Broken Hill to Kalgoorlie
Before leaving NSW to enter South
Australia, there are signs advising a Quarantine Station where everybody is
checked to make sure they aren’t carrying any fruit or vegetables through the SA
border.
The quarantine guys come into the caravan and look through
the fridge etc to make sure you’re not carrying anything illegal.
There was a hire RV in front of us
when we pulled into the bay.
We watched the inspector go into the van, and when
he eventually came out, he had bags and bags of fresh fruit and vegetables.
What a haul!
They would have bought it all in Broken Hill so it
was all lovely and fresh.
We felt a little bit sorry for them, but they really
had no excuse. We’ve been known to hide avocadoes in Ugg boots when we’ve eaten
enough smashed avo on toast, but we’re pretty savvy these days, and if we do have
anything, we either cook it or freeze it beforehand.
Iron Knob
We're been through Iron Knob before and never stopped there.
We were a bit dubious about staying the night at the free
camp at Iron Knob SA as WikiCamp reviews were mixed and we almost drove on to
Kimba.
It’s ramshackle an old mining town, with only a few hardy residents left.
We’re glad we stayed though, because Iron Knob was a very
interesting place. The pub is only open tomorrow
from 5:00 pm.
All the shops had closed down, and land is CHEAP.
Check this block out for only $12,000.
It’s
for sale because the owner hasn’t paid his council rates, and owes $152.13.
This is what $12,000 will buy you. Nice if you have work and want to work at getting all the prickles out
3 Corner Jack
I studied all about Iron Knob when I did geography at school. Forgotten it all, except for the name and the reason it's there is to feed iron ore to the Whyalla steel plant, just 30kms down the road.
A little mining cart
A really old excavator, I used to work on the bearing design of these
Iron Knob free camp
Streaky Bay
We decided to stay at the new (now 4 year old) caravan park at Streaky Bay Islands. It was so windy there and very wet.
But we did manage to ride our bikes the 7.3kms into town for lunch at the pub. The ride home was much easier with the wind behind us.
At the caravan park we were given 24 fresh oysters, that were harvested that morning from one of their oyster farms. This meant we had to shuck them ourselves. Not having done this before, meant we needed an Oyster Shucking tool and after watching a YouTube video on this we started to shuck them.
No personal injures were encountered during this process, except for a shucking tool hole in Jayne's hand!
Nicely shucked!
Fresh Oysters Kilpatrick. YUM!
We had enough for two nights worth.
Nullarbor Crossing
We had to do some shopping in Ceduna, the last town before the Nullarbor.
Anyone for a Kangaroo Tail? $10.99 per kg. Makes lovely soup, or so we hear!
Then it was time to head off across the Nullarbor Plain. Nullarbor means treeless plain. Well it's not treeless fo the entire length, and this year extremely green.
Our first night was spent at the Bunda Cliffs Campground, an unofficial campground at 31°34’25″S, 130°16’36E.
What a sunset
Anyone for a Cappuccino with a view?
Nice place for a drink or two
The view doesn't get much better than that!
Just goes on forever
What's out there? Absolutely nothing. Except Antarctica, which is just across the water from here.
After a night at Bunda Cliffs Campground we headed further west to "Best of the Bight". But as I had entered the GPS coordinates in the incorrect order we ended up going 30kms too far west and then had to backtrack. This extra 60kms meant we mightn't make it to Eucla with the fuel in our car. So we put one of our spare Jerry Cans of fuel in the car. No biggie, but we try to avoid using our spare fuel. We still have another 20 litres if needed so it was all good.
Best of the Bight 31°36’51″S, 129°41’56″E wasn't as good as Bunda Cliffs Campground, it's much more exposed to the wind. The view is amazing as always.
Not too shabby!
View from the rear window
Just amazing
You see signs of erosion all over these cliffs.
Don't get too close Jaynie!
This gives you an idea of the sheer size of these cliffs
So with our car running on fuel vapours, we went through the WA Border Control with our trusty completed G2G pass. After they checked our passes and established we weren't illegal immigrants, we were passed over to the Quarantine Officials to check that we weren't carrying any contraband like fruit, vegetables and that very toxic honey. It was just daunting as they were all still wearing masks! We asked them whether we should be wearing masks as well, and was informed only if we got out of the car in this immediate area. So Alan masked up to join the quarantine official on his inspection of our car and van.
We arrived at Eucla, only to find that they didn't have any diesel there! You certainly have to be prepared for all contingencies out here. Apparently the fuel tanker driver had put Unleaded in the Diesel holding tank. We'd heard about this through Facebook, but also that it had been rectified. By rectified it meant that they weren't selling Unleaded as Diesel and cars weren't weren't breaking down 10kms either side of Eucla.
The choices were to go back east 10kms into SA where there's another petrol station selling diesel at $1.92/L, (this would mean all that border palaver again) or drive to Mundrabilla Roadhouse another 70kms west. The car's computer showed we had enough for 40kms and yet even more spare fuel if needed, we decided to push on to Mundrabilla where the diesel is a more reasonable $1.74/L.
You'd think the expensive service station would have a sign up saying there wasn't any diesel at Eucla, they would have at least got a sale from us!
The fuel gauge on this new LandCruiser always shows there's more fuel in the tank than I reckoned. So this was going to be a good test.
30kms out of Mundrabilla the fuel gauge went to empty and the cars computer told us we were out of fuel. We pushed on that 30kms with every rise causing me to study in detail where the possible stopping places were. Surprisingly we made it without having to use another jerry can.
The car only took 130L which meant there was a further 8L still in the tank! At that rate, we could have made it to Perth!
Eucla whale
Good Aussie humour. Who are Dave and Andy?
