In WA at last and heading further west as fast at possible. The winds are still in our favour.
Next stop, Eucla, that iconic little telegraph town just over the border. Well, when I say 'stop' I really mean drive through. I wanted to show Liz the facilities here and the caravan park before we moved on.
I was a little disappointed that we could not stay. In the initial planning of our Nullarbor crossing, I had pencilled in a couple of nights here. Apart from the interest of the old telegraph station, it is possible to access the not too distant beach, and whilst the caravan park is basic, the bar in the motel (seen here beyond the servo) really jumps most nights. Eucla is one of those spots which seems to attract all and sundry as they traverse the south of the continent.
But it was not to be this trip. Eucla is in the book for our return journey whenever that may be. Immediately beyond the roadhouse, the topography changes dramatically.
After driving for seemingly endless kilometres along the top of the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight, the road now descends rapidly down the Eucla Pass to almost sea level. And from this point onwards, the waters of the Southern Ocean are never closer than 35 kms or so.
The escarpment continues for a considerable distance further to the west, but for the next 180 kms the Eyre Highway lies to the south of it as it traverses the coastal plain of the western bight.
And now things do become a touch boring as we go into cruise control and try in vain to find points of interest.
It was a relief to eventually close in on Mundrabilla, the next in the series of roadhouse/motel/caravan park complexes on this part of the highway where, apart from stretching our legs and seeing to other forms of bodily relief, fuel was on the agenda.
Almost all of the roadhouses across the Nullarbor are owned by a consortium of Perth businessmen. These include Nullarbor, Madura, Cocklebiddy and Caiguna that I know of. Strangely, fuel and food prices at these establishments reflect the tyranny of a monopoly, although I do have to concede we were more than pleasantly surprised by the bowser prices at Caiguna, but more of that later. The owners of Mundrabilla have resisted what we understand to have been some pretty spirited attempts to include it in the chain. Well done them, we say.
Here we filled the tank for $1.94 a litre. How much I hear you gasp? Believe me, in this part of the world this is a good price and the reason we only took a sip at Nullarbor where we were slugged $2.04 per litre. It is little wonder that all the intestate hauliers make Mundrabilla their change-over point. And long may they do so. It doesn't take too many roadtrains to fill their tanks to make for a high turnover - low margins operation from which we all benefit.
Although it is only another 80 kms to Madura, we did pull in here for a lunch break. Our planned run for the day to Caiguna was over 400 kms. Mr Stubborn has learnt to break up these journeys much more frequently than he would have as a younger man! And no matter what anyone may say to the contrary, the difference in concentration levels between driving a car and towing a rig with a total weight of over 7 tonnes is significant and draining. Almost paradoxically, I have found that the greatest challenge to maintaining an appropriate level of alertness comes on the roads which, in themselves, present the least. We were on such highway where complacency comes at a potentially terrible cost.
Madura in itself is nothing out of the ordinary in the Nullarbor scheme of things, but it does have one significant point. (apart from the fact that my mate Norm Colquist of Port Germein C/P fame worked here for some years as the manager)
Here the highway again climbs to the top of the escarpment, but once reached, the country across which it runs is as flat as a tack and not much more interesting.
This is very much an 'are we there yet, Mum?' part of the trip. Even the sight of Cocklebiddy comes as a relief. If I sound somewhat disparaging of Cocklebiddy, it comes from experience. Stu and I over-nighted here on our trip in one of the worst rooms I have ever experienced. We drank the dearest stubbies imaginable (only two I can tell you) and declined an evening meal of rump steak at $32.00 (bear in mind this was five years or so ago) and settled for a hamburger and chips for a mere $20.00
And I don't care how they try to dress it up, Cocklebiddy is seriously 'the middle of nowhere', a fact that even the roadhouse folk do not try to disguise. I suppose this may have a charm of its own, but it is decidedly limited.
We really only stopped here for another 'comfort' break
and to see if things were as I remembered them. They were, including the furniture in the motel rooms which still looked like something out of Steptoe and Son (I did take a peek through one of the windows), although, I have to say the exterior of the motel building has been tarted up and the windows now have curtains!
The 'caravan park' here is nothing more than a dusty paddock. I remembered that, whilst Caiguna is far from a tropical paradise, its amenity is significantly greater than Cocklebiddy's. Let's hope I am right.
From the moment we crossed the border we were into a different time zone. As you would know, Perth is two and a half hours behind Adelaide during the summer, but fortunately those travelling west are given the chance to adjust their body clocks less savagely.
This was the second of these signs we had passed which means that by the time one reaches Caiguna, where Perth time applies, only an hour's wind back is required. We didn't bother and let our bodies tell the tale. This was somewhat unsuccessful for a few days, particularly with the sun rising here (no daylight saving) at 0530 hours. The bloody roosters start crowing in the middle of the night!
It is amazing how the mind can compress time when the end of a longish day is in sight. The last 80 kms of this 400 kms run seemed to flash by and in no time we were pulling into the Caiguna Roadhouse. How good was my memory? Would we find ourselves in a sheep paddock where the navigator would morph into a lather of scornful derision about my choice?
Whew! Plenty of room, no unhitching, and a flat, gravel surface. My reputation was saved. No 'old man's memory' comments here.
Mind you, having said that, the amenities are pretty basic, complete with the 'shut the door to keep out the snakes' sign. (cruel as it sounds it was very funny watching a woman and her daughter standing for a good minute at the door to their loo with necks craned forward and sideways glances at each other before they went in....I'm game if you are....thank god it wasn't an emergency!)
The motel section is equally basic, but does afford visitors the luxury of a shaded car port with each unit. With its faux verandahs and outdoor chairs, at least they were trying.
Point of difference at Caiguna....the gnomes.
There were oodles of them, wayward or otherwise, cheerfully inhabiting the front garden beds. These are but a few. Whatever turns you on, I guess. At least they don't take much watering.
We did front the bar for one beer, and to see if the menu prices were comparable with my recollections. The bar was nothing more than a souvenir shop and the meal prices continued to be through the roof. Our social visit was brief and we retired rapidly for evening aperitifs, the sunset and a fine dinner 'chez Marshies' where the ambiance, prices and service were far superior.
An early night was in order. The morning winds were light and in our favour, but as the day wore on this was due to change. I was hoping to cover a good 250 kms of our 375 journey to Norseman with fair breezes. An 0700 hours departure at the latest was called for.
No comments:
Post a Comment