Penong to Eucla, crossing the border

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We started early this am, not because we had a huge day of driving planned but just because we are just getting better at this packing up and moving on

  

We travelled slowly always conscious that our native animals like to move around early in the mornings, 

 

The Nullabour road is indeed long and straight, it does occasionally go up a bit but not much.

The downside to travelling with a van in tow is finding a space to stop easily , sadly we missed the Nullabour plains sign , by the time i noticed it , there was nowhere safe to stop and definitely no where to turn around , and my camera wasn’t ready so i have a photo in my head and that will have to be all i have.

We stopped at the “Head of the Bight whale watching centre”, sadly no whales for us  today

 it is the very  beginning of the season and not many are on the move yet , however we had heard on the radio that four have been spotted in the past few days

Not to fuss though the views are spectacular 

We stopped about 40 mins before the border, eating the largest tomato sandwich ever in an effort to not have to throw out good vegetables, as we reached the border we pulled into the quarantine station and they searched both Ruby and Reggie pretty thoroughly, we were fortunately very well prepared and had not purchased to much fresh fruit and vegetables and had discarded our honey 🍯☹️ in Penong.

We stopped at several of the the amazing Bunda cliffs view stops , this one was by far my favourite 

Just the most amazing view , truely our land is just so stunning.

We arrived at our end point Eucla this afternoon 

We headed down to the ruins of the old telegraph station postmasters residence to have a look.

The above ruin is all that remains of the original 1800s settlement of Eucla.

Initially settled in 1877 as a major telegraph station between Perth and Adelaide

The home originally consisted of eight rooms , the building created by hand hewn limestone was obviously solidly build with arch ways and keystones still remaining in place. With what appeared to be large windows now filled by sand.

In the late 1800s a rabbit plague completely stripped the surrounding sand dunes , destabilising them with the result being that large drifts of sand started encroaching on the town.

In 1927 the telegraph station was abandoned totally and the town of Eucla relocated 4 kms inland on higher ground.


It was wonderful to see the old home , sadly the majority of it is heavily graffitied with people carving their names into the limestone and in other areas painting on the building. 

Another wonderful day on the road 

Until the next blog 

Travel safe 

The Touring Knights




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