Jack’s Blog

Sunday, 3 May 2009

This is my diary of a trip taken with  ”The Nullarbor Traveller” a company based in South Australia and providing about the only way of getting from Perth to Adelaide or Adelaide to Perth without using train or plane. There are NO scheduled coach/bus services doing this.

I chose the company on that basis and I wanted to get out of my comfort zone.

I had travelled to Perth from Adelaide on the Indian Pacific train and you can read my experience and comments on that in other parts of this blog.

I had arrived in Perth on Saturday 2nd May and my Nullarbor Traveller trip started very early on Sunday 3rd which is where this diary starts.

I got up at 4:45 AM and got organised. Breakfast arrived at 5:15 AM. It was OK and I was satisfied although I would have liked to have had the time to have the buffet as the promo pictures looked terrific. The washing wasn’t dry so had to put it into a plastic bag.

I checked out at 6:20 AM but the bus didn’t arrive until 6:50 AM and I was starting to panic. I even rang the company as I thought I may have said I would go to the Rail station, but his answering machine was on so could only leave a message.
Finally Lockie arrived about 6:50 AM but he turned the wrong way into the street and I had to chase after him for about 100 m dragging my roller bag. I was the first to board and my first impression of the bus was-what have I let myself in for? Not the plush seating and carpeted floor of a usual tour company coach. There were a lot of boxes and tools on and under seats and the back area was filled with “junk”.
We drove around to the bus stop at the railway station where we picked up for others.
As they sorted themselves out, I forgot about the “state” of the bus and worked out what I needed on hand from my backpack etc.

Finally we were on our way!

We drove through the eastern suburbs of Perth-still a lot of old-fashioned shops and shopfronts. We are on the great Eastern Highway which is a dual highway even east of Mundaring. Unfortunately we didn’t see the famous Weir that had been built to supply water to Kalgoorlie.

Very hilly area so far with gums and numerous grass trees and as we got closer to York sheep started to appear. It is overcast at the moment.

The dual road finished at the York turnoff.

York is smaller than I imagined and not as many buildings. It is Sunday, so not many people around but I was surprised at the number of people who were in the cafes-I presume these were all locals as there were no other tourist buses in the area. There are some wonderful buildings in the town but unfortunately we were only allowed to spend about 20 minutes here which was just enough time to walk the main street, take a few photos and video and go to the toilet.

The countryside after York is rolling plains. Wheat and sheep country. The farmers still burn off the stubble after harvest.
I remembered to hang my washing over some seats to dry.

A question-how did to gum trees spread across to Western Australia seeing the Nullarbor is treeless?

The speed limit is 110 km an hour-and this is just an ordinary road!

These are some of the towns we passed through
Quairading-a very big wheat area
Corrigin-pit stop-home of the world’s largest dog in a Ute rally. Last rally had over 2500 Utes
so far the roads have been good. They are fully sealed and line marked-however the traffic is very sparse.
Kondinin
Kalgarin
Hyden
From Hyden it is only a couple of kilometres to Wave Rock and we arrived there just on lunchtime. Lockie left us at a spot called the “Hippos Yawn” and he drove back to set up the lunch. This was really the first opportunity for us to meet our fellow passengers.
Tara and Andrew from Ireland
Maryanne from Belgium
JL  from Perth.
We ambled over to the actual wave rock, but we took each other’s photos at Hippos Yawn first. I had always thought that the wave shape of the rock had been caused by wind but this is incorrect. Investigations show that it was water seeping down from the top had weakened the rock at the bottom which weathered away quicker and so formed this wave shape. You learn something new every day.

We all had a great time at wave rock taking numerous pictures of the rock and each other. It is one of the places that I have always wanted to see so I was very happy.
We continued wandering but eventually Tara told us that we were going the wrong way so we had to go back on ourselves. Eventually we came across Lockie and all got stuck into helping him get the lunch ready.

Lunch consisted of sandwiches. Everyone helped chop up the ingredients-tomato, lettuce, cucumber etc and a wide variety of sauces. Then we all made our own individual sandwiches. Little did we know at the time but this was to be lunch every day. After this we all hopped in and did the washing up and putting everything back into the van.

We were back on the roads by1:30 PM.

Next stop was Ravensthorpe where we stopped to pick up any alcohol that we wanted. I got a carton of Coopers $53 which was a bit of a blow but as I really enjoyed Coopers I decided to buy it.

Countryside is now hillier and not much farming. Ravensthorpe has been caught up in the global financial problems. A nickel mine had recently been built here but as soon as the financial problems started the mine was closed and 700 people left town.

We turned off on to a side road heading for Springdale Courtyard Cafe where we were to spend the first night camping.

As soon as we arrived we put up the tents. I have one to myself thank goodness. They are called Dome tents. I’d hate to be sharing as they are very small. I had no idea where to start but I was lucky that Andrew and Tara met when they were in Boy Scouts and Girl Guides respectively. Andrew came over and showed me exactly how to put the tent up- easy when you know how. I was fairly cold, but Tara & Andrew were getting around in shorts and T-shirts. I suppose coming from Ireland, this was like summer to them.

The biggest shock was to be shown the toilet. About 200 m away was what looked like an old red telephone booth. Inside was what is called a long drop. None of us were looking forward to making the trip there during the night.

After erecting the tents we had some nibbles-nibbles were provided every night- and drinks and then made our way up to the cafe for dinner. This was the first time I had used a headlight and they are great. The property is owned by a lovely old lady called Mary and she runs this cafe which was doing really great business while the nickel mine was in operation but of course now that it has closed down Mary’s business has basically disappeared.

But you wouldn’t realise it from looking at the tables set up when we arrived. It was really beautiful with glasses, shiny cutlery, lovely serviettes, candles burning and baskets of bread rolls and butter.

Our first course was a lovely soup, followed by fettuccine with wattle seed and herbs and then a lovely crumble with bush fruit and cream for desert. Tea and coffee of course at the end.

A lot of interesting conversation because we were really feeling each other out-getting to know each other. We had a Japanese bloke called Yoshi with us at the table. He was working with Mary on what is called a WOOFI program-something to do with working on farms free of charge so that they can learn our language. In return for work they get their meals and accommodation.

Finally we made our way back to the tents. This was a real learning curve. The headlight allowed me to get organised.

I knew I would have to get up during the night, so I had to get headlight, toilet paper, boots etc all placed correctly to be able to go. Then get the sleeping bag set up and pillows. I had a pillow with me but it was pretty small, so I had taken 2 cushions from the bus and used all 3. It was adequate. I did sleep-but uncomfortably.

In fact, I had a dreadful night. My sleeping bag was so small that when it was zipped up I couldn’t move my arms and shoulders at all and then for some reason I got the trots. Also I had used 2 mattresses side by side but I slipped between them during the night. Three times to the phone box-struggle to put on boots, struggle out of tent, zip tent up, find way to phone box-thank god I had a headlight and I remembered to take paper- and then reverse the whole process. Hand wipes were really appreciated.
I was ready to go home!

Visit my Club site at
http://roamersclub.com