He described them as grandeur and imposing, but distressing and fatal are more accurate Edward John Eyre quotes. It’s got to be the number one suicide spot in all of Australia. The tremendous Great Australian Bight is just that, a gigantic mouthful of Nullarbor Limestone causing the flatness to suddenly fall away and reveal a ravaging ocean hundreds of metres below. And it is so vast and raw that you can go to Australia’s most southern verge (forgetting Tasmania of course) and literally dangle your legs off the edge.

It looks like the end of the earth and at times it may as well have been. This is probably one of the unfriendliest highways I’ve travelled. Especially the “baby boomers”. The wives either smile at me warily or timidly say hello, and the husbands just look, a thought crossing their shrivelling brains for a split second then gone. Perhaps it’s a Fatherly thought but it’s not quick enough for me to catch. 

Nullarbor comes from the Latin “Null Arbor” which means no tree, and it’s true. I can also confirm that that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it costs $8.40 for a can of Jim Beam. But I will say that the donga accommodation at the Nullarbor Hotel/Motel is only marginally better than Balladonia. The caravan park is also a dusty stretch of dirt, there’s still a generator droning in the background, and my donga has a makeshift curtain and windowpane with no fly screen. But it does strangely feel a lot like home. Maybe it was the lamb chops I had for dinner. They also have these awesome coin operated showers that are great value at $1 for five minutes. It takes a bit to get the temperature and pressure right, roughly five minutes.

Friday 10.30am - Fowlers Bay

There’s saltbush all the way to Ceduna where the land splits into pastoral leases and has been split that way since the late 1800’s. The paddocks are littered with limestone that needs clearing to get any value out of the soil But sidetrack a little just before you get to Ceduna (141km) and feast your eyes on the lush whipped cream sand dunes that form the backdrop to Fowlers Bay. There’s a  jetty and deep red wine algae stained saltbush in the foreground. It’s mostly dirt track (but a good one) that leads to the peaceful, tiny, fishing hamlet that consists of stone shacks and more peace than has ever been preserved before in the history of peaceful little bays. Cactus is just as idyllic but with bigger waves; however, this place is slightly more historic. It was here that Edward John Eyre received his last shipment of supplies from the Waterwitch before heading westwards to take on The Great Australian Bight in search of Slapper City (Albany, WA) in 1841.

Friday 12:22pm - Ceduna

While passing through Ceduna I stop off to visit some human remnants of my drilling days with Iluka Resources. Bevan would have to be one of my all time favourite entrepreneurs. Like my long lost Greek Uncle (come on I might as well be Greek, check out the baby pic) who dreams big and makes it happen, he’d harvest even the sorriest of souls into happiness. He is in the same league as another of my favourite all time people, Koolan Island’s Pete Ingrim also a thinker with a wicked sense of humour and wry smile. Pete had gone to the Mine Manager at Koolan Island and proposed setting up a fishing/tourist charter service for the mineworkers. The Mine Manager had responded, exasperatedly “if I go to head office with that they’ll think your on drugs”. Pete’s reply… “Well maybe they should be”..

I’m not going to waste time talking about Ceduna, it is a sh#thole. The oysters are good and fat but there are a lot of things that are bad. A little further around the coast is Streaky Bay which is slightly more idyllic. I continue along the Eyre Highway, passing through a string of towns linked by rail and pipeline and typically marked on the horizon (and over tree tops) by oversized white wheat silos. 

Friday 4:09pm -Iron Knob

Halfway across Oz and it’s about time I came across something “big”. The rocky ground continues past Kimba and the “big” Galah where it becomes treed up until Iron Knob. I’m still bewildered by Iron Knob. The welcome sign advertises the “free all day cuppas” yet the mining cottages look empty and the town long abandoned. There’s a parked up digger decrepit and on display and the Pub lists its trade hours simply as “late”. The local footy field has been long short of a hair cut but the scoreboard still reads the last “Iron Knob” and “Visitors” scores. This town is like a characterture of a mining town… a characterture of itself. And then there is the town’s namesake, an iron stone ridge running perpendicular to the highway. And at its highest point… a knob.

Friday 6.41pm - Port Augusta

After driving flat straight for three days I am confronted with a green wall just west of Port Augusta. The Blaxland Ranges are juxtaposed perpendicular to the highway and after all that flatness I feel like I am driving head-on for the ranges, waiting for the mountains to part, waiting for the parting to show itself. But to no avail those ranges remain rigid and the T section and grafittied tanks signify the ultimate geographic decision… left or right. So I turn left and swing northward as the last 40km go on forever toward the seemingly distant Flinders Ranges. After hours of horizontal topography the ranges are surreal. A bit like when I became consumed by the flatness of the India, then freaked-out when I suddenly found myself amongst the mountains. These mountains make me uneasy too now… I was so much more patient when the only way was straight ahead… with no surprises.

I initially love Port Augusta. I haven’t felt so enlivened by a little Aussie town since Lightening Ridge, haven’t felt so enlivened by a town in general since India. Can topography alone do this to a person? But what I didn’t expect was that in the harsh morning light this place was not nearly as appealing and I’m finding it near impossible to photograph. The town is split in two by the Spencer Gulf. The number one rule in Port Augusta… do not confuse it for a river. There’s the power station and that crazy pipeline that must insist on following me for my entire trip. Still no leaks. I turn left just south of Port Augusta onto Horrocks Pass and wind my way up the Flinders ranges towards Broken Hill.

Saturday 11.00am - Orrorro and Petesborough

Orrorro is not a touristy town but it probably should be. Just before Orrorro I come across the “Giant Gum Tree”. Brilliant I think, another “big” thing, my eyes have been peeled since the “big” Galah in Kimba. But does it count if its not fibreglass?

In town the Commercial Hotel is beautiful and the Orrorro Hotel up the road is possibly even prettier, but Petesborough is the town that really should be touristy. Perhaps this is why Orrorro isn’t. Though you cannot have the Tourist Information Centre listed as a tourist attraction surely? There’s the Railway, Petesborough, Junction or Federal Hotel. All equally as wonderfully ornate as each other.

From here on the highway continues to run parallel to the train tracks, with a one-horse town at every 20 to 40km or so. Each with its own 80km sign, 60km sign, and a pub. No doubt with a crinkly old Cocky named John sitting on his usual seat at the end of the bar complaining about rain and the lack of it. It continues like this till you reach the border where I realised there was five ways I knew I was getting closer to New South Wales (NSW):

1) I sped-up to 10km over the speed limit

2) I was 10km over the speed limit and people were still overtaking me

3) The road turned to sh#t

4) The truckies stopped waving

5) Spastic creek names begin. The first being Whinninninnie Creek.