The Nullarbor 2

Friday 21^st October

Wales can’t play rugby for shit!

Well, here we are in Ceduna after another marathon road trip of 507 km.  We got here at about 4.30 after going through another time zone where we had to put our clocks forward another 1hr 45minutes.  After setting up camp we cooked tea, to be in plenty of time to watch Wales thrash Aussie.  Oh Dear. How Sad. Never Mind.  Being a good solid Welsh supporter I must say Aussie didn’t win, as much as Wales lost the game.  However, after a couple of cans of Carlton, and 4 good stiff bourbons, who gives a shit.  Go the All Blacks.

Having got that out of the road, the trip from Eucla to Ceduna was pretty straight forward.  The border for Western Australia and South Australia was about 13 km from Eucla.  We knew from all the signs posted around the various motor camps, and from the brochures we had picked up, that you weren’t allowed to take fruit or vegetables across the border, so we had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure we had used up or cooked up all our vegetables and fruit.  We still had a bit of lettuce and some tomatoes left, so we gave them to some fellow campers who had already crossed the border, and were heading west.

We drove the 13 km to the border, and as we approached the crossing, slowed down expecting to join the end of the queue of travellers waiting to be searched, as we had done at Kunnunurra when we crossed from the Northern Territory into Western Australia. 

Surprisingly there was no queue, and no-one manning the border.  As we slowly approached we saw a sign telling us that quarantine inspections would be made at Ceduna, 500km further in to South Australia, so we drove on through without stopping.

This has got to be a case of Aussie Logic at its best.  Here they are making a great hue and cry about keeping Fruit Fly and other nasties out of South Australia, posting big notices all over the place about how much you would be fined if you failed to declare any vegies and fruit you were carrying, and if you knowingly transported raw fruit and vegies   into South Australia you would be jailed for one million years.  And yet they can’t be bothered manning a quarantine post at the border, but rather set it up 500 km into South Australia, right on the edge of their first major town.

Picture this.  We arrive at the South Australia Border loaded up with fruit and vegies full of nasty fruit flies and other naughty little beasties.  Had there been someone at the border they would have promptly relieved us of all those nasties and that would have been the end of the matter.  Border protected and all is well. No nasties getting into South Australia.  But no, we put our inspection station on the outskirts of our first big town, 500 km inside the border.

So, what happens?  If we haven’t already chucked our fruit fly infested fruit and veggies out the window, somewhere along that 500 km, thereby infecting South Australia anyhow, we open our caravan and car up for inspection  right on the edge of their first big town, and all the little nasties fly off and infest everything handy around town.  How’s that for Aussie logic.  No wonder they can’t play rugby.  That requires a certain level of intelligence!!!!

Right, having safely crossed the border we headed east along long straights and perfectly flat land.  Mile after mile of mallee scrub, and nothing much else.  Not an animal or building or anything to be seen except scrub and occasional grasslands.

The Nullarbor is definitely the most desolate part of Australia we have seen.  We had travelled through outback New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia, but none compared with the desolation of the Nullarbor.

After 200km we came to the Nullarbor Roadhouse, and at last we started to see the real ‘Treeless Plain’.

Miles and miles of flat low scrub and grasslands, and not a tree in sight.  This was more like what we had expected to see.  We fuelled up, and when I went in to pay for our diesel, I had to wait for a considerable time while this stupid woman in front of me stuffed the attendant around, buying this and that, getting him to put it through on her Credit Card, then changing her mind putting half of it back and buying something different.  I had to admire the patience of the attendant, and complemented him on it when he finally got around to serving me. 

We ended up having a really interesting chat, and he told me some great stories about the various arseholes he had to deal with in the course of his day. One particular one related to a Lawyer who came in and tried to lay down the law to him about what he could and couldn’t do in his own Roadhouse.

The Nullarbor Roadhouse had one of the highest prices of diesel we had paid in a long time, at $2.05 per litre, and apparently he got a lot of flack about it.  They also have a lot of trouble with people driving off without paying, and they have a certain rule to help prevent this, and this is what the lawyer had been having a go about.   Remind me to tell you about it some time.  No complaints by us mind you, after all they have to get the stuff shipped out there, but some of his other customers apparently saw fit to abuse him, and he had some classic answers for them.  We had a good laugh.

While we were at the Roadhouse, a Highway Robber turned up and tried to rob the Roadhouse. He wasn’t successful, and before he got on his motorbike and rode off before the cops arrived, Cameron went over and had a chat to him.  He looked like Ned Kelly, but I think he’s dead.

Soon after the Nullarbor Roadhouse we rounded the head of The Great Australian Bight,

and then continued on to the Nundroo Roadhouse where we stopped for lunch.  A Road Train called in while we were there, and Cameron, true to form, went and had a chat with the driver. 

Within a very short time he was invited to sit in the cab, and even got to turn off the engine.  A process which required turning off about three different switches and keys, before hitting the ‘kill switch’.  Guess who’s going to become a truck driver once again.

From Nundroo the countryside changed dramatically, small hills and lots of trees to help relieve the boredom.

As we got closer to Penong, (where do they get these names from?), the countryside opened up again, and we started seeing more huge paddocks of wheat. We fuelled up at Penong, and continued on past miles and miles of wheat fields, some harvested, and others waving golden heads of wheat in the wind, until we finally arrived in Ceduna.

On the outskirts of the town, we finally came across the quarantine checkpoint.  It all looked fairly deserted with nobody queued up waiting to be searched.  We pulled up at the checkpoint and the guy on duty wandered out and had a very casual look inside our caravan and waved us through.  The whole exercise seems like a complete and utter waste of time!

After looking forward to crossing the Nullarbor for so long, suddenly, after two days, it was all behind us, and here we were in South Australia looking forward to the next stage of our trip.