I left Border Village having taken back my key in order to get the key deposit back very early in the morning.

In fact it was still dark when I left, it was something I’d said to myself that I wouldn’t do; drive in the dark. Mostly down to my minor fear of hitting a kangaroo, while I had a ‘roo bar on my ute it’s not there for me to go around running into the local fauna.

However my concern for running at speed into local wildlife was overridden by my night’s stay at Border Village which left me just wanting to be rid of that place.
I’d had a thankfully uninterrupted night’s sleep at Border Village, but not a pleasant night’s sleep, and stepping out of bed onto a towel I’d placed there the previous night brought it all back as to why I’d felt so...disturbed by the place.

I understand, I knew staying at places along the Eyre Highway I was not going to get high class accommodation and I’m willing to forgive some things.

Maybe Mundrabilla just has a higher standard than the rest of the roadhouses along the Eyre.
Maybe.
But Border Village just seemed like it was taking advantage of its location, being the convenient stop off point along the Eyre Highway on the way to Perth.
There were certainly a lot of people staying there that night I noticed when I left. It seemed like most of the motel units had cars out the front of them.

You live and learn, and I learnt I’d rather spend the night in my swag out in the freezing night than stay at Border Village again.

Having departed Border Village early I hadn’t at that point really decided where I was going to stay that night. I had only decided where I was going to eat breakfast. Which was at the Nullarbor Roadhouse, some 2 hours from Border Village.

At the Nullarbor Roadhouse I think I got the best cooked breakfast I had throughout my trip, a good proportion of everything and a nice dining room to sit in. It is also where on my next trip across the Nullarbor I’d stay on the way home. Interestingly they’re the only roadhouse with both a website and a Twitter account the latter of which is pretty active as well. I wouldn’t say I’m active with all the social medias, but do use Twitter and it does make a difference if a business has a website.

According the signs on the fuel bowsers at the Nullarbor Roadhouse you have to give them your driver’s licence before they’ll activate the bowsers, this is to stop drive offs. I noticed this on the way through and back although both times I didn’t need to give them my licence. I noted to them it would take some gall to do so, it’s not as though you’ve got much choice for fuel along the Eyre and they all have video cameras. I would presume that all the roadhouses know the others out there and could call ahead to make them aware of fuel drive offs.

Waiting for my breakfast I utilised the presence of 3G to work out where I might stay that night.

My original plan had been to stop at Wudinna. which was about 7 hours 20 minutes from Border Village, however I had found in previous days that I was able to do more like 8-9 hours in a single day rather than my rather conservative 7 and a half hours. So then I thought that maybe Kimba would be the night’s stop, being about 8 and half from Border Village, or 6 and a half hours from where I was at that point at the Nullarbor Roadhouse.

But at that point it was still quite early and I wasn’t sure. At that point at breakfast I decided sort of that when I got to Kimba I’d decide where I was going because between Kimba and Port Augusta there wasn’t much in the way of accommodation, so I’d need to decide then.

Ceduna was the next major stop I had at around lunch time and it was there that I had the quarantine check from South Australian quarantine. They asked for fresh fruit and vegetable, checked out my ute for both, I got orange dirt on my hands as I opened the still very dirty tailgate of my ute.
Reflecting on the Western Australia quarantine experience however, this seemed a somewhat more lacklustre investigation and questioning than my experience entering into Western Australia. There were also a few more roads you could take and more open areas leading to Ceduna than at the border crossing in Border Village.

The gigantic air con unit in my room in Port Augusta...only photo I took in the room.

In the end I obviously continued through Kimba and went on through to Port Augusta.
It was I admit quite a long drive and I had to stop and have a few power naps along the way.
It was the longest drive I’d done so far being almost 10 hours all up and just over 970 kilometres.

I got a room at the Highway One Motel in Port Augusta behind the Shell Petrol station on the way into Port Augusta. Not much to say about the room. There were some noisy British people who from the sound of their really loud discussion on the phone were on a road trip from Canberra or Sydney across to WA or the NT. Their kids were quite noisely playing outside my room in the late afternoon to evening. Which considering how far I’d back my ute up was amazing they’d not whacked their legs on the tow bar. But I think at this point I was just a little grumpy from the long drive.
The Highway One Motel does have free and pretty speedy wifi, which was nice to have.
I rested, though tried not to nap in the afternoon, ordered a pizza to my room as I just didn’t feel like going out even to the dining room at the motel, showered then fell into much needed sleep.