THE SECOND TIME ACROSS



First Stop - Southern Cross

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day and are feeling hale and hearty after all that festive cheer. Looking forward to New Year’s Eve are we? Hmmm. Well, we had a most unusual Christmas and I have to say not at all as I expected. We finally left the metropolitan area of Perth on Saturday the 22nd and headed east along the Great Eastern Highway. Our first destination was Southern Cross, a small and historical mining town. Without consulting our maps and relying on my less than wonderful memory, I think Southern Cross is around 400ks east of Perth. Anyway we arrived there mid afternoon. Aside from the fact that the temps were probably in the low 30s and the flies plentiful, the caravan park was quite pleasant with good size drive- thru’ bays, reasonable ablution blocks and an attempt at some gardening and beautification.



No Spiders this time at Caiguna!




Telegraph Station Ruins - Eucla

 We had planned on staying the night at Southern Cross and as it turned out we would have had no choice in the matter. When we rolled into the main street there, we were confronted with a mild sort of chaos and a harried looking young cop stopping all east-bound traffic. It seems there had been a ‘semi’ roll over somewhere between Southern Cross and Coolgardie some 150ks further on, and the road was closed. The roll-over had occurred around 2am and they were not planning on opening up the road again until around 8.30pm. We were fortunate in our choice of staying and at 8.30 enjoyed the spectacle of all the waiting traffic taking off. The police, in their considerable wisdom, allowed all the cars to go first and then we were treated to the spectacle of somewhere around 30 semi’s all lit up with their myriad lights starting up and roaring off down the highway. It was quite thrilling in its own way. Ok, ok, we are a little starved for entertainment, but what the heck, it was ‘cool’! It was amusing (for us) to note that one harried truckie, having waited all day to get going, managed only around 50 meters before realising he had a flat tyre somewhere and he had to stop once again and change the tyre. You would have thought he would have noticed the flat whilst standing around chatting to all his mates. As we sat there watching the spectacle, we mused over all the new mates made that day, either in the one of the local pubs or over a pie and chips at the local cafe.
We still have not really heard the full story of the roll over. The best we can determine, there were two trucks involved one of which was allegedly carrying cyanide! We believe there were no fatalities, just major injuries. We did see the remains of two trucks as we traversed that section of road the following day, and certainly one of the loads was spectacularly mangled. Amazingly we could find no television news relating to the incident. Strange as so close to Christmas, one would have thought a road closure of that magnitude would have hit the press. Imagine all the people who were adversely affected by that one incident. As usual, luck was with us. Had we left on the Friday as anticipated, we would have been obliged to stay in Southern Cross for two nights and would have been no further ahead on our journey.

Happy Christmas from me

and Happy Christmas from him!

Oh yes, last you heard we were leaving on the Friday weren’t we? Hmmm, well just one of those last minute hiccups – we were having solar panels installed at the house and I needed to be there to sign all the relevant paperwork for Government rebates etc (as home – owner). The panels were supposed to be installed on the Thursday, but alas alack, there was an inevitable last minute delay and they weren’t installed until Friday. As I said, tho’, it turned out to be a positive as we had a lovely quiet day on Friday, resting up, then started out refreshed Saturday morning.
For the more technically minded of you (the blokes) we had a minor problem as we headed out. We have two Waeco fridges in the car, one turned down to freeze and the other simply at a refrigerator level. The car (Zed) carries two batteries so that as we are travelling, one feeds the fridges keeping them functioning as we drive. As luck would have it, neither fridge seemed to be operating while we were driving. This posed a major problem as we were carrying our Christmas lunch in the form of several very delectable and luscious crayfish, not to mention some succulent dhufish. DD was concerned as the battery concerned is somewhere around 3 years old and possibly just about due for replacement. He had the presence of mind however, to find a mechanically minded bloke at a tyre mob in Merredin who checked the relevant fuses. Yep, it was a fuse – we were very fortunate indeed to find that the local Covs was open and we were able to buy a replacement fuse. As luck would have it, we used to travel with a multi- meter and spare fuses, but in our manic endeavours (generally unsuccessful I might add) at downsizing our ‘stuff’ this time around, we (read DD) had left these very ‘unnecessary ‘items behind. One more little annoyance was that Zed had for whatever reason activated the child proof lock on his back door. This meant that in order to do anything at all, poor old DD had to climb in through the rear side door, remove a high percentage of our ‘stuff’ – and then access the rear locking device from inside Zed – in order to unlock the back door. Just a little thing to remember if like us you have a 100 series Land Cruiser! It seems this has happened to our lad once before – probably caused by ‘stuff’ in the back pressing up against the inside of the lock.

Looking out to the Southern Ocean from the CP Eucla

Sunday morning we hit the road bright and early, planning to stop the night at Fraser Range – we realised fairly quickly however that we were making such good time, we would arrive there far too early to be sensible. We continued on, planning to strike Cockle Biddy. We had for years been relating the story of how we stopped there on the way to Bree’s graduation and had been amazed at the spectacle of all the big black spiders wandering around on the ground outside the motel units. Imagine our amazement when we discovered that the place we had been talking about all those years had in fact not been Cocklebiddy, but Caiguna! We had been telling great big porky pies! Anyway, Caiguna is where we stopped on Sunday night and fortunately we spied no spiders this time around. The caravan park behind the units was pretty basic, just a flat cleared area with powered sites. No water of course. We had been unable to connect to water since leaving Southern Cross. At least this time, I was a little more realistic with water consumption and we managed very well.
We awoke each morning at an obscenely early hour! I would guestimate, somewhere around 4.30 am! This habit was acquired whilst staying in the Caversham CP and I guess we generally are early risers anyway. While we are actually travelling, it is a huge plus, as we hit the road somewhere around 7ish and make really good time. With this in mind, you won’t be surprised to learn we were on the road on Monday (Christmas Eve) well before 7am. We were (surprised that is) – as we had not bothered to look at any clocks it wasn’t until we had been on the road awhile while when we realised it was not yet 7am! Excellent!!


Nutbush Retreat - Pandurra Station

Our objective was Eucla around midday Monday – we managed this easily and by just after 12 noon we were comfortably ensconced at the Eucla CP. We were surprised by the quantities of water we spotted puddling alongside the road, and at the general lack of ‘road-kill’ . Predictably we did see more carcasses as we approached Eucla, this stretch being notorious for roos. The big bonus to seeing the sad remains of the roos, is the sighting of so many majestic Wedgetails. They are just magnificent of course, enormous birds, sitting proudly and sadly all too stubbornly on the victims of the huge trucks. Their ponderous flight as they eventually take off make them all too easy for the next truck to hit. I won’t do into how they are monogamous etc. as it is all too sad.

Amazing Desert Moon Coming up over the Flinders

Eucla was a complete surprise! Firstly it was truly cool. So cool in fact that the sleeveless top I bought to wear on Christmas day was too cool and I had to find something to throw over the top to keep me warm. We did not have to turn our air-con on once! DD kept saying we would have 40 plus temps here (along with snow apparently) and I kept thinking it would be relatively cool being so close to the ocean. No need to ask who was right!! The wind was the big problem (and bonus) as it comes in hard and strong straight off the ocean. This kept the temps and the flies down, but meant that it was very uncomfortable outdoors after around 3pm. It is easy to see why most of the low growing vegetation that thrives there, has a strange landward list.

Stunning Flinders Ranges

The big surprise was the view. I did realise there were ocean view from the roadhouse, but neither of us understood just how extensive those sea-views would be. From our high vantage spot on the edge of the escarpment we looked down across the flats and out to the Southern Ocean. The view was at least 180 degrees and spectacular. We estimate we were some 6 ks from the ocean if that. On Christmas morning we drove down to the old telegraph station ruins and clambered thru’ the sand dunes to explore the old buildings. As they are being slowly consumed by sand dunes, there is not a great deal left to see. It was however, very interesting and of course, thought provoking.
I guess, due to the season, we didn’t see many other travellers, at least very few Aussies. There seemed to be a fair number of overseas travellers on the road over the Christmas period, obviously making the best of their time here. Most Australians however, it would seem were home with family. This dearth of fellow travellers meant that for a good part of our time there, we were blissfully alone. The CP was quite separate and the servo and motel units were completely out of sight as was the owner’s home. We did hear their horses from time to time, chatting to each other and nickering for attention. Their dogs also made their presence known occasionally and access to the house was thru’ the CP so we did get just the odd vehicle charging thru’ the park on the way down to the house. Our solitude was only disturbed by the multitude of crows that live here. Unlike many others we didn’t mind the crows, there are heaps of young ones at this time of the year and their clumsy antics were entertaining. As usual we put water out for the birds and the crows thought it was Christmas!!!! Sorry!

Resting beneath a huge Red Gum at Melrose CP

Christmas Day 2012 has to have been our most unusual Christmas ever. We awoke early to find we shared the park with about 3 other couples. We filled our coffee cups and wandered around to chat to those few who were here. Most were busy getting ready to resume their travels, but we did find one couple who were happy to have a quick chat and exchange Christmas greetings. After that we jumped in the car and drove down to check out the telegraph ruins, then down the road to Bordertown to see what was happening there. Nothing much as it turned out! We did have an interesting chat to the bloke at the quarantine station there. This fella looked just like Father Christmas and he advised that the border crossing was only his ‘day job’. He was a nice man and gave us some good advice and reading material for when we make the crossing to Tasmania. We also bumped into a couple of the local constabulary. A lovely young couple with their rambunctious young dog; they told us they had been stationed here in Eucla for 3 months and were absolutely loving the lifestyle. The young woman had originally hailed from the west Yorkshire area – somewhat of a culture shock one would imagine. This was not their first country posting, but it was their most remote.
We were a bit disappointed that the roadhouses out here do not do anything for patrons for Christmas. They look after their own however, mostly closing for lunch on Christmas day and throwing parties for their staff. As far as we were concerned, we were quite fine with our own set up anyway, but we did feel for the truckies who still had to work on the day. It is nice to know tho’ the roadhouses generally look after their staff on the big day.
Of course you all know that we are at least mildly bonkers. You would have laughed had you seen us accosting one unfortunate couple who had pulled up in their van out the front of the roadhouse. We were heading out to Bordertown when we spotted them. We (as caravanners do) approached them, quickly engaged them in a conversation and then proceeded to try to convince them to spend the day here. At that stage we were looking for someone to celebrate with. Sadly they eventually declined. We rather suspect that they were put off by the strange antics of the odd old couple who tried to talk them into staying. Doubtless they thought we were deranged. We suspect more to the point, the bloke in the other van was reluctant to spend the money to stay in a CP – I guess he thought his $20 would be better spent elsewhere.
By the time we realised we had frightened them off we had decided we would rather spend the day alone anyway. Just to be contrary, we were then quite peeved when two vans and a couple of campers pulled in later in the day. No pleasing us I guess!
I managed to stop DD from eating much before we sat down to our sumptuous spread, but despite the fact that we were both very good during the day, we still felt stuffed with food after enjoying our meal of crayfish, ham, turkey and salad ; so stuffed in fact that neither of us could bring ourselves to try desert. Oh well – the hardship! We will just have to finish off the sweets today. Sad!! After stuffing ourselves, we filled our glasses and wandered out to chat. We are finding incidentally, that most of the overseas visitors currently seem to come from Germany. We chatted to the two caravan couples who had pulled in. They were a rum bunch as the saying goes – most of them were heavy smokers and we had to cut our visit short or be smoked out. It is now more than 10 years since I had a cigarette and I have to say, I really find it difficult to be anywhere around cigarette smoke – I seem to develop a bad headache in a remarkably short period of time.


Sheepish!

We wandered back to our van and sat inside watching rather poor telly (yes we do get some reception there thanks to the ‘dish’) and keeping our own company. I feel we rather let ourselves down not socialising more, but two things really prevented that. One was the super strong winds and the other was just a lack of like- minded nutters to spend time with. Oh well – I did remark to DD as we retired for the evening – I rather suspect we have both become super boring in our dotage. Weird, but boring!
I really missed my boys and their families on Christmas day. We were able to speak with both the boys and Bree and Doug ‘skyped’. Sadly we missed Trent, not quite being able to get our phone calls to correlate. Being away is great of course, but there is always a ‘cost’. This too, was my first Christmas since mum passed – I choose not to miss her however as I believe she is with us whenever she chooses. I’m sure she would have dropped in to share a drink and a view of the Southern Ocean!
We departed from Eucla on Thursday morning and spent that night at Penong just west of Ceduna. At Penong we had to use all our remaining fresh produce as we crossed the border quarantine station at Ceduna on Friday morning. Penong was quite a nice little park and we had our pick of the bays as we were the first to arrive there on the day. As that strong wind was still gusting in from the ocean, we were quite glad not to have to stay any longer in the very exposed CP. The surface there was crushed shell-grit, very white and dusty!
Friday morning saw us on the road again, passing without incident thru’ the Ceduna Quarantine Station early in the day. We missed out on our oysters there – we were told the oysters were busy spawning and so not available for our consumption. Bugger!! With our oyster yearnings unsatisfied, we continued on our trek finishing the day at a sheep and cattle station called Pandurra. This it seems is a very large establishment. As a side-line they have created a Caravan Park there. We had good reports from other travellers, but perhaps they had stayed there when the weather was a little kinder. It was OK and certainly the surrounding country-side is sensational. Enormous expanses of flat red earth studded with blue saltbush set the stage for sculptured blue and purple ranges rising straight up from the plains.
The Caravan Park is called Nutbush, the proprietors being named Nutte. The owners really let themselves down with an unfriendly attitude. I know that their lot is not always wonderful and to have to deal with scatty sheep, cagey foxes and the public in a dry and singed environment would not always be ‘fun’ and certainly lots of very hard work, BUT................ As another ‘camper’ mentioned, they spent the first 5 minutes telling us what we couldn’t do and where we couldn’t go ...........it would seem they could have made both their lot and our own more enjoyable with a pleasant greeting, a smile and simple explanation of how things worked. Ah well..... We stayed there two days as I wanted to get some washing done and then we moved on. It was an interesting albeit very small insight into life out there. We saw how difficult it seemed to be to keep their stock confined behind fences and we spotted one of the many foxes that apparently plague them there. We were treated to the spectacle of a beautifully trained and highly intelligent kelpie working the sheep.
We were at Nutbush at the rising of the full moon (DD did very well this time) and we were very spoiled watching Luna rise above the rugged and fantastically shaped ranges. The sky there, much like the Territory skies was shades of soft blues and lavenders as the full moon rose at sundown. Unfortunately DD’s wonderful camera was unable to capture the first night as the battery was flat. We did get some good shots the following night but sadly as the moon came up a little later we missed those wonderful colours.
Nutbush was some 40ks west of Pt Augusta. We left there around 8.30 Sunday morning and drove through the Flinders Ranges to a little tiny town called Melrose. That is where you find us now. Melrose is an historical town being the first town to be established in the Flinders Ranges. We are right at the foot of Mt Remarkable in a very pretty and shady Caravan Park. We arrived here at around 10am Monday morning intending to stay some 3 days.
The park is great, the trees are amazing, the tiny town is quaint and hot weather is coming. We have Telstra connectivity on both phone and computer, we are staying put! WA has had extreme hot weather over the Christmas period (as most of you know and experienced) and that weather is about to catch up with us. There is no pool here, but the air-con in the van will keep us cool. We see no point in travelling, hitching and un-hitching the van in the extreme heat. We are in no rush.
We met a lovely, inspiring and somewhat mad couple here last night, and a couple of sundowners turned into a couple of hours. Sadly our new-found friends had to leave this morning, but as they live down the road in Clare, we may catch up with them as we pass thru’ that region next week some time.
Today is New Year’s Eve and we celebrated by having lunch at one of the two local hotels. The food was not fantastic, but reasonable and well priced. It is wonderful now to have SA hospitality prices as opposed to the very pricey ones in WA. I know we are a boring old couple but DD is not into celebrating New Year and I am not enthusiastic enough to argue about it, so we will doubtless be in bed well before the clock strikes midnight.
An early night is quite worthwhile here as the dawn chorus here is exceptional and very hard to sleep thru’. An early morning cuppa with the birds will be a nice way to start the first day of 2013.
Well, there is so much more I could share with you, but as usual I seem to have written far more than is sensible. I will mention quickly tho’ that our plans to go almost straight to Tasmania may now change. We are slowly realising we are free agents and not compelled to follow any particular plan. Anything can happen now. Oh the freedom...................!!!!
Doug and I wish you all a wonderful, happy, healthy, prosperous and spiritually rich 2013. Until next time, Steph.

Golden fields stretch away to the Flinders Ranges