A Breath of Fresh Ayre - Day 3

                   Image by teejaybee via FlickrDay 3 Monday June 13th

Woke up at 6:15am and couldn’t believe the time as it was so dark. It didn’t get light until well after 7am. We had a coffee and then heated some water for our sponge baths and a fresh change of clothes. We then had heated leftover stew and bread for breakfast.

It took us a little longer to pack up camp as we wanted to re-arrange the way we packed the trailer and had to sort through a few things. Once done we took one more drive around the rock before heading back into town. We needed fuel but once again the petrol station wasn’t open even though it was 10:15am. With James driving, we kept going until we reached Poochera where we found an open fuel station on the highway.

Further along we stopped in the quaint little town of Wirrulla to have some lunch. We arrived in Ceduna (left: outskirts of Ceduna) around 12:45pm only stopping long enough to fuel up. Just outside of town we stopped to give the dogs a wee walk and for me to take over the driving. We stopped briefly in Dundroo to get a drink and some water for the dogs and give them another short walk.

I was surprised to find that the countryside was still heavily treed and there were even a few areas of open green paddocks. Further along after we passed by Yalata which looked all closed up, we saw in the distance some white sand dunes peeking over the tops of the green rolling hills. It was
 overcast for a lot of the trip but as the afternoon wore on patches of blue sky appeared letting some sunshine through.

We seemed to be the only ones traveling west today, however, there was quite a few vehicles traveling east. Among them we passed several convoys of oversized semitrailers carting what looked like large mining vehicles and other machinery.

It was just after 4:25pm when we finally arrived at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. It was overcast and a bit windy. We fuelled up and were shocked to find that unleaded petrol was $1.94 a litre, which was about 20 cents dearer than I had expected. We also booked into the barren looking caravan park for $25 per night for a powered site which I thought was quite reasonable.

 Believe it or not but there is a golf course on the Nullarbor. A golf course was built to break up the tedium of the 1100 kilometre journey across the Nullarbor. This is the ninth hole at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. Of course the 8th hole is about an hour's drive west - do you think you could hit a golf ball that far?

We pitched our camp and then took the dogs for a walk. The sky was clearing but the sun still set behind a thick band of cloud so no photos. It was also very chilly by now as it was just after sunset.

Back at our camp. James fed the dogs while I made hamburgers for dinner. We then took the dogs for one last walk before retiring for the night.

Animal count:

1 dead fox, a magpie and a plastic whale.

That's it today from the Short & Sweet Tourists. Hope you're nice and warm where ever you may be.

James & Marieanne