Kalgoorlie to Eucla, Western Australia
Today was a looong driving day of some 940 kilometers (585 miles) from the Goldfields town of Kalgoorlie to the Western Australia - South Australia border. There wasn't much to see along the way, though the scenery was more varied than we thought. I'd always read that the highway along the Nullarbor was a big nothing--just miles and miles of highway and empty plain.
We stopped briefly in Norseman at the beginning of the Eyre Highway for fuel and a fridge magnet, then pulled onto the highway for the long haul east. It's a good two days driving to Port Augusta, some 1600 kilometers away. And we had traveled all of 800 meters before Chris slammed on the brakes to dodge an emu leisurely crossing the road. Chris played chicken with it, before it finally realized something was coming and it took off into the bush. We don't want to hit an emu--unlike kangaroos, which tend to bounce to the sides off the front of the car, emus snap at the legs and their substantial bodies come through the windscreen. Blech.
The scenery for the first couple hundred kms to Balladonia Roadhouse was pleasant--tall salmon gums, with gimlet gums and scattered dry lakebeds. From there on east, though, I drove--Chris insisted I drive along the Ninety Mile Straight, the longest stretch of straight road in the country. It was OK for a bit, but the trees gradually thinned out and soon the landscape was a sparse plain with scattered scrub, made bleaker by the silvery overcast skies.
Once we got off the Ninety Mile Straight, though, things looked a bit better, then surprisingly we hit Madura Pass. I had thought the road was all flat and level, but it wasn't: at Madura, the road went down a substantial breakaway cliff face, and descended maybe 75 meters in elevation to a flat level plain. To the right of the highway was the ocean, some three or four kilometers way, behind some sand dunes. To the left of the highway were these cliffs, with a strip of eucalyptus along their base. I suppose this cliff face was a remnant terrace from when sea level was higher--maybe even as old as the Eocene, 30 million years ago, when the ocean was some 100 meters higher than it is today. Thirty million years is recent for the old landscapes of Australia.
We followed the highway along the base of those cliffs, wondering when they'd stop, and the cliffs just kept going and going... 30, 40, 50 kilometers, until we just fatigued and realized that cliff would go on indefinitely. The cliffs did stop, 180 kilometers (112 miles) later--at Eucla, our stop for the night, where the highway climbed up on top of those cliffs. The cliffs veered off to the southeast, coming very close to the ocean, then appeared to crash into the ocean. We realized that these were the same cliffs that make up the Great Australian Bight, where Australia's just comes to a sudden stop. And we both were surprised that in Western Australia, the edge of the continent is much softer--a beach and some sand dunes.
There's two things that intrigued us about Eucla. The first was the old Telegraph Station, which is now being swallowed up by sand dunes. We visited it, some 4km south of the motel. It wasn't pleasant--the sand was blowing off the dunes, getting in our hair and eyes. Blech!
The other thing that's odd about Eucla is its time zone. It's in Central West time, a zone halfway between Perth and Adelaide, and one of the most peculiar time zones in the world, not to mention that it's probably one of the least populated as well. The time in Eucla is 45 minutes ahead of Perth, and 45 minutes ahead of Adelaide, unless South Australia is on daylight savings time, in which case it's 1 hour 45 minutes ahead of Adelaide. Needless to say, it's a painful time zone, so we changed a few clocks, and kept our watches on Perth time so we could figure out the TV schedule in the motel room. Surprisingly there were three TV channels--the ABC, GWN (a Seven clone), and WIN (a Nine/Ten mix). It kept us entertained, until we called it an early night at 8:00pm (Perth Time). Or 7:15pm Central West time. I think.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
Dead kangaroos. Many many dead kangaroos. It was a gray, cloudy day, with intermittent showers. And we discovered that kangaroos love to lick rainwater off the middle of roadway, whether or not there's oncoming traffic.
Where we stayed
- Eucla Motel, Eucla
- $82 - twin motel room
- Surprisingly good given the location - in the middle of nowhere. Definitely felt like going back in time, though.