Saturday, 10/13 Cactus Beach, west of Ceduna, SA to Koonalda Homestead, Nullarbor NP

Surfers and wombats

      We got out of the LC at sunrise and walked down to the beach to watch four surfers already catching waves. The wind had died down from the previous couple days, and the waves coming directly onto the beach were barely breaking. But off several hundred meters on the right side of the beach there is a break that causes the water to rear up into a famous set of waves. Today they were probably only a few meters high, but it was enough to carry the surfers on a pretty good ride. Like most surfing, however, the real action was punctuated by long periods of waiting. I guess it's sort of like watching football, except without the comfy couch and beer and Doritos.

Cactus Beach

     The campground is very interesting. Surfers first started coming to Cactus Beach, which is a long way from anywhere, in the late '60s and used the area behind the dunes to camp. In 1986 a fellow named Ronnie took over management and created a semblance of order. He's still there, wiry surfer build, long-gray hair under a bush hat,  keeping tabs on everything when he's not surfing in Indonesia or Hawaii, or Africa.  There are flush toilets set in stone huts, barbeques made of a metal barrel with a swing top lid and set on a pole so they can be rotated depending on the direction of the wind, and a shelter with sink for washing dishes, and another for doing laundry.

Breakfast

Don't know how they fit that tipi in that tiny car

     There is guy living at the campground in an old trailer who has definitely outstayed the 12 week limit, he's been there for five years. He appears to be about our age, coughs a lot, and talks to himself, but he I'm pretty sure he's a surfer.

This guy has been here for 5 years, it's a long drive to get a beer!

     The area north and west of Cactus Beach it at the edge of the wheat growing area of Eyre Peninsula, and there are some beautiful rolling fields of grain bordered by bands of gum trees.

     Within a few miles all agricultural activity had disappeared and we were driving through a more typical Australian landscape of gumtree woods and open grasslands. As we were passing one large open area I noticed what looked like giant prairie dog towns. We took a short drive up a dirt road to investigate and found this;

Wombat hole

      That would explain the numerous dead wombats along the road, up to three or four in a 100 meter stretch. The adults are the size and shape of miniature black bears, so the carcasses can be quite large. They are purely nocturnal except in the coldest weather, so we haven't seen a live one in the wild yet, but with their dark gray fur they'd be almost impossible to see lumbering across the road at night.

      A 150 km stretch of the road passes through the Yalata Aboriginal Reserve. We didn't see a single sign of human presence until drove a short way off the road to pass through the small town of Yalata. It was a depressing sight. Prefab houses made up the majority of the buildings, although there were a few run down site-built homes. There were a number of junked cars scattered about, and trash nearly everywhere, dirty old blankets making up a fair amount of the mess. People were out walking around or sitting on front porches. There was no commercial activity that we could see, the police station surrounded by a high steel fence was the only other building there. The closest minimal shopping would be at the Nundroo Roadhouse, 55 km away, or Penong, with a small grocery store, 140 km away. The closest real town is Ceduna, 202 km away, and we did see a couple dozen aboriginals there, very much separated from the local white people.
    I know almost nothing about the current relationship between aboriginal communities and the government, how they are supported, what the sovereignty issues are. I do know that among almost all the white Aussies we've met there is a fear and distrust that is disconcerting to us. Perhaps it's a generational issue, since most of the people we've talked to are retirees. Certainly we didn't get that feeling from Kim. We'll have to ask her about it when we see her again in December.

Max and Andy, World Travelers

     Just past the Yalata Community we saw a 'push biker' riding down the lonesome road towards us, loaded with paniers and properly attired for a road trek. Our first long distance biker! Diana got our the camera and got a quick photo;

We were hoping to see some of the above (that guy on the right is a wombat)...

... but spotted a couple of these instead

     About 25 kilometers later we saw another bloke on a bike pulling into a rest area. I gave him a smile and thumbs up and he returned the greeting. After a few hundred meters I decided to turn around and see if I could chat him up. He was off his bike about to refill water bottles at the water tank there. I said hi to him and told him we could give him some real drinking water. I asked where he had started his ride, expecting to hear Perth, but he answered London!

      We ended up talking for almost a half an hour. He and his friend Andy, who we'd seen earlier, left England in August 2011, rode through Europe, Turkey, Iran, the 'stans of central Asia, China, Laos, Malaysia, and then to Perth. No real problems the entire way, just lots of friendly people. I could have talked to him for hours, but we all had our own travels to continue. He's also keeping a blog, which I'm anxious to read when I get a chance.

Nullarbor means 'No Trees' in Latin, but doesn't mean you won't see any whales or caves there

     Soon after leaving Max we hit the boundary for the Nullarbor Plain. The transition was fairly sudden. Through most of the Yalata country there was total tree cover, not thick like a jungle, more like the woods in northern Michigan, except gum trees instead of birch and pine. Then, within the space of less than 15 kilometers they thinned out and were gone. Nothing but flat land and salt and blue bush shrubs.

     One of the most anticipated animal sightings for me was seeing the Southern Right Whales at the Head of the Bight along the coast on the Nullabor Plain. The whales leave the cold, nutrient rich waters of Antarctica to give birth to and raise their calves during the winter months in the warmer waters off the south coast of Australia. The babies gain up to 230 pounds a day nursing, and when they have put on a thick enough layer of fat, mother and calf return to their feeding grounds. The time to see the whales is from May to the end of October, and I was afraid we might be arriving too late.

     But after paying our entry fee and walking the short boardwalk to the edge of the cliff we were delighted to see on mother/ calf pair just a couple hundred meters off shore, with three other pairs within sight. At the peak over 20 pairs can be seen, but we were satisfied.

"Hey mate, the whales are that way"  "Thanks"  "No worries"

Looking at the Right Whale

Mother and child

      We had been warned that the Right Whales are a lot less active than the Humpback Whales we'd seen at Coff's Harbor, and they did mostly float around like black submarines, occasionally showing a tail fluke or poking their noses above the water. But it was thrilling nonetheless.

      We had a lunch of Tasty, vegemite and onion sandwiches at a picnic shelter there, then headed on down the road to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. A combination gas station, store, bar, motel, campground, it's one of a series of roadhouses spread out at approximately 150 to 200 km intervals along the empty roads of Australia. Not glamorous or exciting, but on thousands of miles of roads in the outback it is the only sign of civilization. We filled up the tank with fairly expensive gas and asked the way to the Murrawijenie caves. “Out along the gravel road, back around the wind mill, and then it's about 20 k's, but the roads really rough”.

Meh, not so bad for Oz outback roads. We're starting to get used to them, and have gained confidence that the LC isn't going to fall apart bouncing over the corrugations, potholes, and rocky patches that are typical for much of the rougher roads we've been on. Most are rated 4wd, but that's mostly for when it rains. You can see long dried ruts that would be a problem if muddy, but with less than 8 inches a rain a year for this part of the country, that doesn't happen very often. Still, the higher clearance and sturdy new all terrain tires are helpful.

     The whole southern coast of Australia from the Eyre peninsula to well into Western Australia is made of limestone laid down from an ancient sea 100's of millions of years ago. The rock is riddled with cave and channels, all quite unapparent until you come right up to them. We didn't see the Murrawijenie caves until we drove right up to them. These caves are open to the public, although we haven't met anyone yet who has heard of them, and we explored all three.

The view of the cave from ground level

Now how do we get down there?

Oh, I'm sure that dead old tree will hold your weight, Diana

Looking for Aboriginal art

Found it

Now how did I get down here?

     We got back to the main road and headed to the Nullarbor National Park to camp for the night. Interestingly, we began to see trees again after just a couple hundred kilometers of nullarborness, although further north it's over 1100 km wide. It is still arid and unpopulated, but most of Oz is the same. Heck, I'm sure west Texas has at least three or four roads that go that far without trees, and don't even get me started on Nevada. Still, most of the south coast is called the Nullarbor Plain, trees and all, and I guess we'll just have to leave it at that.

      Only one of our four map sources actually showed a campground in the park, which was supposed to be near an old homestead, a good 25 km off the main road. As we headed off yet another rough dirt road at sunset, trying to figure out which route to follow to find the campsite, we were about to give up and just set up camp in the bush.

      It's become a joke between us that after driving over a long rough road I keep saying I'd be surprised if there is anyone at the campsite by the time we get there, and sure enough, the are usually three or four other vehicles there already set up for the night. As we drove up the road I saw the glint of fading sunlight reflecting off several car windows among the scattered trees and I laughed, “yep, lots of campers here.” But as we drove up to the abandoned house we realized that there were hundreds of junked cars scattered around the property.

Kanoolda Homestead

    There was one group of campers there, six young people and a guide named Simo, (short for Simon, many Aussies have nicknames and the easiest way to make one is drop off the last letter or more of your name and add on “o”, so you can now call us Kevo and Diano, or Dino, or... well, maybe we better leave well enough alone). Simo said we could set up camp pretty much any where we wanted, so we chose the front porch of the old house. Put up our tent and table right on the veranda facing the setting sun and cooked roo bourginon and had a perfectly peaceful night.