Well we are really on the last legs of our journey now. We have about 5 weeks to go and it feels very much like we are heading home.
We have completed the Nullabor and are now on the Eyre Peninsula at a little place called Streaky Bay. Our next stop is Port Lincoln (at the southern end of the peninsula) before travelling up the eastern side towards Port Augusta.
Take care and hope you enjoy the latest instalment below.
PS. Bruce and Vicki and Cathy – left a reply to your comment on the last blog.
17 to 21 January 2010 (day 304 to 308)
Esperance Bay Holiday Park, Esperance, WA
Esperance is another lovely seaside town on the south coast of WA. We have loved all of this part of WA and Esperance was no different.
We started our exploration of the area by doing the 34km long Great Ocean Drive and stopping in at each of the beaches and coves along the way. From the Rotary Lookout we had a terrific view of the town and coastline.
Our favourite spot was Twilight Beach which is just spectacular especially with the sun shining on the water and making it bright blue.
Along the drive is Pink Lake. The colour is a result of bacteria in the salt water. On the day we were saw it there was a faint pink tinge (unlike the pink lake we had seen at Port Gregory which was a very deep pink/purple).
There are a number of jetties along the seafront. The longest is jetty is the Tanker Jetty which is visited by the local sealions regularly. We were fortunate that as we arrived one of the sealions was hanging around the fish cleaning table at the beginning of the jetty. By the time we had finished walking the jetty a second sealion was also there. A couple of kids were playing on lilos in the water and at one stage one of the sealions chased them out of the water.
We also did a day trip out to Cape Le Grand National Park (about 50kms east) working our way from Duke of Orleans Bay back to Hellfire Bay. The most famous section of the park is Lucky Bay which is considered to be Was most beautiful beach. Unfortunately we didn’t see the park in its best light as it was a very overcast day and to us it didn’t live up to the beauty of many other beaches and bays between Denmark and Esperance.
As we have at most of our other coastal stops we tried our hand at fishing at a little place called Bandy Creek Harbour. Michael was very excited as he caught his first King George Whiting. Sadly the excitement was short lived as it was 2cm undersize and had to be returned to the water. He caught a few more which were also too small. Anyway we had a bit of fun and it was a really pretty spot.
We also visited the Woody Lake Nature Reserve which includes a series of small lakes and did part of the nature trail to one of the bird hides where we spent some time checking out the waterbirds. The area is one of the homes of the endangered Hooded Plover (there are only 5000 left in WA and Tasmania). We are fairly sure that we saw one but they move fairly quickly so we weren’t able to get a photo to confirm its identity.
We really enjoyed all of our stops from Denmark to Esperance. This part of the Australian coastline is just beautiful and definately a must-see.
21 to 23 January 2010 (day 308 to 310)
Discovery Holiday Park, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, WA
We reluctantly left the coast heading north to Kalgoorlie for a couple of days before setting off across the Nullabor. While we were excited to be heading across the Nullabor leaving this part of the coast was another reminder to us that our journey is shortly coming to an end.
We travelled about 400kms through Noresman which calls itself the ‘gateway to the Nullabor’. Kalgoorlie is a town of contrasts. As you approach Kalgoorlie what stands out most is how dry and barren it is, but as you come into the town you see all of the beautifully restored old buildings. In the town centre they have used artificial turf, in the centre of the median strips so it looked very green and very tidy (we think Canberra should consider doing this). You can see some of the old buildings in this photo that we took from a lookout.
We were keen to see the Superpit as we had heard that it is pretty amazing. In the 1980’s Alan Bond tried to buy up all of the gold mining licences in the area so that he could create one huge open-cut mine (rather than having lots of small underground mines). He wasn’t successful (we assume because he went broke and ended up in jail) and another company, Kalogoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, eventually secured all of the leases by 1989 and created the superpit. Eventually the pit will be 3.8km by 1.5kms. We visited the lookout which has been located so that you can see into the pit and watch the operations including the really huge machinery at work. We were disappointed that there were no blasts scheduled for the days we were there so we didn’t get to see a blast but we did see the preparatory work which involved drilling lots of holes and filling them with explosives. This photo shows a small section of the pit.
This aerial shot is on a sign at the superpit looko. It gives a better idea of hor large it is.
We also visited the Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. The museum includes a series of buildings and machinery that has been relocated from abandoned mine sites. You can do a tour of an old underground mine which we piked out of, but we did watch a ‘gold’ pour ( it was pretend gold). The Hall of Fame has lots and lots of info about the history of mining in Australia and the people that have made a significant contribution to the industry.
23 to 28 January 2010 (day 310 to 315)
Crossing the Nullabor: Cocklebiddy Roadhouse (23 Jan), Eyre Bird Observatory (24 Jan), Border Village (25 Jan), Fowlers Bay (26/27 Jan)
The first day of our trip across the Nullabor (the Eyre Highway) involved travelling about 650kms from Kalgoorlie to the Cocklebiddy Roadhouse where we set-up for the night. During this trip we competed the 90 mile (146.6kms) stretch of straight road and it is totally straight. We cheered as we hit the first bend after such a long stretch.
The next day we travelled only 38kms to the Eyre Bird Observatory. The trip included about 25kms of 4WD dirt and sand tracks as the Observatory is on the coast and is nestled in between sand dunes. The Observatory was originally the Eyre Telegraph station which was established in 1827 as part of the overland telegraph line. The current homestead was built in the 1870’s and was purchased by the Australian Ornothological Union in the 1970s and restored.
There isn’t any camping at the observatory so we had booked a night in the homestead. It was sheer luxury for us as we slept in one of the old bedrooms and all of our meals were prepared for us. The wardens at the observatory are all volunteers who come to stay for a period of 3 months. Their job is to collect weather observations 3 times a day for the Bureau of Meterology, prepare all the meals for the guests, pick-up guests who don’t have a 4WD from part way along the track in, clean and maintain the homestead and grounds and collect data on bird sightings. Our volunteers, Des and Isabel were a retired couple from Melbourne who had an interest in birds. We had several lovely meals including lobster given to them by some fisherman who were working on boats just off the beach near the homestead.
The homestead is really well set-up for bird watching as there are a number of bushwalks around the property, there are bird baths near the front and rear verandahs so you can just sit and watch the birds come in for a drink and there is a homemade bird hide in the garden. Here is the birdhide which I spent a bit of time in (it looks more like a change room at a discount clothing sale but it worked well).
We were really keen to see the Major Mitchell cockatoo and several graced us with their presence as we were having morning tea on the verandah just after arriving. They came in to the homestead several more times while we were there so we got a chance to have a really good look at them and to take heaps of photos.
I just love how Michael captured the light in this photo.
This is an odd photo but it shows the colour of their wings with the sun shining through.
The observatory is named after John Eyre, one the explorers who made several expeditions to find an inland sea. He and his party camped nearby for sometime during their trip from Fowlers Bay to Albany and a well is still in place that was dug by the explorers.
Around the observatory are several large sand dunes. As they are moving about 1 metre per year a lot of work has been done to stabilise the dunes which has meant that the homestead should be safe, but it is an ongoing job. The observatory runs several courses per year including dune stabilisation courses where a lot of work is done on the dunes.
Poor old Michael got a cold just before we arrived at the observatory and became quite unwell while we were there which was really unfortunate. Despite this we still managed to do a few of the walks. As well as the Major Mitchell we got to see lots of other birds including the Brush Bronzewing Pigeon and the Collared Sparrowhawk.
We have decided that we would like to visit the observatory again for a longer period, probably during spring when there are heaps more birds. I would like to do one their 5 day courses on bird observation techniques at some stage in the next few years. Apparently you get involved in collecting data and bird banding activities.
Our next stop along the Nullabor was to be Eucla (just on the WA side of the border) or Border Village (just on the SA side of the border). Michael was feeling pretty crook and it was really hot so we decided we would get a room for the night. We thought we’d check out both Eucla and Border Village and decide where we were going to stop as they are only 12 kms apart. Once we got over the WA border we realised that we would have to go through the quarantine checkpoint, and dispose of our fruit and veg, if we drove back over the border to Eucla, so it was Border Village for the evening. We had a pretty basic room at the roadhouse but it had aircon and ‘just watchable’ TV so we just vegged out for the arvo and evening. I was felt a bit sad on leaving WA as we had spent 4.5 months there and we started to feel that we knew the place fairly well.
The highlight of our next leg of the Nullabor was stopping along the way at various lookouts to enjoy the fabulous views of the Great Australian Bight. At the first lookout we noticed a car with ACT plates. As we have only seen about 6 other cars from ACT during our trip we went to speak to the occupants. It turned out that I knew the young woman driving the car through my work. After seeing so few people on the road from the ACT it was very funny that we knew each other. We spent the rest of the day running in to them at each of the lookouts and roadhouses that we stopped at.
One of the our stops was to see the Head of the Bight which is the northern most point of the Great Australian Bight. Again we had great views up and down the coastline. During winter the Southern Right Whales and Humpbacks can be seen passing by.
We left the Nullabor and headed south to a small seaside holiday village called Fowlers Bay for a couple of nights. One side of the village is bordered by large dunes. We could believe how close they were to the homes and we couldn’t see any sign of work to stabilise the dunes. One house was only about 5 metres from the base of one of the dunes.
While here we visited nearby Scotts Beach and Mexican Hat (a small island shaped a bit like a sombrero).
We also went fishing and squidding from the jetty and Michael caught a pretty big one (over 70cms long including tenticles) and we had Salt and Pepper Squid for dinner.
28 to 31 January 2010 (day 315 to 318)
Foreshore Caravan Park, Streaky Bay, SA
We completed our journey across the Nullabor as we passed through the Quarantine Station at Ceduna. From Ceduna we headed south down the western side of the Eyre Peninsula to a small town called Streaky Bay. This is another really pretty town where they have restored many of the old buildings.
We were lucky to get a camping site right on the bay where we can just sit and watch the water and the birds.
While here we have done several scenic drives along the coastline. The highlight was Point Labatt where there is a large sealion colony. We spent ages watching the Australian Sealions basking in the sun on the rocks below and occasionally getting into the water to cool down. The sealions live here, breeding and raising their young.
There was also a small group of New Zealand Fur Seals (they are the dark ones in this photo).
Karen and Michael's Blog 
