Esperance to Eucla with an overnight stop at Balladonia 935km

Heading North out of the beautiful Esperance, we were yet again presented with rich wheat-lands that eventually gave way to more scrubby arid savannah like expanses.

The roads became very straight and are subject to floods. More recently a large shower of rain washed out the railway tracks much to the surprise of this oncoming train. Carriages were littered for about half a kilometre along the track and a huge train was waiting patiently to proceed. This however may be days before the track is cleared again.

A quick fuel stop at Norseman revealed another cleaver working dog, waiting for the diesel pump to be free.

Overnight at Balladonia, brought some bad news, water was scarce so we were encouraged to do without a shower. This quaint motel had a museum that concentrated on the bush telegraph and featured a section on “Skylab”, a section of which had crashed in the vicinity.

We were heading into the Nullabor, a treeless plain that can has the longest straight sections of roads in Australia, that largest being over 148km without a turn, and without much of a change in features.

The ever enduring straights allowed “white line fever” to set in repeatedly. To counteract this I had to find ways to refocus my concentration. Take large drinks of water from the camelback, this would also bring a rush of fresh air into the helmet and give a few minutes of focus. I would look left and right for any potential hazards to my trajectory, the only sighting was a feral cat. Music is the other thing that helps, I have over 1000 songs onboard although after over 3 weeks the selection is getting a little repetitive, but my knowledge of these tunes is becoming quite intimate.

Eventually the end of the longest straight was in site, Caiguna roadhouse was a welcome deprive to the boredom. To my surprise there was an ATS truck parked there, I sought out the driver, to find that he was taking equipment to Perth for Jesus Christ Superstar, a show that TDC was doing in Perth in a few days time.

From here another 180km of near straight was eventually to bring us to Eucla for the Night. About 5 km out of our destination was a road block, the police, immigration, forestry and any number of other agencies were there to give a thorough check out. I had a license, alcohol and drug check, all carried out very efficiently and was on my way in a few minutes.

Later that night we found the police that we met this afternoon were staying at the same Motel, we had caused them to have to move out of their accommodation into the ‘budget” rooms…they were not impressed.

Arriving at Eucla was an anticlimax, it will be good to get out and back on the road tomorrow.

Some Nullabor poetry found along the way