Western Australia

WA road trip 2015 - Conclusion

November 11, 2015 in Travel

One of the things I’ve been saying to people who’ve asked me about this trip is the insight it’s given me into West Australians. The psychology of them, as a population compared to the eastern states, the sense of isolation.

It’s a very long way from Victoria to Western Australia.
It’s not something you can do on impulse.
You can for Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and even Brisbane or Tasmania. There’s no huge expanses (fine there’s water for Tasmania but on the ferry it’s not you driving), there’s no areas of nothing. Or the special sort of nothing that the Eyre Highway is.

South Australian farmland–one side of the road

The other thing people have mentioned, which I said in my introduction is why I didn’t visit X or Y. I never intended to, and looking back on this trip, I’m glad I focused on what I did.

South Australian farmland–other side of the road

It’s been similarly with my other road trips, I’ve gone on them to go to one particular thing, to see a particular place and to drive the gaps in between. Then I’ll return in the future and see other things, once I’m familiar with the passage to each of the capital cities then I can expand and go further out from that.
The only city I’ve been back to more than once is Canberra, and enjoyed it each time.

Having done my road trip to Western Australia I fully intend to return, by road again. I massively enjoyed the trip over there. The isolation, the desert, the remoteness.

If there was one black spot on the whole journey it was Border Village.
But there’s always one bad spot anywhere when you’re travelling, at least it was on the way back and didn’t leave too much of a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve learnt from the experience and know to steer clear of it. It also doubly makes me mistrust anything said on TripAdvisor.

I did use TripAdvisor here and there when planning this trip (and for the most part completely ignored the reviews on that site, usually to my benefit), one thing reviewers seemed to bang on about is water pressure at locations along the Nullarbor. Which is an odd thing for reviewers to fixate on.
I didn’t notice any problems with water pressure at all the places I stayed at; Poochera, Mundrabilla, Border Village. They all had perfectly fine water pressure.
There could be a few ‘howevers’ attached to my experience and other people’s judgments. I shower at night, and because I liked to get an early night’s sleep I was showering early in the evening, so there’d probably not be a lot of people taxing the water system, be it pumps or mains pressure.

Welcome to the Great Western Woodlands sign at McDermid Rock.

Something interesting I found upon returning was people’s ideas of the Eyre Highway / the Nullarbor’s sense of “isolation”. People seem to think that it’s a remote, isolated location. It’s not.
Not really.
There are roadhouses spaced apart every not even 200 kilometres apart.
There is a surprising amount of mobile phone reception.
At all the roadhouses and probably 100 kilometres in likely a circle (as that’s generally how phone reception works across a relatively flat surface) around them. There were times when I got a call and could see as I was driving (on my ute’s centre console display) my reception bars drop off as I drove. But still held reception for a long time, and not just reception, 3G data at a relatively good speed, most of the time.

There are rest stops that have shade, places to camp and at several of them water.
If you broke down somewhere on the Eyre Highway and were without phone reception the highway is busy enough that you would be able to find yourself out of trouble.
I think unless you deliberately wandered away from your vehicle and away from the highway it would be quite difficult for you not to be rescued from a problematic situation on the Eyre highway.

McDermid Rock, it had a small dam on it.

It’s remote in the sense that it’s isolated from any sort of sizeable population. Due to the fact the original towns are along the train line and the Eyre Highway’s current alignment follow different paths it means that there are none of the more common town–pub–petrol station sort of arrangements after Ceduna. After that it’s just roadhouses (with the exception of Ecula just west of Border Village). So that can give the sense of isolation because you’re not encountering anyone that forms a ‘population’ beyond those working at roadhouses, everyone’s transient.

Of the people I did interact with, albeit mostly at the roadhouses and petrol stations throughout my journey, and the occasional people at lookout points, I found them all to be friendly.

My overriding adjective for this road trip was ‘awe’. Awe inspiring and awesome (in its traditional definition). I was amazed and awed by the landscape I saw, that I drove through. I enjoyed every daylight moment of it.

View from on top of Wave Rock with Hyden Dam on left.

It’s also the most unique trip, across a sealed road that anyone can take. If you’ve got a spare week or so.
It can be done one way in about 4 days.
It’s enlightening, amazing and insightful.
It’s not something you can do on impulse and it does require a little bit of planning.
But it’s a journey that was fantastic and awesome and one that I will repeat sometime soon.

What this road trip cemented in my mind is that I want to continue to explore Australia.
By road and at ground level. That we have a fantastic and amazing landscape that should be seen. As I have mentioned and probably will continue to say, the destination is only a part of the exploration. I think it’s the wrong part to focus on. The destination is like the origin, they’re things to aim for and return to, I don’t see them as the goal of a journey.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 8 - Border Village

November 04, 2015 in Travel

I woke rested from a good night’s sleep in what appeared to be, judging by the state of the motel room next door, recently renovated motel room. The night’s stay had cost me $147, which, seemed pricey, though as I would discover I would soon get a lot less for not much less than $147.

Going back along the Eyre Freeway it remains my favourite part of the journey across the Nullarbor.

The range of landscapes from the lakes that are around Norseman through the hilly and bush-filled landscape and the onto the Eyre Highway and properly off along the Nullarbor.

The Madura Pass was still surprising, even though I knew it was there and had driven along it. It’s still surprising given the landscape around it.

I can’t really say much about this day’s drive without repeating myself from the previous blog. I’m also cheating with this first photo, which is actually from my westward journey at the Madura Pass, though one of many I didn’t use in the other blog.

What I can say however has to do with my evening’s accommodation and stop for the night.

Border Village.
I didn’t stay at Mundrabilla because the distance from Norseman to that was somewhat too short, so I’d decided to push on to Border Village. I came to wish I’d pushed on further...

The price for a room at the Border Village motel was $120.
Plus a $10 room key deposit. Which you got back when you gave the key back.
For reference and reminder my room at Mundrabilla was $95 and didn’t have any sort of room key deposit.

Once I had paid and got into the room I was left wishing I had continued up the road to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. It however was 2 hours up the road and by the time I had gotten into the room and thought about it, it was already approaching twilight and therefore, for me, with my rules of ‘try not to hit a kangaroo’ too late to be driving again.

On my last road trip, also on the way back it was Morgan that gave me a bad night’s sleep. But that was down to the locals and a few other issues I had.

With Border Village it was solely down to the price and condition of the room.

Border Village and Mundrabilla share several things, they’re both isolated roadhouses, they both have diesel generators going all of the time and they both are attached to petrol stations.

Border Village is larger, it’s right next to the Western Australia / South Australia border.

Said border is notable in that while you get met by a border patrol person going into Western Australia you have to wait until you get to Ceduna in South Australia to go through a similar process for entry into South Australia, despite actually crossing the border here at Border Village.

Border Village has much more of an air of it being run by a large business / corporation, just everything seemed a little too...I’m not sure. Not exactly prescribed, but there was just an odd sense in the bar and building.
Maybe it was that you couldn’t get a pub meal at any time unlike Mundrabilla. Maybe it was that (at least the information booklet in the room) seemed to suggest they were stuck on the Eucla timezone and that’s when meals were severed from 6 pm Eucla time till...I can’t remember, probably 9 or 8:30 pm.

Border Village motel, other side of room.

I wasn’t expecting much of the room.

But by this point I did have something to frame my expectations against. Mundrabilla, which is in a similar location and situation. Its room was clean and simple (ignoring the bathroom ceiling, which was easy enough to do).
The rooms at Mundrabilla looked like they’d been there since the 60s, but at least they had the look and feel of actually being built there and they were clean and well kept.

Border Village’s motel rooms were quite clearly portable buildings that had been cut in half to form motel units.

The ‘carpet’ in the room was I think damp and very dirty.

The walls were very thin, I could hear the neighbour’s TV quite loudly through the wall.

The bed was also very wobbly and the castors on it made it very easy to move. This was something of a positive as I was able to rotate the bed around so it was essentially in the middle of the room with the top of the bed against the desk at the back of the room and away from the paper-thin walls.

Inside the bathroom there were signs informing you that Border Village was on a limited water supply. This wasn’t stated at Mundrabilla, but it was stated here in Border Village.
The water pressure was fine (in fact it had been fine everywhere I stayed), I only mention this now because there seems to be a lot of people banging on about water pressure on sites like TripAdvisor.

I slept badly at Border Village, just the state of the room and especially the price vs the state of the room made for a bad night’s sleep.
The following day I left very early, eager to be away from Border Village. The night’s sleep, and in fact the whole experience there left me feeling unclean and just an unpleasant taste in my mouth.

There are no positives about staying at Border Village, it’s expensive, unpleasant and has the feel of a big corporation running it. On any future trips I will avoid it and stay at Mundrabilla on the way over to Western Australia and then at the Nullarbor Roadhouse on the way back, something I sorely wish I had done this road trip.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 7 - Wave Rock and Norseman

November 03, 2015 in Travel

Today was a day filled with many different vistas.

My aim was to stay the night at Norseman, but had planned on other locations to stay at, if need be.

My primary destination for today was Wave Rock located in Hyden and on the way to no where.
It’s also a tourist destination that isn’t near anything else, you have to make a choice to decide to visit it.

The drive from Kalamunda to Hyden was interesting, coming back down from the Perth hills down through the dryer farm land than what I experienced on the coastal road up from Esperance was interesting.

Upon arriving at Wave Rock the first thing you need to do is buy a parking ticket. Which didn’t surprise me, I’d already read up on it. So I knew it was $10. Which isn’t really for parking, it’s essentially your parking and entry and for the upkeep of the site and all those sorts of things. I did find it a little surprising that the ticket machine only accepted coins. That’s a lot of change to be carrying around. While I had come knowing that I’d need to pay the $10 parking I didn’t, despite my best efforts have the change for the parking.
There is a kiosk on site (it’s actually attached to the caravan park next door) where you can pay for the parking ticket.
Across the road there’s a café which looked surprisingly busy, so much so I didn’t even both trying to park and instead got on with what I’d come there to see, Wave Rock itself.
There were I noticed no people around ensuring you paid for parking, and I witnessed many people arrive and not pay. I did not pursue this path, I paid my parking.

My relatives in Kalamunda had warned me that it was underwhelming.
In fact several people who I told that I was going to Wave Rock warned me of this.

I found it breathtaking.
That might have been just the walk up to the top.
The actual ‘wave’ of Wave Rock is viewable from only a few different points, which might lead some people to thinking that it doesn’t rise above its ‘postcard’ status.

I found it amazing, not just the wave, which is fantastical to look at, it looks almost constructed it’s such an unnatural, yet natural sight.
On top of the rock is even more fascinating, it being the tallest natural structure for hundreds of kilometres it’s a mini ecosystem on top of the rock, with shrubs, small trees and wildlife all living up there.

Once up on Wave Rock you can follow various paths around it to explore and to walk back down. To get off the rock there’s three different choices, there’s the pathway taken to get into the rock, which is a metal staircase built next to the dam that was built against park of Wave Rock in the 1930s for the nearby town’s water supplies.
There’s ‘the long way’ around which is about 1.5 kilometres if you explore the way off parts ofthe top of Wave Rock and there’s the ‘short way’. This is the path I decided to choose. Though not without some trepidation.
The path it suggests is extremely steep and there is no clear way down, except for a sign informing you to be careful of the steepness of the path.
I just started walking and it looked dangerous from my point of view, it’s steep and there doesn’t appear to be anyway down until you start walking. Even then it’s more a case of ’feeling your way through’ than actually having a clear path down. I started walking in a straight line and then decided to walk on a diagonal. But as I began a path sort of suggested itself, simply by way of which way it was easiest to walk along.

I had heard, while I was up on the rock from some people I met up there, who were amazingly also from Victoria, the first people associated with my home state I’d seen since driving across, having seen no Victorian number plates on the drive over. They informed me that you can actually drive along to the Hippo’s Yawn rock formation. Rather than walk the 1.5 kilometre track to get there.

So, that’s what I did, as while walking sounded...okay, the weather was flitting between looking like it was going to rain, actually raining and being sunny. I also had other things to do that day.

The Hippo’s Yawn is impressive, not as impressive as Wave Rock, but the Hippo’s Yawn is a different sort of impressive, a testament to the slow crawl of time, and how that crawl slowly eats away at the vast and the minute.
I think it looks like a vast monster getting ready to devour the landscape.
The ‘Hippo’s Yawn’ is a nice, tourist name for it.
But I think it’s more like a bunyip, slowly roaring at us and the world, getting ready to be swept away by water or ready to terrify us for gazing upon it for too long.

Departing Wave Rock I headed pretty much directly east.
There are, when you look at the map, it would seem two ways to get to Norseman from Wave Rock.
Head back the way you came through Hyden and then go up north-ish eventually going through Coolgardie and then south towards Norseman. Or you head back the way you came and then head towards Ravensthorpe and Esperance, then north up towards Norseman.

I had decided to do neither of these things as there is a third option, which is less prominent on the map.
That is to take Hyden-Norseman Road.
From looking at various maps, Google Earth and Google Street View it would appear to be an unsealed road that connects Hyden and Norseman.

What I discovered was it was in fact a semi-seleaed road, but a remarkably smooth one with sections of unsealed road.

Hyden-Norseman Road goes directly past one mine site, and it is up to that point that the road is semi-sealed for a lot of it.
For at least the first 50-70 kilometres it’s a sealed road. From then on it’s a ‘country sealed road’ in that there’s a single lane-ish of sealed road, sort of running along the middle with the shoulder on both sides unsealed. So if you’re the only one of the road; drive in the middle, when there’s someone coming you lean over to the left, the other people likewise do the same.
With the trucks that I encountered I pulled all the way over onto the shoulder to allow them to pass fully on the sealed section.

Dark clouds on the horizon of Hyden-Norseman Road.

Along the length of the road, after I passed onto the unsealed road proper I saw one car, a four wheel drive Nissan which I was behind for a while. I stopped once or twice to take some photos and to put some distance between me and them.
However, at some point I caught up with them, and overtook them. It was only when I looked behind me I noticed that they, after several kilometres of following me decided to do a U-turn.
This I couldn’t fathom as by this point we were some distance from anything, the last turn off had to have been at least 30 kilometres back the way we’d come. I was curious why they’d decided to do a U-turn, it’s not as though you could accidentally get onto the road.

The way onto it was either going through Hyden or, when following the road away from Wave Rock you came to a sign that says ‘Lake King’ and ‘Hyden’, the T-intersection doesn’t actually indicate that you can use the road to get to Norseman. Aside from a small ‘street sign’ that says ‘Norseman Rd’. But there’s no big white text on green sign-sign to indicate this.

So from that point on I was alone on Hyden-Norseman Road, and it was actually quite pleasant.
There’d been a little bit of rain that day so the surface was pretty smooth and lacking any dust, which meant I could maintain a constant speed without any issues.

However at one point as I was driving along, during which it had been a quite nice day I did spy some dark clouds on the horizon. The horizon towards which I was driving.
Eventually I did hit some inclement weather.
This did make things a little bit muddy, but nothing amazingly so.
Although by the end of the day my ute was more orange than it was black as a result of the slightly muddy conditions I drove along.

About three quarters along Hyden-Norseman Road I had a destination in mind.
McDermid Rock, another ‘it’s the tallest natural structure for kilometres in every direction’ thing.
This, like the rest of the road was deserted. The drive into this site was the only point that day that I encountered any corrugations.

McDermid Rock is bracing and surprising. It’s also rather amazing. It may have been because I was the only person on the rock and really knew I was the only person within at least 25 kilometres. It was a brilliant overcast-ish day that meant I could see all around me. It was also quite windy and cold, yet glarey with spots of sunshine. It was a very ‘all the seasons in one day’ sort of day that I experienced that day.

Congratulations sign on the top of McDermid Rock.

The small patches of vegetation on McDermid Rock was even more surprising than Wave Rock. On Wave Rock they were small ecosystems-worth of vegetation living on that rock. But there were also boulders and the layout of the Wave Rock meant there was some shelter.
On McDermid Rock it was much more exposed, yet there was still some vegetation, some small bits of an ecosystem. Water pools, stuff falls in, rots, becomes some basis for soil, things grow. It’s all quite amazing.

Unlike Wave Rock which is quite a steep ascent and decent McDermid Rock is quite gentle and once you get to the top the view is as rewarding, perhaps even more rewarding than Wave Rock because of the isolation. At Wave Rock you look around and see the caravan park, the dam, some signs of civilisation. But here at McDermid Rock there’s really nothing.
Perhaps it was because I was the only one there, alone with the view all around me, but it felt like a very unique experience.

From McDermid Rock was a relatively short and easy 100 or so kilometres to Norseman. As I approached Norseman the unsealed nature of the road gave way in fits and bursts to sealed road. In parts it seemed to have been a choice for safety; a long sweeping curve had been sealed but the straighter road on either side of it hadn’t. Then as I slowly got closer to the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway it became a sealed road.
I would assume that there’s a mine somewhere off of the road but there wasn’t one that I noticed along the sealed section of the road.

Outcome of Hyden-Norseman Road being a little wet.

In Norseman I considered staying at the Norseman Railway Hotel, which had been my initial choice when I’d come through Norseman. But I was rather tired and didn’t want to have to tangle with a shared bathroom situation or a ‘dog friendly’ motel situation (which the Railway Hotel seemed noted for). So I just went with the Norseman Eyre Motel, the motel behind the BP petrol station on the corner of the Eyre Highway’s end.

Carefully avoiding the sides of my ute which was now quite covered in an orange mud I parked, had a meal and headed to bed.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 6 - Kalamunda

November 02, 2015 in Travel

One question I was asked when I was doing this road trip was why I didn’t stay longer than a day in each of my stops, and the thing is that I just didn’t know what to do with my time. This trip I had a goal in mind and that’s what I wanted to do, to journey across and see the things in between.

So I didn’t feel like I wanted to remain in Mount Barker for longer than a day. In retrospect, perhaps I should have, but I wanted to explore the road and the journey in between this first time.

Today I ventured the relatively short distance of 355 kilometres.

Today was a day I made my way through forests and encountered traffic for the first time in several days.

But first it poured down with rain.

So much so I had to pull off the road.
I can cope with driving in rain, and any other situation more or less. But I also know my limits and when I can see less than a metre in front of my car and the speed limit is 110 and there are vehicles nearby I know what I want to do and that’s get out of the situation and let the rain pass.

It did give me a moment, in fact several moments as I needed to pull off their road (into rest areas, I wasn’t just pulling off the road randomly) it gave me moments of pause to take in the forest that I was driving through.

Today was also the day I encountered traffic for the first time since really my first day when I drove through Melbourne, as I’d bypassed Adelaide on the way through.
What surprised me about Perth’s highway system is the amount of traffic lights on them, or rather the freeways that suddenly become highways with traffic lights on them. I would presume it’s just a case of unexpected traffic and population growth.
There were also a surprising, though not unexpected amount of trucks on the road network near Perth.

Today I also took absolutely no photos.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 5 - Mount Barker

November 02, 2015 in Travel

Today I left moderately early, though my journey wasn’t to be that far. Salmon Gums to Mount Barker, via Esperance and the Stirling Ranges.

It was something of a change and return of scenery driving south towards Esperance, the desert landscape gave way to farm land, fields and fields of green or the brilliant yellow of canola.

Arriving in Esperance it was somewhat of an odd experience, driving through the town I found nothing much to be open, it only dawned on me why, as I looked around that I remembered what day it was; Sunday. Sunday in Western Australia, it’s like going back to the dark old days when you couldn’t do anything on a Sunday.

I’d skipped my room-provided breakfast in Salmon Gums as the cereal boxes indicated they were past their best before date and based on that I had my doubts about the rest of the food in the room (actually the bread in the fridge), so had decided to wait till I got to Esperance.
In the end I ended up at Maccas having driven through Esperance and gotten slightly detoured because half of the main street was blocked off due to road works there.

Leaving Esperance I was heading for Ravensthorpe. The route this road took was rather amazing, the contrast in landscape that went from sandy desert to almost coastal and then farmland next to it, and everywhere the brilliant bright yellow of the canola, I just found it wonderfully contrasting.
If I had any ability to paint, it would have inspired me to paint huge works of art.

As I approached Ravensthorpe the native wildflowers began to appear more readily on the roadside, the most noticeable was a brilliant purple flower. Along the way I went to the lookout at Mount Desmond. It was somewhat unremarkable.
There was a plaque there to C.C. (Tom) Daw.
But interesting for its view around the area.

I had elected not to take the most direct route on my way to Mount Barker, my destination for that night, and instead head via the “alternate route”, the tourist drive through the Stirling Ranges.

I am very glad I did.
The Stirling Ranges are, and this is a word I think I used too much because everyone in Western Australia seemed to think I was easily awed. And that is inspiring awe / awesome.
The Stirling Ranges loom as mountains over the countryside.
Their magnificence is further enhanced by the farmland around it, almost illuminated by the luxurious luminescence that is canola in bloom.
It makes for a quite otherworldly sight; mountains, which were the highest natural landmark I had seen for days surrounded by a brilliant yellow sea.
I got chills down my back upon seeing this sight of magnificence.

Travelling through the Stirling Ranges surprised me by how much the landscape changes, through rolling hills to dry arid landscape. Yes, all these things, these changes in landscape and environment exist within Victoria, but they’re 100s of kilometres apart.
Travelling towards, through and out the other side of the Stirling Ranges it felt like it was a voyage through different environments and landscapes.

It’s somewhere I fully intend to return to and explore more thoroughly in the fullness of time upon my return to Western Australia.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 4 - Salmon Gums

November 01, 2015 in Travel

I awoke today feeling quite rested, and even though the noise of the diesel generators in the background is...it’s not really noticeable in the same way that you would notice other noise, it’s just...it’s background noise. The noise of the generators I find preferable to intermittent road noise, because of its intermittent nature you can’t frame it into the background.

I ate breakfast at the roadhouse and I didn’t fill up with diesel as I had a bit over half a tank. This was a minor mistake as when I did fill up at Madura Pass it was significantly more expensive than Mundrabilla.

The journey from Mundrabilla to Norseman was my favourite stretch of road on this road trip, in both directions.

This stretch of road, just under 650 kilometres and taking around 6 hours 30 minutes was surprising, it was fascinating and I enjoyed it immensely.

It’s I feel, more isolated than the first part of the journey because the Eyre Highway drifts away from the coast so there’s less tourist ‘take photo here’ stop off points.

There are surprises, the Madura Pass surprised me because what I wasn’t expecting crossing the Nullarbor were many elevation changes. So much so there were signs warning trucks to use low gear and overtaking sections long this part of the road.

This part of the road also includes the 90 Mile Straight or the 145.6 kilometre straight, which is a slightly less epic name for it.
You don’t really consider what this means, it’s an interesting factoid for the Eyre Highway, but in reality 145 kilometres at 110 kilometres an hour is still going to be an hour plus of driving straight with nothing ahead of behind you.

What I didn’t notice as I was driving was the curvature of the Earth, which you’re supposed to be able to see. It was sunny and once you start to look into the distance you get the shimmering mirage sort of effect.

But it is wonderful, in its own way, I had to pull over about half way along the 90 Mile Straight to have a piss. Yes, not very romantic and it wasn’t at a rest stop somewhere it was just behind a tree. But the ability to look both ways and see nothing but straight road and hear and see nothing is quite amazing.

I had originally intended to stay in Norseman for the night before heading onto my relatives, however upon ringing up the Norseman Railway Hotel Motel, which is a fabulous looking 1920s Deco-era hotel I found out they were hosting a “retreat” and were booked out. So instead I decided to go down the road to Salmon Gums, around an hour south from Norseman.

Approaching Norseman after crossing the Nullarbor and the Eyre Highway isn’t so much a ‘welcome back to civilisation’ moment.
It’s somewhat odd, there’s lakes near Norseman and the highway weaves itself around them as you approach the town, you cross train tracks and go past a roadhouse before you enter the town.

I continued south through Norseman for Salmon Gums, not wishing to stop in Norseman for anything.

Salmon Gums consisted of a petrol station on the road and then further into the town a pub, post office and a few farm equipment businesses.

There was very little on the outside to indicate that the pub was open, though the design of country pubs like this, if the door isn’t open it’s often hard to tell if it’s open or closed, the windows are often fairly dirty / dark and if there isn’t a sign outside you just walk up and try the door.

I was moderately surprised by the accommodation at the Salmon Gums Hotel. I had actually booked, but upon arrival decided to change my booking to one of their motel units, rather than the hotel room (which would have had shared bathrooms). After the long day I just felt like a long hot shower and some space to spread out. Also the vibe there was...odd.
Not quite enough to make me want to leave, but I was on a moderate edge.

The room was fine, better than fine in fact, it looked like it had been recently renovated, the same could not be said for the parking area, which I did wonder what happened if they had more than 5 people with cars staying.

The room had an ensuite, double bed, fridge, toaster and kettle, plus cereal, milk and bread in the fridge. What it was lacking was a TV which considering its renovated state was somewhat surprising, but with good 3G I had YouTube for entertainment.

I discovered the following morning that the cereal was past its best before date. Based on this I wasn’t game enough to try the bread that was residing in the fridge.

Even though I found I’d arrived a little early, the drive from Mundrabilla being about 7 and a half hours. I used the time to check emails and other technology-based stuff as I found delightfully I finally had 3G at a decent speed.

Sole patron (aside from me) in the bar. Remains of edible meal in foreground.

The meal I had that night wasn’t stellar. It was edible. Steak.
The pub was somewhat odd, there was one other person in the pub, although it was early, 6 pm. Though someone else rang to pick up some food, for her kids, it seems the pub functions as the local fish and chip-esque shop for the area as well.
The woman who came in to pick up said food remarked “I haven’t been in here for ages”.
It was...cosy enough in the pub, roaring open fire, updated stools.
I felt somewhat out of place, not just because I was the only other patron of the pub, but because they, the publicans and the other patron were enthused about the AFL on the TV. Which I have very little interest in, and my remark “I’m not much into any sportsball” wasn’t received with the jest I thought it would. So upon finishing my steak I left them to their TV and beers.

That night I fell asleep to the noise of rain on the metal roof, it was probably as noisy as the diesel generators at Mundrabilla had been. It was interestingly not the first time I’d encountered rain during my trip, having experienced rain intermittently that day across the Nullarbor.

WA road trip 2015 - Day 3 - Mundrabilla

October 28, 2015 in Travel

Poochera Hotel breakfast and dining room

As I mentioned in the last paragraph of my last post my accommodation did include a continental breakfast of which I didn’t indulge. I wasn’t feeling immediately hungry when I awoke and felt like I could get a larger heartier breakfast further along the road in Ceduna.

Leaving Poochera it was basically a case of turn right and continue, there wouldn’t really be any more complicated directions until I got much deeper into Western Australia.

Ceduna was quickly reached in about an hour and a half, it was at the Mobil petrol station on the outskirts of Ceduna that I filled my ute up with diesel and myself up with a big cooked breakfast. This had become my standard thing, to have a large breakfast, have just a muesli bar or something like it for lunch and then dinner.
I found on my last few road trips that eating a small breakfast and then lunch and dinner just made me feel a bit bloated and fat. At least with a big breakfast early on in the day then in the middle of the day if I want to stop and have a walk around I can and not be beholden to finding somewhere for lunch or something.
Also as often a roadhouse will be the only option I prefer a breakfast menu to a lunch menu for its range of options.

It was today that I actually stopped and did the touristy thing of stopping, taking photos and looking at stuff. Mostly the sea and the Great Australian Bite.

Classic beauty shot of the Great Australian Bite.

It is amazing to look at the jagged coast line of Australia, something that you can only see by driving out to it. Or maybe flying to it by small aircraft of helicopter.
But it’s far from everything and when you get out there it’s amazing to look at.

I stopped at two of the photo opportunity / lookout spots along the way to look and take photos and it was amazing.
At the second location I saw some whales.

At the first location the drop into the bite it sheer, you can see the jagged rough edge of the Australian coast line where there are cliffs that drop to the sea. At the second it LOOKED less sheer, it looked almost driveable.
Albeit in a 4x4.
But I don’t think it is, I think it just looks flatter because there looks to be paths, but I think you could still easily end up in the sea if you attempted to drive along these what seem like paths.

My accommodation for the night was something I hadn’t booked and was either going to be Border Village (a petrol station, roadhouse and motel), Eucla or Mundrabilla.

But first I had to get through Western Australia quarantine.
It’s not as stringent as Tasmania’s quarantine, which involves dogs.
But it’s still more extreme than the fruit fly bins anyone who’s driven interstate would be familiar with.

I was asked do I have any; fresh fruit and vegetables, honey and any hessian sacks that might have contains potatoes.
I also had to open up my glove box, centre console, back doors and tailgate. Plus my esky.
Satisfied I wasn’t carrying any of these things I was allowed into Western Australia.

I’d decided not to stay at Eucla, which from what I’d read was expensive for not very much and decided to continue onto Mundrabilla.
Also I’d lost 2 hours off the clock upon crossing into Western Australia.
Although Ecula does exist in its own weird timezone which doesn’t really help. It’s 45 minutes behind Western Australia, despite being in Western Australia.

It doesn’t help at all really, but as I discovered at Mundrabilla time doesn’t really matter either regarding food and what not, so time literally becomes something of an illusion.

Mundrabilla is a roadhouse. Supposedly it has the cheapest fuel on the Eyre highway. It is certainly (as I would discover later on my return trip) much more friendly than Border Village.

$95 for a room at Mundrabilla.
The room was fine.
There was a bathroom which was probably built in the 1960s. The outside of the accommodation had a look of a 1970s primary school.

Outside of Mundrabilla accommodation block

One very notable thing about Mundrabilla and indeed all the roadhouses along this stretch of the Eyre is that they’re not connected to anything. So power, water, those things we take for granted they need to generate themselves.
This wasn’t noted anywhere I could see at Mundrabilla, but having read about this prior to departing while researching my trip I know that the water is drawn up from (somewhat salty) bores and then desalinated via reverse osmosis. This requires power, as does everything else that you use in day to day life.
That power is generated using diesel generators.
They’re noisy.
You are not going to sit outside and enjoy the serenity of the night. Well, you can if you take some photos.
But not if you’re wanting to listen to the night or any other guff like that.

I didn’t have any issue with the diesel generators because they’re constant, it was noisy yes, but it’s a constant drone. I can deal with that.

There was an interesting menu range at the roadhouse, not just the standard fare of steak and chicken parma. There was pasta, curry, soup and I think even a salad.
I opted for steak, which was perfectly cooked and along with its chips also included a pretty good salad. Again kinda surprising since it was reasonably priced and Mundrabilla is about an hour west of the West Australian / South Australian border which means it’s not close to anything.

They also had fresh cake for sale.
I like cake and had been craving some cake for a day or two now, so that was a nice thing to see for sale.
Baked that day I was informed.
Everyone I encountered at Mundrabilla was very friendly in fact, it was oddly a highlight especially as I would come to find out on my return trip staying at Border Village which had been the other option for today’s accommodation.

There were very few problems with Mundrabilla. None that I found awful, but things I think people may rate it down for.
I looked at the ceiling in the bathroom in my room and there was...a degree of mould on the ceiling. I attributed that to the fact that the bathroom wasn’t vented. I looked for but couldn’t find an extractor fan switch.
That’s not really an issue, you use a bathroom to take ‘evacuate yourself’ and have a shower in. I left the bathroom door closed and didn’t really think about it.
Mobile phone reception isn’t amazing, but it depends. I got perfectly fine reception sitting in the roadhouse dining area, I checked Twitter, my email etc, but in my room which was number 10 and on the edge of the property the reception was poor to non-existent.
It wasn’t an issue for me, and really I hadn’t been expecting to get any phone reception, so to find that I could get 3G reception was a welcome surprise, even if it was only in parts of the room.
TV reception was snowy, at best. Again this was not something I was expecting to have at all, so it was nice to see I could watch a bit of the evening news, especially considering the patchy phone coverage in the room. But it wasn’t something I needed. I had with me my phone and a Seagate Wireless Plus drive which functions as my portable media server when I’m out and about.

Going to sleep the drone of the diesel generators didn’t keep me awake, I put a podcast on and set the timer; fell asleep and slept soundly until the next morning uninterrupted by the diesel generators or passing road trains.