Day 6, Tuesday 26/06/2012, Loche Claypan to Googs Lake

Another amazing sunrise across the claypan. We had to pack up fairly early as we had a car to be (hopefully fixed) today while at Ceduna.

My computer just came up with the black screen of death!! Says it’s attempting to recover the C drive!!  Aaahhhh!

Seems to have worked OK. Lucky my photos are safe. Computer, flashdrive and camera card.

It was quite a long day at Ceduna. The boys went with Peter  to the Auto electrician. He wouldn’t have been able to do it except that Col and Bruce worked as his labourers. He only charged $30 for labour as the boys did most of it. It only cost Peter $360 for a new battery, a new red arc dual battery system, cabling and Anderson plug! Wow bargain.

A few from the group hit the Laundromat, groceries were bought and a visit to the cafe. Once all of the jobs were done we hiked out to the end of the jetty,  where we had a whole pod of dolphins swim under us.

The seafood market was a disappointment as they only had frozen prawns for our risotto tonight. Finally, real 4WDing and new ground for us. We hit Goog’s Track fairly late, but it wasn’t too far to Goog’s Lake. After deflating our tyres to 25 PSI and chatting to a couple of blokes, we headed along the combination of corrugations and sand dunes through trees. I loved my turn driving. Make sure you take turns with the driving as experiencing the 4WDing is a big part of the adventure!

 

There was a quick stop at the rockpools that were old faithfuls, used by Aboriginal nomads for thousands of years in the past.

Then we found a gorgeous camping site in an orange sand hill, under the trees, overlooking a sat lake. Great for the kids to run wild on again. Beautiful rocks and crystals. Chelsea had fun crawling on the lake bed. We were trying to get her to walk with no luck.

Such a relaxing evening around the campfire. I’m glad I’ve finished my antibiotics so I can enjoy a glass of wine.

Tuesday 6/7/2010 Salt Lake to Koonalda Cave

(Salt Lake to Koonalda Cave)
Up at 0700hrs and packed by 0840hrs. There was even time for the kids to play more, jumping off sand dunes. The coals were still hot from the previous night and we managed to have a breakfast fire.

It wasn't as cold last night but there was still ice on everything. Wow.. waking to a sunrise over the salt pan... life is too hard!!!
Another interesting day. Our first stop was at Ceduna, a small coastal town south of Woomera where soldiers went on their days off from testing nuclear bombs.
I guess we camped in radioactive fallout from the 1940s...
I've been getting the kids to read information sheets I brought on each place, prior to arriving there (historical, geographical and touristy). A very educational trip.
After a walk on the pier at Ceduna, and a chat to a friendly local fisher boy, we had some morning tea and bought some fresh bread at the bakery. There is a large Aboriginal population here.

It was quite late when we arrived at Head of Bight (1445hrs). There was noone there to pay, the office was closed. Such a perfect day. No wind, sun shining and so warm our jackets were off. There were about 8 southern right whales. So massive! They didn't do much performing but it was great to just watch them so closely, many with calves. The water so aqua. They looked like submarines surfacing.

The next stop was Nullarbor Roadhouse for some fuel and a sausage roll (too busy to make lunch), then on to Mitwijinie Caves. The hema navigator came in handy here as it helped us find the almost invisible track across a field to a better dirt road beyond. This was truly in the middle of the Nullarbor. No trees, flat, nothing for a full 360 degree turn. But sudden huge holes in the limestone ground.

The nullarbor (an ancient sea bed) is riddled with caves, tunnels and underground lakes. We were able to explore the three caverns here, but there were no lakes to be found.
It would be a good place to camp but we need to push on. Heading to camp above the Bunda cliffs, we arrived at the rest stop to find that it was little more than a gravel car park. Not very inviting so we continued on. It was already dark, so we thought we'd might as well keep going to our next sightseeing destination and get a headstart tomorow. We passed through the abandoned Koonalda homestead and petrol station (Jordan thought there were ghosts) and continued on to the Koonalda Caves. It seemed more like the Serengeti here than the Nullarbor, with strange looking trees.
Great move. We were now camping in the middle of nowhere. Fantastic starry sky, and we ran into a local here, Andrew Brooks and his French girlfriend Nell. They shared their fire with us and were lovely company. Andrew gave me a photography lesson and then I found out he was a professional photographer. (Can't do great star shot yet, I need a shutter release cable).
He also gave us caving info.
Andrew took a great photo of our camp under the stars.
Nell is a youth worker, here to work with Aboriginal children.