Driving the Nullarbor

Date of Adventure about 24 January 2025 to about 30 January 2025

The Nullarbor is a region along the south of Australia that runs through parts of both South Australia and Western Australia. The southern boundary is the Great Australian Bight. It’s a huge limestone plane. It was named in the 1800’s as the null (none) arbor (tree). There are portions that are relatively treeless and as you get west, well into WA there are areas with a lot of trees.

Before actually getting to the Nullarbor, but considered the start of the trip across, is the town of Penong with an interesting windmill museum. It was established and put together by a couple of local families who thought it would make an interesting tourist attraction as well as a way to document all of the different kinds of windmills used in rural Australia because they are being replace by solar powered electric pumps.

The Comet windmill is one of the largest made and used in Australia. It is over 10 meters in diameter. In person, it’s pretty damned big.

Taking a side trip from Penong is a famous lake, Lake Mcdonnell. It’s famous because one part of the lake is often very pink in color. The road (dirt) runs through it in a way that one side is pink and the other kind of normal green. Unfortunately it hadn’t rained for a very long time and the pink part was mostly just a salt pan. Almost dry and only a tinge of pink on the edges.

I was planning to camp in a campground close to the beach, just beyond Lake McDonnell but the wind was blowing like crazy and there was no way I wanted to camp under those conditions. So I drove on and just found a relatively protected place along the highway.

The next day I made it to the official start of the Nullarbor.

The drive wasn’t too bad. Lots of kilometers of no trees but I drove the main highway and the going was OK.

There are several places along the highway that are “reserved” for landing RFDS planes. That’s the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I’ve seen lots of evidence of this service from small airstrips in the middle of nowhere to sections of highway where the medical people can land. It is interesting that this service (started back in the 1920’s) is available all over Australia. If needed, they will fly medical personnel to the most remote places.

When you get to the border between South Australia (SA) and Western Australia (WA) there is a quarantine stop. You have to throw all of your fruit and vegetables away. I knew about it so hadn’t kept very much.

The drive is really along the Great Australian Bight and there are times when you are driving pretty close to the Southern Ocean.

And in WA the area is a National Park. Camping is no longer allowed on the Bunda Cliffs here because the land is unstable and you aren’t allowed to drive out really close to the edge. There are official and unofficial places where you can stop and see the cliffs.

Pictures don’t really do it justice. These are some spectacular cliffs overlooking the ocean.

I kind of took my time driving across. There are a few roadhouses along the way with campgrounds but I didn’t stay in any of those. You can read the Koonalda posting, which is one place I camped. And there are several turnouts with pretty good, protected free camping associated with them.

And, approaching the end or maybe beyond the official end of the Nullarbor is the longest straight road in Australia. It’s 90 miles long without the smallest bend. By then there were a significant number of trees.

Next stop was Norseman.

Koonalda Sheep Station

Date of Adventure about 27-28 January 2025

This is a location part way across the Nullarbor. I’ll get to a general post about the Nullarbor soon but this is just a little easier to write about. Driving the Nullarbor, there are few formal campsites. This is one that is on National Park land. It’s an abandoned sheep station. You can camp anywhere you like and even stay inside the buildings. It was pretty windy when I was there so my main concern was to get some protection. So I kind of settled in close to the main farmhouse.

There are a number of outbuildings as well as the main house. The shearing shed is still there, a couple of hundred meters from the main house. It’s kind of crumbling and I just didn’t get any photos, unfortunately. A number of other outbuildings as well. And, of some interest, lots of abandoned rusting cars and trucks. When I pulled in there was a couple packing some of their gear into one of the outbuildings where they spent the night. In the time I was there, 4 other vehicles came in and spent the night way out past the shearing shed. I never really saw them. And during the day three caravans came in for short visits to give their kids a break and walk through some of the areas. The main homestead is in fair shape with a lot of random stuff left over or dropped by campers over the years.

This building is where the other couple spent the night. They are retired folks from near Perth. Spelunkers on their way home from a cavers meeting in Victoria and quite friendly and helpful.

One of the other buildings was some kind of a shop with a fuel pump out in front.

And all of the cars and trucks!! I spent a lot of time just roaming around among these. Most were in two defined areas but there were random ones in the bush all around the main part of the station.

Even an old Mini, before the time BMW started making them. (Sol!!)

I probably could have spent more time just roaming around and taking better photos of all of the cool cars and trucks.

Overall, this was a pretty good place to camp but I decided to head out after one night because that’s all I had paid for. Although my acquaintances said that there was no accountability and they didn’t even know we were supposed to reserve online and pay.

The Clare Valley and Eyre Peninsula

Date of Adventure about 13 January to about 24 January 2025

This entry is just to clear up some of the time and to cover a couple of interesting places. At the end of my time in the Flinders Ranges I had a tire with a significant leak. I put on the spare and decided to go to Burra to get it repaired, mainly because the tire shop in Burra is a BF Goodrich dealer and I was a little worried that they’d have to replace the tire. Since my all-terrain tires are BFG it seemed like the safest thing. And, I had to go to the post office in Clare to pick up a package anyway. Those towns are about 5 km apart. I ended up camping in the town park in a little village called Farrell Flats. It was a great place to camp. Ten dollars donation per night, a clean bathroom, and lots of free, high quality water. Among other things this gave me the chance to flush the water tank on the Troopy and refill. I seem to have lost some of the photos from this short time but I’ve got a few to make this sensible.

Clare is a winemaking area. There are probably over 30 small wineries in the valley. Most of them are family, boutique wineries. I spent 5 days, visiting one winery per day. The cost of a wine tasting was $10 and it got waved if you bought a bottle of wine. Here’s one of the pictures that survived my loss.

Between Farrell Flats and the town of Clare is a small village called Mintaro. It’s really scenic with old stone buildings and someone has build a maze and topiary. I didn’t visit the maze because it was closed most of the time I was in the area. So, here’s the town of Mintaro and the video gives some idea of what the region is like.

After taking it easy in Farrell Flats for a while I decided to tour down the Eyre peninsula. It’s supposed to be an area of nice beaches and great seafood. Most of the drive was a little disappointing because the wind blew like crazy. All of the little towns along the route, down the east coast and up the west coast of the peninsula, have cool looking hotels and pubs. This has been pretty common in my travels.

I spent a couple of nights in a really pleasant campground in Port Lincoln and got to eat a little seafood in the restaurants. Port Lincoln had a really nice feel to it. It seemed that most of the Eyre peninsula is farmed in grain. I was told wheat and lentils. All of the fields were fallow. I was told they would start planting in about 2-3 months. This is all dryland farming.

All of the grain means that there are elevators in almost every town. Some even get painted up.

Port Lincoln is obviously a shipping point for a lot of the grain. Check the huge elevators right on the edge of town. And the green piping that must be used to deliver the grain to ships at the pier. Everything was quiet while I was there.

Leaving Port Lincoln, I drove up the west coast of the peninsula and spent a night camped on the bluffs overlooking a beach. There were several other campers in the area but plenty of room. It is a real scramble to get from the top of the cliffs down to the beach but it’s obvious that some fishermen do it.

Driving on I came across yet another abandoned building. It’s been interesting how many old buildings, from the mid 1800’s into the 1900’s, I’ve come across. I can’t stop at every one but some are just interesting. Here’s an old stopping off point along the road.

That takes care of the interim time. Next set, heading across the Nullarbor to Western Australia.