Diary - On This Day in 2009

 

Our 2009 trip from Adelaide to NT and Western Australia

Another wet day here in Adelaide so I decided to see what we were doing on this day in 2009 and we were on our first trip halfway around Australia and were in Norseman, Western Australia in the Goldfields about 750 km east of Perth.  

Norseman, Western Australia

My diary says it is Day 66 and we stopped at Norseman for lunch and we stayed overnight at 10 MILE Rocks rest area, and  my diary says I made damper on the camp fire.  Oh what great memories of that trip.The next day we stopped for fuel at  the small town of Balladonia.  The service station has a display of memorabilia from the Skylab.   

In July 1979, the Skylab space station crashed to earth around Balladonia, Western Australia. A small museum inside the Balladonia roadhouse on the Nullabor drive from Perth to Adelaide tells the story of the ensuing race to find Skylab fragments.

Balladonia

Fuel stop at Balladonia

We continued on our trip and stayed overnight at Baxter, another good rest area with a lot of space and quite a few caravans but plenty of room to enjoy the bush setting.

10 Mile Rocks rest area

Ron relaxing at 10 Mile Rocks rest area

The next day we stopped at the Caiguna for fuel and the blowhole.

Blowhole near Caiguna

At our overnight stop at Jillah rockhole we had another caravan stop and ask us if we were staying and if it was safe to stop, so we said yes as there were other vans dotted around the large camping area.  What we didn't expect was they stopped about 2 metres from our door!  Anyway, we didn't care as we were only there overnight and obviously they were either scared or they had just got too tired to go any further, sorry but I didn't take any photos!

Our next stop was at Mundrabilla where the Police were doing breath tests and licence checks, but not a problem as we were ok with both.

Old car wreck at Mundrabilla

At Eucla we drove out to the old telegraph station.  In 1877 Eucla was established as a manual telegraph repeater station connecting Darwin to Perth.  There are still many buildings hidden under the sand dunes.

Remains of the old telegraph station

We arrived at Nullabor and got ourselves set up in the caravan park and we were surprised that there was only one other van there.  We had arranged to meet our friends who had driven from Adelaide and were arriving the next day.  I think if we were travelling at the present time we would find everywhere much busier than back in 2009, so many more people on the road now.

Nullabor caravan park

Later in the afternoon after walking around we discovered a helicopter!

It was reassuring to know there was a helicopter on standby 

West Australia/SA border

The next day our friends arrived and we travelled out to the Whale watching area to see the whales.  What an amazing time we had and a boardwalk and platform to view the whales made it very easy to stay for a few hours.

Ron and our friends

Me with our friends

Whale watching at Nullabor

To be continued ....