of there! We made for the State border with a tail-wind in our favour, munching on our stock of apples in an effort to finish them before we reached the Quarantine Inspection Centre.

Nullarbor “Christmas trees” captured our attention as we whizzed by that we had to turn back each time to photograph them for this festive season.

Nullarbor Xmas shoe tree - CHEERS

The Madura Pass lookout above the Roe plains was an ideal place to pull off for lunch at 1:00pm. With lunch finished Lea collapsed on the bed feeling the effects of the night’s sleep deprivation. Both of us were inclined to camp there overnight until strong up-draughts of wind rising over the escarpment set Getaway into a rocking motion again. Further, to our consternation, George discovered that it was 10:30am Western Australia time! This threw us and our meals into disarray and by 2 o’clock we departed in search of a camp that would give us a decent night with good wind protection. We wound up at Moonera Tank, a camp we used last time round with trees to take the brunt out of the wind.

A hop of 350km the next day brought us through a bit of cooling rain to the Fraser Range where the rest area overlooked an empty large red clay pan, striking against the fringing white stemmed eucalypt woodlands. George walked out into the centre to take a photo and returned with clay encrusted feet ensuring we’d walk around the edge later that evening as the sun dipped away.

The next morning a clear blue sky contrasted against this red pan and we knew we were in for a hot day as we set off for Norseman. We were held up for an hour at the site of a road train accident with tow trucks equipped with cranes hauling up the over-turned trailers. The driver obviously didn’t heed the warning “Don’t Drive on an Empty Sleep Tank”, the horse squashed flat, together with three cars being transported and a huge load of steel pipes.
While re- fuelling in Norseman we again admired the unique corrugated camels on a roundabout in the town centre, a tribute to the early camel trains which carried freight and influenced the width of streets so that camel trains could turn. In keeping with the Festive Season we have popped in a photo of them.

Tin Camels in Norseman

En route for Esperance we stopped off to see Bromus Dam, a strange earthen, above-ground catch dam in the middle of nowhere. A small square shaped impoundment, almost empty, with no explanation as to its purpose. We ended up staying for lunch and by the time we got back on the road a strong headwind from the coast had developed and rather than battle against it, pulled into Kumarl Siding for the night taking shelter amongst a thicket of mallee and melaleuca.
Driving towards Esperance the next day the first of Western Australia’s wheat-fields arose and with them we began to see many dry lakes with white, salt encrusted floors, a reminder of the region’s salinity problem arising from the clearing the land of naturally occurring deep-rooted forms of vegetation. The Pink Lake is another exceptionally large salt lake on the outskirts of Esperance close to the caravan park we booked into. The pink colour of the lake is produced by a green alga and a bacterium that are able to survive in the extremely high salinity of the water and protect themselves from “sunburn” by producing a red coloured pigment (carotenoid). This same pigment produces the pink colour of flamingos in the salt lakes of the Rift Valley in Africa and in the Hutt Lagoon (north of Geraldton) the algae are farmed for the food colouring and dietary supplements derived.

Pink Lake - Esperance

Having spent a couple of camping holidays in the Esperance area in the past we were eager to re-do the 36km long Great Ocean Drive where the sheer beauty of the white beaches and bluest of clear blue seas with their breakers pound against massive granite headlands never fails to impress. Just offshore the many islands of the Recherche Archipelago add to the grandeur of it all, a drive not dissimilar to tripping around the Cape Peninsula.

Esperance beaches - Great Ocean Drive

Friday took us east of Esperance to the Cape Le Grand National Park with its rugged granite peaks, sweeping heath lands and blinding white beaches. Our plans to go and stay there changed when we heard a fire had swept through the park last weekend closing it. In Esperance we were told only parts were closed and having been there eight years ago we knew it was well worth a day visit. The weather was perfect for walking on the 22km length of le Grand Beach which easily rivals Cable Beach, Broome for all but its warmth. All the beaches in the SE corner of Western Australia are remarkable for their magnificence, the sense of wilderness one feels and the absence of commercial exploitation.

This is our last opportunity before Christmas for our blog manager Saxon to load this update. We have arranged to meet Paul, Saxon (with bump) and Harley dog next Friday at Cheyne Beach, approx. 400km west of Esperance, for 10 days together. The next blog will only be posted in the New Year and in closing we wish you compliments of the season.