Woke up to rain and wind and cold, hmm, nothing much has changed then eh!
Headed off and it was only 20km until the Border Village where a lot of public servants live because of the quarantine station etc, there is also a motel roadhouse bar etc. This is my first ever visit to South Australia and it will be a flying visit.
No check was done for travellers going in my direction, it would be done later at Ceduna, but I noticed that long legged chooks were off the menu and short chubby aggressive wombats were in.
The road was quite close to the cliffs and there were a number of turn offs to have a photo opportunity, some safe, some not so safe, but it all looked spectacular.
I continued on across the no tree plain
Until another, more spectacular cliff scenery, apparently you have to be cautious here as people are prone to do backwards somersaults off the cliffs for some silly reason!
I arrived at the appropriately named Nullarbor Hotel around 10.15am and filled up with fuel, this is where I learnt about bloody time zones and daylight savings. I had just lost 2 ½ hours all up, so instead of being behind Queensland by a neat 2 hours, I was now ahead of them by ½ an hour but still 2000km west of them, go figure that one out!!!!! It was now 12.45pm and I was just buying breakfast/smoko and it was gone lunch, crazy 🙂
I met this oldish chap who was heading west on a naked bike with trailer but was not looking forward to an afternoon of being blown across the road, I do not blame him; it would be more headwind for him than us going the other way.
I met up with Rachel and Greg again; they had arrived in Eucla to find that they had no record of the pre-booked and paid for room, bummer, so they had done the extra 20km and stayed at Border Village. Did I mention they are heading to Queensland, anyway Rachel was interested in the Cobar get together so I showed her the photos I have, she is more active on Stromtroopers and AdventureRiders than VSRI, but that may change 🙂
On the road again after some breakfast lunch and there is a place called Head of the Bight which I had been told about for whale watching, only $8 to get in so I went there. I had been having problems with my master card not being accepted at roadhouses out this way so I had been paying for fuel with my food/drinks money, but I had just enough to get in, until they told me it was $10, when I explained, they let me in for nix 🙂
I have to admit, this was extremely special. I mean how marvellous is it to see a mother and her calf frolicking just off shore, only about 100m or so. And there were more than one group, there were probably about 8 whales just off shore and I spent an enjoyable hour or so just watching 🙂 Here are some photos of the young one splashing around.
This is mummy with the white belly on the right she is on her back to stop the young one trying to suckle, according to the info plaques on the platforms.
That was great, but wait, there is more, just over there along that boardwalk is the Bunda Cliffs, these are also exceptional!
And just to make my day there was another young one having a whale of a time, hehehe 🙂
After that little interlude, it was back on the cold old road for me. I had lost so much time I decided that the only place worth while stopping was Ceduna. It was also a junction and from there I could head on east or maybe, as I had been thinking, head north to Coober Peedy. I arrived in Ceduna and took the first caravan park available, it was crap as it turns out, no grass, blue metal for a base, the stuff gets everywhere and charge like a scrub bull for dust! I had a hot shower, just to get warm and it helped my attitude a lot. I went up the local Hotel/Motel next door for a feed, excellent. Cheap as chips, $12 for a chicken stir fry with a vegetable plate that could be topped up as you like. As I had been vegetable free for a while I pigged out 🙂
When I finished dinner and headed back to the campsite, guess what, the sun was still up?
This confused me for a while, but this is daylight saving, apparently you get a lot more daylight at the end of the day, very confusing to a north Queenslander! Anyway, I chatted with some of the other parkers, I had also bought some WiFi time and updated a few days blog and chased up emails etc etc etc.
Still, it was an early night, as I had looked at the maps and I reckoned I could get to Coober Peedy and to Myrtleford with no problems, depending on weather of course, but time wise I could do it.
Day – 526km
Trip – 17,011km
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