Epic Roadtrip Leg 3: A Change In Fortune

23rd April - 2nd May

After a rubbish month where I had a major car failure and the worst job I've ever worked I hoped that my luck would change. I borrowed some money of Dad so that I could continue on the road trip that I planned many months ago. I still had some 20000km to reach my final destination so getting started I hoped that with a bit of luck I'll make it!

Day 1

Heading West

Having spent the night in a tiny town called Gunning I turned west and headed back the way I came, past Cootamundra. I stopped of in Wagga Wagga (yes that's a real place) to stop up on supplies and carried on west to Balranald where I had spent the night after I finished my farm work about 6 weeks before. I had the police come knocking on my car window just as I was bedding down for the night. They just wanted to know what I was up to. It was a designated 24 hour camping spot so I said I was just about to go to sleep. I doubt they would get many backpackers passing through this town so I must have stood out somehow. Anyway, it was all fine and they left.

Day 2

Back in Robinvale

It just so happened that the quickest route to Adelaide had me passing within just a few kilometres of Robinvale so I couldn't resist a quick visit to the place I'd spent a reasonably enjoyable 6 weeks. It was exactly the same as it was but it was just good to reminisce. I also passed through Mildura in the top end of Victoria before heading towards the South Australia border. Three states in one day!

Driving into hell

Just before I got to the border the sky turned red. It was the strangest thing. The clouds had this weird red colour to them and not in a sunset kind of way. The more I drove the worse it got and to a lower level. I was soon in a bit of a dust storm. It wasn't a bad one but it was a new experience for me. I must have been chasing it because it suddenly became clear and when I looked behind the was a wall of dust.

South Australia

I crossed into South Australia in the late afternoon. I had to go through a quarantine and throw away all my fruit...I was barely stationary.

Chasing the sun

Day 3

The next day, in Adelaide, it was a real trip down memory lane. In what seems like a lifetime ago I was here in Adelaide with Charlie, Holly, Mel and Ben. It was just over 2 years since I left and it was so strange to be back here.

Remember this place!

I sneaked into Blue Galah Backpackers where we had spent so much of our time! They had put in a new bookshelf but apart from that it was exactly the same. It was so weird! I was walking around having memories pop into my head like some sort of soap opera flashback.

Out n the balcony - bad hair day

It just so happened to be ANZAC day whilst I was here so there was a big parade that day. It was a particularly special one as it had been 100 years to the day since the Australians and New Zealanders fought there first big battle in the first world war. There had been a short TV series that had dramatised the events that happened 100 years ago and as I knew absolutely nothing about it I gave it a watch. It seems that what happened in Galipoli was essentially a disaster.

100 years on and the streets of Adelaide were packed with people wishing to pay their respects to those that had fought back then and in more recent wars. One girl had a sign saying "Your a hero grandpa". Bad grammar but it was a nice touch.

There was a lot of clapping that afternoon. I clapped a little louder for the British war heroes when they went past.

After an hour and half of clapping I left. I only had the one day in Adelaide and the parade was dragging on a bit. I felt I had paid my respects enough by that point.

The war memorial

I went back to the hostel where I had parked my car. For a few dollars they let me hang out for the day, use the laundry, showers and internet. I went for a shower before going out to meet up with this lovely person...

OLIVIA!

I left Olivia and Toby at the farm and they had since moved to Adelaide. I was shocked to discover that had now split up. I didn't see that coming! We went for KFC and a catch up and then I left. I needed to get out of town before it got too late. There's no free spots near to the city to sleep, not according to WikiCamps anyway. I stopped about an hour north of Adelaide by a rather windy beach.

Day 4

Good morning beach

I drove most of the morning following the coast north to Port Augusta. I had planned to carry on west but these mountains popped up on my right hand side that seemed really inviting. I'd been on expansive flat plains for a while now and I quite fancied a hike up a hill or too. A quick look on the map showed me that these were the Flinders Ranges. So, after a quick stop in Port Augusta for some info, I headed into the mountains.

Flinders Ranges

Along the way there was a couple of little stop offs. The first was Kanyaka Waterhole. This was an important sight for the aboriginals as its a permanent source of water.

Big rocks

Down by the river

A couple of minutes up the road is Kanyaka Homestead, a relic from the 19th century. The roof is gone and walls are crumbling but you can still see the layout of the place. Its quite large with a few buildings for the support staff too.

Kanyaka Homestead

The lounge and cellar.

I carried on up the road to a free camp spot just before Flinders Ranges National Park. When I parked up and cooked my dinner (butter chicken mmmmm) I was the only one there but as it got dark a few more cars rocked up. One group of backpackers started ripping down branches from the trees for fires which annoyed me a little.

Int t'hills

Day 5

I woke early the next day to catch the sunrise hit these stunning cliffs. As I drove into the National Park I had to dodge a few kangaroos and, for the first time, wild emus!

The sun is coming up

Emus!

I arrived at the Visitor Centre so early that it wasn't even open yet so I hung around and had some breakie. I thought I'd pick the trek that went to the highest point in the area, I'm a sucker for summiting a mountain! I decided to take the shorter route to St Mary Peak. I couldn't see the top until after a few kilometres but it popped out the trees for this stunning picture.

One of my fav ever pictures

There wasn't anyone else on the trail as it was still really early but I did spot the odd mountain goat!

Goats!

The path was quite easy to follow through the trees until I came to the bottom of the hill. It wasn't signposted too well after that and I had to backtrack a couple of times. At one point I lost the way forward altogether and tried to just head straight up until I found the path again. Then, when I was quite close to the top, the path was more of a scramble up the mountain side. Love it!

Lets start the climbing

Wowsers

The view from the top was, as predicted, spectacular! At 1171 metres you could see the entire range poking out of the vast plain that is South Australia. Behind me was a kind of natural bowl which is the heart of the national park. The short route to the top didn't seem to take too long so I thought I would take the longer route back and walk through this big plateau.

Epicness

The plateau

Jagged mountain

I walked down the other side of the mountain, across the big bowl and out through a narrow gap on the other side. The path on this long route was really difficult. Flat enough but full of rubble so I had to concentrate quite hard on not breaking my ankle! It was also. obviously, longer meaning that by the time I had finished I had walked 21km over rough ground. Physically and mentally knackered! Totally worth it though. Great day!

Kangeroos in the bowl

I really did not want to drive. I just wanted to sit and do nothing but unfortunately that would land me with a hefty fine. I motivated myself to drive back to the same campground I had stayed at the previous night which wasn't too far away and had myself a well deserved beer.

Day 6

A big rock

The place I was staying was actually a carpark for a small trail to some aboriginal art so before I left I thought I'd go check it out. It wasn't very impressive at all but there you go.

I drove back to Port Augusta and did a few touristy things in town. I went to the top of the old water tower which involved climbing a very steep staircase. It was a nice view and it was free so can't complain. Then I headed to the Arid Lands Botanical Gardens which is full of plants and trees that only grow in dry places such as Port Augusta. They looked just like every other bush and tree I had seen everywhere.

Port Augusta

er...tree

I stocked up at the last cheap supermarket I would see for a while and carried on my way west. I stopped in the very small town of Kimba for the night. There was a very nice free camp spot with free hot showers. There was a huge statue of a Galah for no obvious reason. Apparently on one particular April fools day someone placed a large egg behind it....these country Aussies are a strange bunch.

Check out this bird

There was also a sign saying that Kimba was 'halfway across australia'. Now, looking at the map on the sign, I'm really not sure what its halfway between. The most westerly point of Australia to the most easterly point? definitely not. I direct line across from east to west through the town? seems unlikely. I had to google this to find out. Apparently its halfway between Sydney and Perth but again, I'm really not convinced! I'm thinking someones just put this sign up as a great tourist novelty and no one has questioned it!

If you say so

Day 7

Edward John Eyre and his Aboriginal guide

After a quick bush walk to the Edward John Eyre Sculpture (pioneers of the area I think) I headed south to the tip of the Eyre Peninsular. I originally wanted to go to Port Lincoln to do the cage diving with sharks but it was quite expensive and as I was at the start of my trip with how ever many unforeseen expenses ahead of me I decided to pass on that. Bit of a shame really because that would have been an incredible experience. Although now its being blamed for the shark attacks on the East Coast.

Long way down

The east side of the Eyre Peninsular has the Great Ocean Drive. Similar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria just less impressive and therefore less travelled. The first stop on the way back north is the big cliffs. I was going to camp here for the night but it was quite windy so I found a small rest area a bit further along the road where I cooked myself a fry up. Who said you couldn't have breakfast for dinner!

Tasty

My private campsite

Day 8

Cliffs and beaches

The next day I followed the tourist drive along the cliffs to the Tailia Sea Caves. I walked a little way into this cave and the roof of the cave at the back was quite high. So high that I doubt there was much rock left between the top of the cave and my car parked directly above it!

Cave!

The dirt road back to the highway was extremely irritating! Twenty minutes of bumping, shaking and rattling and was worried for my poor car! It made it and I carried on up the road to Murphy's Haystacks.

Murphys Haystacks

This was a naturally occurring rock formation which some clever farmer decided to make into a bit of an attraction. He'd built a toilet block and asked for a $2 donation for the use. I saw a couple walking out as I went in but other than that I had the place completely to myself so I had a lot of fun running back and forth trying to get myself into a decent picture. I enjoyed climbing all over these rocks.

Can you sot me!

I stopped off at Ceduna, the last town before the vast and empty Nullarbor Plain. I stocked up on food, water and fuel and charged all my electronics before camping just north of the town.

Day 9

Nothing

I set off onto the big open nothingness that is the Nullarbor Plain before the sun came up. I wanted to take a large chunk out of the 1200km distance before reaching the next town. The only thing between Ceduna and Norseman were the odd couple of roadhouses and.....a golf course! Yes, every hundred kilometres or so I would sign a sign for the next hole. Quite random!

Particularly smiley whale

I stopped off at the first roadhouse as I had been told that this as the cheapest stop for fuel before Norseman so I thought I'd top up. The had large whale out front. I wasn't too far from the coast as the highway followed the coast around the Great Australian Bight. This is supposedly a great place to watch whales from when they are in season.

Animals

Whole bunch of nothing

A couple of hours later I came to the first of the cliff lookouts. These are massive and mightily impressive! They looked stunning with the brilliantly blue water at the bottom. There were 3 official lookouts but the first one was the best.

Nullarbor Cliffs

Eucla Telegraph Station

A bit further down the road there was an old Telegraph Station half buried in a sand dune. It wasn't exactly impressive or interesting but it was nice to just get out of the car. I pulled off the road not long after for the night.

Buried

Day 10

Whilst I had actually crossed the Nullarbor Plain already there was still some 600km to go yet but his time there was nothing to see! I can't tell you how boring it was. Not even corners to make the drive more interesting. The longest straight road in Australia was initially a novelty but soon became insanely boring. I nearly lost my mind this day!

No corners

Many MANY hours later I came to the next road house which had a random space museum attached to it. Intrigued I went in and saw this massive chunk of space junk. Skylab had crashed back to Earth in the late 70s scattering debris all over southeast WA. Apparently the president of the United States rang this roadhouse personally to apologise for crashing the satellite in the Australian outback.

Space Junk!

Yet more hours later I finally arrived in Norseman and civilisation....well sort of. It was a bit of a ghost town. Nothing much going on at all, in fact I think there were more people at the roadhouse I just came from. None the less I had made it across the Nullabor in one piece and my car survived!

Another half hour and I came to a tiny town called Salmon Gums where I had a well needed free hot shower! I saw a sign for pizzas which tempted me so much I drove around to the pub which sold them. It looked closed so I thought I would just leave it and go camp up somewhere. Oh wait, my car won't start.....

So much for my change in fortune.