The Nullarbor

28th March to 2 April
The Nullarbor is the iconic 1,670km drive along the Great Australian Bite from The Eyre Peninsula in SA to Norseman in WA.

Koonalda

Until the 1970’s it was still a gravel road, and although now bitumen there are no towns, or clusters of farming properties, with only Road Houses every few hundred km’s for refueling.

It really is a treeless plain, with salt bush and red dust filling the landscape for most of the drive. First night we camped beside the road, as there are plenty of places to stop along the way.
We spent  a couple of nights at the abandoned Koonalda Homestead now part of the National park,  but until 1986 a working sheep station on the old eyre highway.

Kevin and shovel

The building are still there along with a car graveyard of vehicles that didn’t make the Nullarbor journey. We heard dingoes howling at night, which was a bit spooky.

Along the bite the cliff tops where steep, and the winds blew straight from the Antarctic, rather windy when camping and trying to cook outside on gas.

Plenty of kangaroos and salt pans along the roadside, and the ancient limestone sea bed that is the Nullarbor is sprinkled with blow holes, sink holes and caves.

It was a starkly barren but beautiful landscape to drive through, very remote, and by the time we reached Norseman we had a greater appreciation for the explorers and early pastoralists.