Wednesday 15 November 2023

Day five................Monday November 13th

 This was our campsite at Mundrabilla and you can see the 'view' we had from the van. There had been some rain overnight, but nothing during the day. We were a bit confused about the 'real' time after crossing the border. WA is normally 2 1/2 hours behind SA time, so we had changed our phones and the clock in the van. But apparently there is a separate time zone for those close to the border, and we should have changed 45 minutes. We left that morning at SA time of just after 10am, but our clocks time of about 7.30am, but should have been somewhere in between.


We were headed to Madura, which was another roadhouse and little else. There had been a range all the way along the highway since the border, and I am not sure what it's called. At Madura the highway climbed up over this range, called the Madura Pass. At the top is a lookout where we stopped for a view.

                                     

We had a driver change at the lookout, and I took over for awhile. I have done a little bit of the driving, and am starting to get used to towing a van although not very fast, so I would be one of those painful caravan drivers that slows down the other traffic.
 We travelled through Cocklebiddy and onto Caiguna where we refuelled and had lunch. Barry took to the driver seat from here.

Not too sure why Caiguna is the 'hub of the universe" ????

                                           

                                                           Just out of Caiguna there was this sign..........

                                   


I have to say that the roads are fantastic and perhaps the highway between Adelaide and Melbourne could do with some drastic improvement. The traffic was mostly trucks, road trains and many cars and caravans.

We also bypassed Balladonia, another roadhouse and little else. The country was still saltbush and few trees. As we approached Norseman the country was mainly taller trees as far as the eye could see. I had expected the vegetation across the Nullabor to be sparse but was very surprised to find out how much natural bush there was in WA.  Still there was little sign of habitation or farming life. And there were many signs warning of stock on the road and we observed many dead roos, but thankfully did not see any cattle, camels or emus on the road.

There was another driver change and I continued in the driver seat until we arrived at Norseman and booked into the Gateway Caravan Park. We had travelled 644 km for the day, and had totalled 2,315 km since we left home.


Blessings, From Jude




1 comment:

Janice said...

That was a big day. We were also surprised at how much vegetation there is across The Nullarbor. Apparently the road skirts across the bottom and the train line goes through more of it. You’re a better person than me. I don’t do any of the driving. Funnily enough, we haven’t camped at either of those places, but have camped (or motelled it when stinking hot on the bike) at Cocklebiddy, Madura and Balladonia.