We are on holiday!

Sunday 11th September 2022

Richie got up early – at 5:45 – to walk to the beach! Though given the time is about to jump forward 1 1/2 hours that was probably a good time to get up! The caravan drove off shortly after, disappointing Bonnie who was hoping the kids might appear for a play. Obviously in a rush but surprising they didn’t even go to look at the ruins. Bonnie and Otis had their last play at the Telegraph station, climbing into each room from the top of the walls! We chatted to the tourists stopping by to have a look.

We had a quick stop at Eucla , where the kids had a play on the playground. We felt pretty glad to have found such a lovely camping spot, rather than staying at the caravan park! Then on the road by 8:40 – which soon jumped ahead as we crossed the border!

We passed a few cyclists on the way – which would be a hell of a feat! Chatting to the Broome to Perth cyclist in Karatha I thought the trip would pretty interesting, with such diverse roadsides. I’m not sure the Nullabour would appeal to me quite so much! Not that riding a bike that far would appeal to me anyway – I would rather walk!

We stopped at the Nullabour roadhouse. With diesel at $3 a litre this is the first time we have seen fuel more expensive than Braidwood when we left. In fact throughout WA it’s mostly been cheaper! Shortly after we stopped in at Head of Bight, a famous whale watching location. Admittedly I had done no research on the location, but I was pretty surprised we had to pay $44 to access the board walk! I guess given the facilities (sealed road, board walk to cliff top), we would expect to pay something but to me that felt pretty steep! Especially since we weren’t intending on staying long – as I imagine would be the case for the majority of travellers just passing through. We watched the whales for half an hour or so. There was a mother and calf in front of the viewing platform and quite a few whales near the point next to the platform – one put on a display of leaps and you could hear them making weird calls. Overall it was beautiful, but given there are many other places to see whales up close without the big expense (Point Quobba for one, and we saw whales incredibly close to the shore in the Margaret River region on our last visit to WA), I’m not sure I would necessarily recommend it. Perhaps other visitors get a more impressive display? Richie suggested that if we saw a pod of orcas come in that might have made it worth our money – I’m sure some people get lucky! 😆 It was interesting seeing the enormous sand dunes in the distance – apparently the sand dunes move into shore at a rate of 11 m a year! No wonder the telegraph station had to be abandoned, that would be hard work!

Heading east, and it wasn’t long before we were out of the so called treeless plains and back in woodland. I have been surprised by the vegetation along the Nullabour – I was expecting a very long version of the Hay plains but most of it has been quite shrubby! Further east, past Fowler’s Bay we started to see lots of ripe quondongs on the roadside, looking very festive! We stopped to pick a couple but didn’t want to confuse things at the quarantine stop at Ceduna so didn’t linger.

The quarantine stop was very brief – with a promise that we didn’t have any fresh produce with us, and after opening the fridge an inch we were on our way. It was almost 4:30, perhaps it was almost knock-off time! Or maybe it was obvious we had been gorging ourselves with fruit and avocado in the previous hour!

Coming into Ceduna at 4:30, with the planned campsite 1 1/2 hours away, was feeling a bit risky – especially as there was a risk the campground could be full, and we needed to shop for fresh supplies. I quickly found a motel room in town and booked it online, with the idea we shop and leave in the morning. While I was making arrangements Richie pulled up next to a flock of Major Mitchell Cockatoos on the roadside – a bird we haven’t seen this whole trip!

We pulled into the motel, but there had been a booking error, where the same room was booked online and in person at the same time – I wonder how often that actually happens?! They had another room but it needed to be cleaned, so we headed off to a lovely beach side playground so the kids could run their crazies out. We had been in the car since early morning after all! There was also a mobile pizza oven there, so we got the kids pizza for dinner as well! Richie went to the supermarket to find an easy dinner, returning with a box of giant twins – hooray, back in SA! We also took the opportunity, with phone reception available, to check the forecast, and it’s looking pretty bad from Wednesday onwards – rain, storms and 55km/hr winds. Not something we want to intentionally try in the tent!

At six we checked back in at the motel, and the kids vegged in front of the tv, in a bit of a coma! We forced them into showers and got them to sleep. So nice to be clean, and sleep in a proper bed!