We once again, filed the tank with diesel in Port Augusta, stocked up on water and food, leaving the last scraps of a town, grunted off west.
Heading inland, the desert gave way to dry farmland sprinkled with small towns, often just a single shop complete with a bench of staring locals; we grunted on past. Not tempted by the scenery, we made the coast before nightfall.
It was now cloudy but dry, the locals looked nervously for their mighty sun god who was strangely absent from their scorched landscape.
The southern edge of Australia is a huge piece of limestone, this massive flake of earth just drops off into the sea dramatically. Its not hard to stare South off the cliff-edge and the edge of the globe, the Ocean ending in a massive waterfall, pouring off the charts.In surrounding directions the limestone plain has been swept of soil and nothing bigger than scrubs and small bushes survive, thus the Latin name for these huge plains
: Null_Arbor, no tree.
Even here there is life. We saw Dingoes scavenging road kill, Emus gawking as they do, and truckies moving massive mining machines and camping on the roadside; a truck can pull a lot more when the road has no hills or grade to fight up!
Not much else to be said for the Nullarbor Plain, its very flat and it's really big.
Anyone who has driven across States will know the boredom of endless miles of plainsAnyone who has driven across the States will know the boredom of endless miles of plains, well its the same but with less gas stations, less people and more dingoes., well its the same but with less stations, less people and more dingoes.
Eventually trees reappear and the road begins to regain features, leading us inland and into WA!
After two days driving we turn South, heading back to the coast and the town of Esperance.
Our supplies were low, our cameras out of batteries and the only showers we could find resembled the filming location for every prison rape film scene ever made, so we raced to a local State campground on the beach.
The Southern Sea is freezing cold and even Australia gets cold in its winter; coldish anyway for a couple of months that is, but the Southern coast is amazing!
The beaches are pure white and the water is deep blue, despite the cold these were the best beaches we have ever seen; Rounded rocks jut into the surf and rise as little islands just offshore!Stretches of perfect white sands curve the land free of roads or settlements trembleing in te powerful surf. Really pretty.
We showered, shaved and cooked with a friendly family of Kangaroos investigating our every move, in the distance and rolling thunderstorms drifting thru.
What Ozzie heaven!