STREAKY BAY TO EUCLA (ACROSS INTO WA)-2 MARCH 2008

Set off in the dark for Ceduna-not a wise move as one is less alert so early and the last of the night road trains, festooned with their Christmas tree lights, sure were intimidating.As the light breaks the bush had a uniformly almost colourless grey look about it-like a zinc coated tableau.
Ceduna is just a bigger version of Streaky Bay and after a welcome truck stop breakfast I confronted the start of the real Nullarbor challenge.

Only 1053 Kilometres to go

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

I was soon distracted by the side road to the all but abandoned fishing village of Fowler's Bay, which turned out to be of surprising historical celebrity.
SO MANY EXPLORERS

The Dutch, Flinders and Eyre came by.Now there are just a few houses and a guest house.All is backed by sandhills of Arabian style and proportions. Very suitable for Foreign Legion movies.

Anybody seen Beau Geste?
IF THE ROAD DOESN'T GET YOU THEN THE WILDLIFE WILL


There were lots of wildlife warnings along the way, with good reason.The roadside was littered every few hundred metres by the night road trains toll of dead kangaroos.Missed a large one by about 50 metres and fortunately there was no companion animal following behind it. It's often the secondary one that gets you.I was surprised on two occasions to come upon wedge-tailed eagles squatting on kangaroo carcases surrounded by crows, all having a piece of the clean up action.I stopped and tried to creep up for a photo but the Eagles were too wary and canny to oblige and flew away as I crept up on them.

Whilst fairly featureless the landscape varied from treeless in places, to medium density bush in sandy soil and for a spell a ridge of sandy rock ran parallel to the road for about 50 Klms.

Covered about 700 Klms in the day and nobody overtook me.I was surprised by the number of people coming the other way who waved-must have been fellow Victorians because the farm truck types didn't.


A LONG AND LONELY ROAD


CROSSING THE BORDER

The quarantine check was more thorough than any I have encountered in Australia. I even had to surrender an unopened jar of honey. Well at least he didn't confiscate my nail scissors and Swiss army knife, like that hijab wearing security detail at Heathrow.Strange thing at the border was the fact that one didn't jump immediately to WA time-this only came into play a few hundred kilometres farther in. There is a sort of twilight zone between SA and WA time.

Stopped the night in a very hot and dusty camp site at Eucla-a very forgettable place.First encounter with WA police in the bar there. Big affable country boys of a rather pedantic disposition. No wonder when one reads signs like this about their responsibilities.
WIDE AWAKE IN WA

So what do they do? Tuck lonely travellers into cell bunks for the night. strange state this.
In SA on the way across, the road safety focus was intense. Instead of white crosses and individual shrines to road death victims,they erected black and red posts to indicate a fatality or serious injury.They really impact you, especially when you come upon a cluster meaning multiple death and mutilation.A large roadside poster showed a young man flying over the front seat of a car (No seat belt)about to collide, head first, with the female driver. The caption read-The last thing to enter her mind was her boy friend.The more conventional white crosses beside otherwise benign spots on the Nullarbor also served to remind me to stop and sleep at intervals.