We bid farewell to our friends at the Discovery van park at Boulder and took off for Norseman via Kalgoorlie about 190km Not much in the way of wild flowers today but there were some beautiful grevilleas.
Fuelled up at Norseman after a pleasant run from Kalgoorlie then had a look around town.
This is the last semi cheap fuel before the 1200km of extremely expensive fuel. Thank goodness for the long range tank.
If you buy coffee at the servo in Norseman make sure the microwave is on in the van as it is not too warm but still yummy!
Mavis made lunch while we were there to use up some fresh salad veg before the border check in a couple of days time.
The wild life has gone boogie with the arrival of a decent wet season for the first time in years. The Nullarbor is carpeted with grass seeds and flowers about to burst from the trees.
Budgies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budgerigar are flying like swarms of bees in their thousands and the flocks are every where. An unfortunate by product is the amount of road kill. Hundreds of kangaroo, wallaby and a few birds dead on the side of the road.
An unfortunate sight near the end of the Nullarbor was about 2kms which had 5 wombat bodies on the sides of the road.
About 400km was achieved today before camp was set at Woorlba Homestead rest area. A fire was cranked up and we had a nice easy night with some red wine and white along with some friends that we had met at Boulder and some other new friends that wandered over to say G-day before night fall.
Aint life great on the road?????
The morning after the rig was pointed off to the East again. Only managed to achieve about 150km before we turned in to have a look at the Eyre Bird Observatory.
The trip in was a 30km diversion and have to tell ya that the road was less than ok. The first 20km was very lumpy with exposed rock and lots of dust.
How great to finally have a capable dust proof van to follow the car grin.
A sign warned us that the van could go no further so we disconnected and proceeded without her.
The next 10 k’s into the observatory was deep rutted sand and large exposed rocks but a bit of fun!
What a great place to visit. I did say to Mavis that it would be great to stay over for a couple of days just to explore the birds and the walking tracks. Massive range of birds!
They have accommodation ($90 per night all meals supplied) with pretty basic facilities. None the less hot showers and hygienic toilets are on hand and the volunteer caretakers are great. A guided tour of the museum and old building was provided as a consequence of paying the $10 entry fee and tea or coffee with home made fruit cake and short bread bickies were enjoyed.
Thoroughly recommend this place if you can stand the drive in grin.
On the way out we stopped to re inflate the tyres on the rig before a run to the next over night at Moodini Bluff.
Lunch today the 13th Sept was taken at Nullarbor Roadhouse ( the plane is in the car park waiting for customers) before the next night time stop about 50kms out of Ceduna to eat up all our veg and fruit before Ceduna where the SA quarantine station is (East bound).
Hi Guys,
Great update! Enjoy the rest of your trip.
Shell
Sounds like a great trip so far, I guess turning East had to come! Was in Brisbane last week (two more weeks to go!) had dinner and a few beers with Reg Palmer and Don Hamstra at the Hamilton Pub (an easy walk for me). Reggie hasn’t changed much. Speaking of Reg, Reg Ward passed away last week…………86……….had a battle with cancer for the last few years. I see Peter his young bloke at Qantas quite often. If you get back before 29/9 and you feel like a beer, give me a call 0438732565. My truck is looking good and on time for last week September, can’t wait!
Safe K’s!
Redman
Just wanted to pop by, gee love your blog .I haven’t time to do one
re the joy flights, so windy when were there couldn’t get out of the car …let alone fly… ‘-(((