Walkers Rocks to Second Creek Beach

Just before the little coastal town of Elliston we noticed a road sign pointing out a touristic coastal drive. We decided to take the detour and quickly found out there are some very creative people living in this area as we came across some interesting sculptures along the way.

Elliston itself didn't appeal too much to us so we continued towards Coffin Bay. We contemplated on visiting Coffin Bay National Park but as we were flicking through some brochures we decided to skip it as it was all about white beaches, spectacular cliffs and beautiful ocean views. I guess we are getting to spoiled as we didn't feel the need to go check it out. After all we have seen so many of those lately!

As the ‘Tunarama Festival’ was going on in Port Lincoln this weekend we took the opportunity to check it out since we were in the area anyway. Port Lincoln itself didn't look like a very pretty town to us. All was very widespread. 

Port Lincoln is well known for Tuna farming and the famous ‘Tunarama Festival’ is celebrated yearly during the Australia Day long weekend. There were local food stalls (off course we had to try the tuna steak), a little market, a fair and the famous World Championship ‘Tuna Toss’. In this competition man and woman try to throw a 10 kilogram frozen tuna fish as far as possible. And we've seen from up close that is not any easy task!

In the afternoon we found a campsite near Tumby Bay called Second Creek Beach. We found a sheltered spot overlooking the tidal bay and enjoyed observing the bird-life. Beautiful and so peaceful.

Ceduna to Walkers Rocks campsite

From Ceduna we started exploring the Eyre Peninsula. We headed towards Streaky Bay. Our first impression of this part of South Australia was that it was once again vast and very dry. 

Around lunch time we arrived in Streaky Bay where we prepared some lunch at the esplanade. From there we walked into town. It’s a tiny, neat and quiet little town with a few lovely little shops which we visited.

From here we took a touristic road south but soon we found out it was an unsealed road for most of the drive and the road was pretty corrugated. We didn’t feel like a bumpy ride for more then 50 km so we turned back and took the main road.

That afternoon we visited a few point of interest along the way; some odd shaped rocks called ‘Murphy’s Haystacks’, and two caves carved out by the ocean, The Woolshed Cave was actually pretty cool.

In the late afternoon we arrived at Walkers Rocks campsite, a lovely basic camp spot in the dunes. The people next door had been our neighbours in Kalgoorlie as well. They had been catching crabs the day before and as they had heaps they gave us a whole box of crab legs which were absolutely delicious! Yum.

Norseman to Ceduna (Nullarbor)

In a country where they just don't do small the Nullarbor Plain manages to take it a step further. 

It’s often called the Nullar-boring, and as there isn’t much growing on this dried up ancient seabed, you can probably imagine why. The Nullarbor is officially the earth's largest piece of limestone. From Norseman we had a 1200 km drive ahead of us to Ceduna.

We weren’t really looking forward to the drive but hey, it had to be done. Along the way we had some toilet and fuel stops at the occasional roadhouse, we stopped at some lookouts and points of interests (the ruins of the old telegraph station for example). 

Ironically on the second day, exactly on the WA and SA border our car broke down. Of all places it had to happen here! We decided to call the RACV (wegenwacht). All was a bit confusing at first as we were on the border, so they had to figure out from which state they could get us some help. 

Then it turned out that their nearest mechanic was busy with another job 400 km away. 

They could offer us a tow service to a tiny 'town' (*read; roadhosue) about 250 km away, but although we had the expensive total care insurance, only 100 km towing would be paid for by the RACV. As there still wasn’t a mechanic in that town it wouldn’t help us either. In the end the RACV was very helpful and they really did their best to find a solution for us.

At some point they managed to find another local mechanic who suddenly turned up. He and Sander managed to find a solution to the problem and ‘fixed’ it together. After being stuck for half a day we could finally move on! Yay!

Without too much trouble we made it to Ceduna in the east. The Bunda Cliffs along the way were definitely the highlight of the drive, especially as we found a great spot to camp that second day. After a shitty day (because of the problems with our car) we watched an amazing sunset on top of a cliff. Spectacular!

I must say we were relieved to arrive in Ceduna in the late afternoon of the third day. The car didn’t have any further issues which we were very happy about. We found a lovely caravan park just out of town and enjoyed a refreshing shower and a beautiful sunset once again.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder to Norseman

Today we were planning to drive to Lake Ballard, an about 180 km drive north of Kalgoorlie to see some famous sculptures on a massive Salt Lake. Apparently it’s a fascinating sight and great photo opportunity around sunset and sunrise.

As it was going to be extremely hot today we decided to spend the morning in the local swimming pool which everybody was raving about. Indeed it was a great pool but unless you have children or you are there to swim laps we didn’t think it was that special. But at least it was cool and we had some time to kill anyway.

In the early afternoon we drove north towards the lake. We stopped at a parking spot just out of town to prepare some lunch and by then it was so unbelievable hot we decided to change our plans and skip the lake as Monique didn’t see the point of driving the almost 400 kilometers detour to see some sculptures at a salt lake.

So instead we drove south again via Coolgardie. Coolgardie had a few nice historical buildings but apart from that there was nothing to see or do.

Back in Norseman we had read about a nice spot to camp on a little hill overlooking yet another salt lake. Upon arrival we discovered it was indeed a very nice place with a lovely view. Unfortunately a big group of European bees had taken over the place and as soon as we opened our car they tried to invade our car. Things just don’t seem to work out as we want it to lately.

So once again we had to adjust our plans. On top of that we heard some weird sound coming from our right front wheel and as it was getting late we decided to check in at the local caravan park. Sander did a few checks on the wheel and in the end didn’t find anything strange. Pfew!

We hardly took any pictures today and the few we made aren’t worth sharing so you’ll have to do without today.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder

Kalgoorlie Boulder traces its origin to one of the most significant gold strikes in Australia. As we were interested in its history and also because Sander would like to have a try at prospecting with his new metal detector, we decided to stay in town for a couple of days.

Unfortunately we were very unlucky with the weather as it was going to be hot (42 to 45 degrees) all week. The prospecting day tour we wanted to do wasn’t operating as insurance wise they can’t take people out with temperatures above 35. Such a shame.

Nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves over the weekend in this dusty outback town. We visited the Super Pit lookout from where you can see Australia’s largest gold mine. We went on a free mine tour (which is offered every 3^rd Sunday of the month) that took us in the Pit to get a closer look from a few internal ‘lookouts’. It was very impressive to see as the Pit is just enormous! The pit is oblong in shape and is approximately 4,5 kilometer long, 1,5 kilometers wide and 600 metres deep (large enough to be seen from space). Apparently they still find 60 kilograms of gold every single day of the year. Ka-ching!

Beside the pit we visited the old (Boulder) and the new (Kalgoorlie) town center, the Sunday market, and the Western Australia Museum.

We also took the time to relax. I think we were having a bit of a travel 'burn out' and we were just a bit over it. I guess the last couple of weeks were slightly disappointing in comparison to the rest of the trip, mainly because of the weather, the big crowds and things not going like we hoped/planned. So we spend some time reading, cooling off in the pool, doing some shopping, and slowly wrapping our head around the idea that we have to get back to Melbourne soon-ish… back to reality.