We Are About to Leave on Our Next Road Trip.

Later this week, we will be heading off on our next road trip to drive almost across the entire country and continent. This trip will take us across the vast Nullarbor Plain so that we can spend time in Western Australia with members of our family. and will be a round-trip journey of about 12,000 kilometres (or 7,500 miles).

We’ll be driving carefully until we reach Bordertown on theSouth Australian border, after which we can relax and cruise along. Here in the State of Victoria, our roads are littered with potholes and many drivers have had blown tyres or have cracked wheels when hitting them. We don’t want to risk any damage so early in our trip. Victorian  roads have not been maintained properly for several years. So much so, that potholes have become the main feature of our upcoming state elections. Not high level issues such was health or education but potholes. Hopefully, the government after the election will not be so inept and will focus on things that people actually need!

For much of our driving trip, we will cross the vast Nullarbor Plain. It has one of the world’s longest stretch of straight road and is a part of Australia that few Australians travel and many of us don’t know a lot about.

These interesting facts will form part of our driving trip experience:

• The road across the Nullarbor Plain is named the Eyre Highway. It was named after the explorer John Eyre who first crossed the Nullarbor in 1841.
• The Eyre Highway is approximately 1675km long and takes a minimum of two days to travel the entire distance.
• The name Nullarbor comes from Latin terminology ‘nullus arbor’ meaning ‘no trees’ because, as a desert plain, it is mostly devoid of trees. 
• The Nullarbor Plain is home to the earth’s largest area of limestone.
• The first motor car crossed the Nullarbor Plain in 1912 when the road was nothing more than a two wheeled rutted track.
• The Plain is also crossed by the Indian Pacific Train. This train runs twice weekly (in summer) from Sydney tp Perth via Adelaide and takes 3 nights and 4 days to cover its 4352km cross-continental journey.
• The Cocklebiddy Cave entrance was discovered when the cave roof collapsed to reveal a system of massive underground caverns and more than 6kms of underwater passages.
• Even though the Nullarbor has a very harsh climate it is home to a wide variety of animals and birds- kangaroos, emus, wombats and wedge tailed eagles. In many places, the eagles have built nests on the top of telegraph poles because they are the highest available feature.
• Around 100,000 wild camels roam across the plain. Their predecessors were originally abandoned after their use in building the railway line, transcontinental telegraph line and and other infrastructure. Australia exports live camels to  Middle East countries.
• Traveling across the Nullarbor Plain around August/September (as we will be doing) gives us a chance to see Southern Right Whales at the Head of the Bight. It has been reported that there can be as many as up to sixty mothers and their calves surfacing as close as 20 metres from the shore.

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed about our travels and the scenery that we find along the way.