Across The Nullarbor

What can I tell you about the Nullarbor? It's a long way across. 479 kilometres yesterday and 924 kilometres today, a full 9 hours 45 minutes in the car and that was just today's effort. The last 203 clicks weren't technically the Nullarbor but the town at the Western Australian end, Norseman, didn't have a lot to commend it. Nullarbor came about from joining two Latin words, "null" as in zero and "arbor" as you would use for arborist or tree surgeon. In other words it means no trees. Well there are plenty of trees on the Nullarbor, just not when you need one to take a leak behind.

There are a number of must do things when you cross. At the Nullarbor Roadhouse you get the photo of the camel, kangaroo and wombat warning signs. Then when you cross the border you get the WA / SA sign photo.

On you trundle until you get to Caiguna where you get the longest straight bit of road in Australia sign ticked off your list.

Then of course you actually drive the longest stretch of straight road. There's no sign to say you've finished it, you just take a long sweeping bend and it's all over. It seems to go on forever. You should be able to turn on the cruise control and climb in the back for a nap or at least sort your washing or something useful. I did actually have to make a few steering adjustments on this section of road. Otherwise I would have run over the road kill.


There are repeated warning signs about the wildlife.

You can see the wombat has gone and the emu has been added. Let's talk about the wildlife. Still life would be a more accurate description. Let me summarise. Plenty of kangaroos - all dead, plenty of wallabies also showing terminal signs of death, only one wombat (that I recognised) it had also stopped breathing, 2 adolescent emus - both very much alive (not a hood ornament - yet). No camels, either dead or alive. The only pack of camels I was going to see out there would be in a tobacconist. 

The piece of truly spectacular wildlife I witnessed, 2 magnificent wedge tail eagles. I have no doubt judging from the amount of road kill about that wildlife is a real issue on the Nullarbor. I assume it comes out at dawn and dusk and through the night. As you can see from my summary "life" wasn't a particularly accurate description. 

The other thing I didn't expect to encounter was fog. Really thick, heavy fog. It slowed me down to about 90kph. It stopped any overtaking and was probably the biggest hazard I encountered. The road trains (the largest I encountered was only three couplings long)  were the gentleman of the roads. They would signal when it was safe to pass them, often had a friendly wave and behaved flawlessly in my experience. I may have a different story to tell when I encounter some of the really big ones in the Northern Territory. 

The only other events of interest were the number of wide loads traversing the Nullarbor. One in particular took up both lanes and had a multitude of escort vehicles. It literally stopped traffic as there was no way for the bigger vehicles to pass. There is only one overtaking lane on the Nullarbor, that's at Madura Pass and you still have 527 kilometres to go once you've used it. The rest of the trip its a two lane road, one going in each direction.

There is another road user to consider as well. There are a number of spots along the way that are designated emergency landing strips for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Now that would have been interesting to watch.

After Norseman I only had 203 kilometres to go to get to Esperance. I think i was starting to become oxygen starved because I was laughing out loud at the silly place names. The first township I passed through was Salmon Gums. This seemed more like the name of a disease that elderly people would get if they used cheap denture cream (it was actually in reference to the hue of the local eucalypts). The next town was called "Grass Patch". I thought that has to be something a Doctor prescribes for a marijuana addict, but apparently not. After those two I started speculating about what the next town could be called, I had money on Incontinence Pads, sadly I was wrong. 


About 4.45pm I arrived in Esperance and found some digs for the night. After that mammoth trip I think I will stay 2 nights and recuperate a bit. I'm going to catch the latest Men in Black flick tonight. I need a laugh after my Nullarbor fuel bill. They know how to hit you where it hurts.