Crossing the Nullarbor & into Western Australia

We were up early to leave Fowlers Bay on the 5th of April 2014 we had a big day ahead of us, we wanted to reach the WA border. The drive to us was pretty interesting even though it was mostly very flat, straight & treeless. Our first stop was Nullarbor itself for a quick bathroom break & a pie. It was a great little servo & shop but we were very taken aback by the cost of diesel $2.09! Luckily we didn't need any & we kept heading towards the border. 

The road stayed pretty flat but we kept getting small glimpses of cliffs & blue water to our left. We could see lots of little side tracks down towards the water, but thought surely there are some viewing platforms soon? We kept driving for a bit, but then got curious & we went down one of the little tracks & came across the most beautiful coast line of the Great Australian Bight. It really is hard to explain the sheer beauty of the place. Just spectacular. We were very lucky, the weather turned it on for us, there was barely a breeze & the air was clear. Definitely something everyone needs to do in their lifetime. We hit the road again but stopped at another 2 viewing platforms (there were 3 official ones along the way) we just couldn't get enough of the view. The stop just before the border was worth doing as well as it had changed from steep cliffs to sand dunes. 

It was then onto the quarantine checkpoint at the WA border. It only took us about 10 minutes to get checked out by a really nice inspection officer & sent on our way. We stopped then at Eucla the first town in WA. We had to work out what time it was, as the time changes a couple of times the further west you go. Also daylight savings was ending that night, so we had no idea what the bloody time was officially for the next couple of days. We had lost about 2.5 hours, so it changed from 1pm back to 10.30am. Way too early to stop, so we kept on going. We had planned to stop at one of the free camp spots about 100km from the border, but it was just to early. 

We tried to get a bit of fuel at Madura because it looked a bit bigger & the fuel was still over $2 a liter everywhere else we had seen, but as we pulled in their generator was broken so no fuel pumps would work. We had plenty of fuel to keep going to Cocklebiddy (unlike some of our fellow travellers) so we kept on going. When we pulled into Cocklebiddy it was getting later so we decided to camp somewhere just past it. We went to get some fuel it was $2.07/L great. We got $100 worth to get us further down the road to hopefully some cheaper diesel. Mat made a friend at the servo & we couldn't get going, he was on for a very long chat!! We thought we might grab a carton of beer too as we were getting low but they wanted $62 a carton, so we said no thanks & kept going. We camped another 50km down the road or so, at free camp 14 in the Camps Australia Wide book. It rained a bit that night & was misty the next morning so we had a quick breakfast & hit the road again. 

We made it to Balladonia roadhouse & then had to make a decision if we were going to go down the dirt road to Cape Arid or the longer way on the bitumen to Cape Le Grand. The weather made our choice for us as it had been raining heavily down the dirt road that night plays it had also coped a lot of rain in the weeks before. So we decide to go around, grabbed a bit of fuel on the way out, still $1.99/L & headed towards Norseman. We fuelled up properly their, only $1.66/L, grabbed a few groceries & some beer & headed towards Esperance & Cape Le Grande. We were concerned about getting a campsite, but were assured at the gate there were still some left. So we headed to the Cape Le Grande beach campsite & found a very nice campsite. More on this in our next post. What a beautiful place!!!