Betten On Bike: DAY 87 - 5TH JULY 2013 - EUCLA

Day 87– 5th July 2013 - Eucla – Nullarbor Roadhouse

Up at 6.30ish and we both left within minutes of each other as today is another quite significant milestone – we say goodbye to Western Australia and cross the border into South Australia – the border crossing is a short 12 kms east of Eucla.

Cycling Stats: 198 kms

Cycling Average: 34.5 kms per hour

I met Walter at the border so that we could document the moment through a photo. Then it was on the road for another 50kms or so. I caught Paul, our Singaporean cyclist friend who had stayed at The Border Village Caravan Park last night and he was just about to head into one of the look-outs so we went in together and enjoyed the fantastic views of The Great Australian Bight. I stopped at the next look-out and here was the most dramatic and breathtaking view of the high limestone cliffs and the beautiful and magnificent wild Southern Ocean pounding at The Bight. One of those moments where I was brought very close to tears by the shock of seeing this sight and was so in awe of the raw beauty of it all !!!

I waited for Walter close to the entrance to the 3^rd look-out point to The Bight on The Eyre Highway and we had lunch and I went in to see the panoramic view of the rows and rows of limestone cliffs stretching east far into the distance.

I caught Walter 30 kms up the highway as prearranged and the weather and wind had turned very cold so he needed to put on his winter jacket. The ride was a long one but the winds were mostly a tailwind and very favourable so Walter achieved a good average today. Occasionally a cross wind would strike but nowhere near as severe and strong as yesterday’s stormy conditions. His observation is that although it is a bit of a lonely stretch of road he finds it nowhere near as isolated and lonely as the stretches of desert country in west coast of Western Australia.

The vegetation on the landscape appears to be thinning as we head east with the shrubs not as dense and more sparse grassy plains with a few small wind swept trees occasionally dotting the plains. We were told we would see camels but so far none spotted. I was surprised though by a sighting of a dingo in amongst the low vegetation.

Thank you to Nullarbor Roadhouse for giving us a heavily discounted powered site for the night.

Here in this region of Australia it is of course very dry so over the last 3 -4 nights in the caravan parks we have stayed the showers are fitted with either a box to insert a token (to be purchased) or operated by inserting a $1 coin for a 5 minute shower.

Also there are no taps available to re-fill the tank in our campervan with water. Not a real problem as it is winter and we usually fill our kettle at the laundry block and wash our dishes in the camp kitchen. Yesterday afternoon we did however fill our water tank in the van with a 15 litre container of bottled water (still from the lovely people in Mt Isa Qld who organized this water for us). We used a plastic water bottle with the bottom cut out as a funnel so that we could pour it into the campervan tank – this worked really well and now we have lots of drinking water until we get to Ceduna. After Ceduna water should be readily available again from taps in caravan parks.