It was good
being able to remain hitched at Fraser Range Station the previous evening…. It
meant that we were able to get away early just after 8am.
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| Leaving Fraser Range Station... |
Our
destination tonight was to be Cockelbiddy.
It was an interesting drive today….
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| Belladonia's claim to fame... a piece of space junk.... |
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| Roadhouse at Belladonia |
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| Roadtrain at the Roadhouse |
Our first
stop for the morning was a toilet stop at Belladonia. It really is just a
roadhouse, but this place made the most of its claim to fame, being the place
where pieces of Skylab fell to Earth back in the 70s. There's bits of
space-junk proudly displayed and I think it's probably the only time Belladonia
has ever made the international news. Good for them!
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| Ian and Kathy at the longest straight stretch |
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| Ready to cross the longest straight stretch of road in Australia |
Just after
Belladonia along the Eyre Highway is a straight stretch of highway that is
146.6 kilometres long. The sign says it's the longest straight
stretch in Australia but there were some others we've done whilst in this State that
must run close.
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| Royal Flying Doctors Emergency landing strip on the Nullabor |
The interesting thing is that there are several places on these
straight stretches that double up as airstrips for the Royal Flying Doctor
Service. Presumably police are sent to make roadblocks so unsuspecting
motorists don't have planes land on top of them. It's different!
The drive today wasn’t anywhere near as bad as we
expected and the Nullabor so far is nothing like we expected it to be. Fortunately for us, we have a tail wind which
seems to push us along, as the time across this long stretch seemed to go pretty
quickly. For most of our journey today,
there were storm clouds and flashes of lightning all around us. We enjoyed watching the these amazing bolts
of lightning as they lit up the sky and stuck the earth.
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| Morning tea at Caiguna |
We passed through Caiguna where we
saw signs for a blowhole. A look to the right would indicate that the
coast was no where in sight, and as we associate blowholes with the coast, we
decided to give it a miss especially as it looked like a dirt road in. We were later to find out that it was an inland
blowhole, or more like a breathing hole in a massive underground cave system,
and it was right next to the highway. We
may have stopped to check it out had we of realized this.
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| Our camp site in Cocklebiddy on the Nullabor |
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| Sunset on a cloudy afternoon on the Nullabor |
We arrived
in Cocklebiddy mid afternoon and set up for the night close to the amenities
and the cage with beautiful wedge tail eagles.
Cocklebiddy is in the middle of nowhere and is also a roadhouse with a
caravan park attached to it.
They had a
sign out the front to say that it had a population of 8 and It
was pretty good value at $25 a night, with power, hot showers and toilets.
We were no sooner settled in our van when a
massive storm struck We were struck by gale force winds which had the caravan
rocking so much we thought we might take off or be blown over. It was really
quite scary. Fortunately it only
lasted for 40 minutes or so and then it was all over. I would have hated to have spent all night in
a gale like that.
We awoke the
following morning to sunlight, but this didn’t last for too long. It wasn’t long before the clouds rolled in,
which didn’t worry us too much as it makes it much cooler traveling
weather.
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| Our campsite at Cocklebiddy right next to the wedge tail eagles |
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| The wedge tail eagles |
Our destination today was
Eucla….
There were
three more RFDA Emergency airstrips along the highway today and we also started
to notice the animal signs along the side of the road…..
The weather
continued to worsen the further east we went and we drove through some very
heavy rain before finally arriving at Eucla.
We arrived just as a huge deluge of water dropped out of the sky…. In
fact we only just managed to get indoors as the huge drops started. We would have to wait for the rain to stop
before putting down the legs and hooking up the power..
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| More airstrips along the Nullabor today |
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| Typical landscape across the Nullabor today |
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| It was wet when we arrived in Eucla |
Not much you
could do this afternoon other than have a rest, as it was way to wet to go
outdoors until later in the afternoon.
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| Our campsite at Eucla |
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| Views at Eucla after the rain had cleared |
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| Kathy talking to family back home... |
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| Sand dunes visible for where we are camping at Eucla |
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| The rain had cleared,... time to explore |
By 4pm, the
skies started to clear, so we were able to get out of the van, finish setting
up for the night and have a wander around the park to explore. Once the clouds lifted, we had a lovely view
of the ocean and sand dunes…
Tomorrow we would explore the Overland Telegraph
Station before leaving.
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