Yesterday, we arrived in Ceduna after completing our crossing of the Nullabor with another 518 kilometre drving day. Surprisingly for us, we had left the roadhouse at Border Village before 8.30 am. We also had around two hours of time change to contend with and this made it even more important for us to get away early.
We didn’t stop, or deviate, much over the day other than to visit the lookouts that gave us a view of the Bunda Cliffs. We had more time on our forward journey to spend more time at these cliffs. They haven’t changed in 5 weeks although the light was a bit different.
Unlke the belief that the entire Nullabor has no trees, This area was a mixture of heathland, and lightly timbered Mallee forest. There were some areas without trees, but not many. The real area of truly tree-less plain is only twenty kilometres long near the town (roadhouse) of Nullabor. Mostly it is just semi arid country.
We have heard stories about incredble amounts of road kill along the highway with eagles struggling to take off after engaging a carcass with their talons. We saw none of that – no road kill and no eagles. There were. however, many warning signs about animals in the area including camels, kangaroos, emu and wombats.
On the previous day, we passed many vintage cars travelling to Perth. Today it was the turn of huge pieces of farm machinery. Trucks were ecscorted by a pilot vehicle and the best thing to do as soon as saw them was to pull over to the shoulder of the road and let them pass. I assume that they were all owned by harvesting contractors heading to work in the Western Australian grain fields.
Five weeks ago, the fields near Ceduna were ripening with a tinge of gold. Yesterday, farmers were out harvesting their crops.
Omitting roadhouses, we saw our first house in two days near Nundroo, We felt as though we were truly back in civilisation. The land from there to Ceduna was pastoral and crop land. While the station that we saw looked prosperous, the one on the other side of the road was not in such good shape.
We arrived in Ceduna around 5 pm, in just enough time for the reception desk at the tourist park to still be open. We made a quick dash to the supermarket and bought some breakfast supplies.
This morning, we made some time, first thing, for some maintenance and popped the car through the car wash to get rid iof all the insects on the radiator and windscreen. Then we had a look around town.
Ceduna is the only township of significance on the eastern side of the Great Australian Bight. Apart from a few roadhouse (we have stopped over at many of them) it is 1208 km to the next town of Noreseman in WA. It is a well resourced town, which, with the nearby port of Thevenard, is located on Murat Bay which in turn is part of the larger Denial Bay. Grain, mineral sand and gypsum are exportedm from this port.
There is clearly a multicultural community here with a significant Aboriginal population, it is the service centre for a rural area known for its agriculture (predominantly grain and sheep), salt and gypsum mining and seafood – particularly oysters.
I met a group of people at the lookout by the port. They told me about their volunteering work with Aboriginal people in the town and how they had to put away all their preconceptions and expectations to be able to offer any value.. They explaned that Ceduna means ‘resting place’ in the local language and many of the Aborigines that we have seen walking around the streets come from rural communities. They are here because it will be cooler in summer. It’s 30C today and many were wearing overcoats and jackets.
I had expected the weather in WA to be much warmwr than we experienced. Most of the days during our travels have been around 18C to 20C. Today is the first day over 30C since we left Port Augusta five weeks ago.
Before lunch, we made a short visit to Denial Bay, about 12 kilometres away. It was named by explorer Mathew Flinders who was hoping that a river might empty into this broad bay and he could explore some of the interior. His hopes were denied.
Denial Bay was developed specifically to load and unload supplies and grain onto the ketches that plied the coast. The shoreline rocks run into the bay and grain ships were able to come close to shore and be loaded by wagons which could be driven across the rocks at low tide. Remnants of the landing sit some 50 metres from the shore. However closer inspection shows the grooves in the rocks where the bullock drays were driven out to the jetty.
There must be something of a crime problem here as many commercial buildings are surrounded by high fences and locked gates. The tourist park in which our cabin is located has a strip of razor wire along the complete length of the fence.
The highlight of our morning was to visit the little Oyster Shack on the main road and buy some for lunch. Delicious. Maybe we can go back for more!
