2013 #13 Esperance and Barossa Valley

We had a couple of days in Esperance.  We do love that place, and consider it to be the most beautiful place we know in Australia.  So hope you can all come and see it.  On Saturday early evening, we were returning from a trip to Cape Le Grand and Graeme was dozing as I drove.   There was a big dark cloud up above, which was dropping rain on Esperance, up ahead of us.  Suddenly there was an almighty bang.  A kangaroo had jumped out of the bush into the side of the truck.   Graeme looked up to see a Kanga just about in his lap!   “What was that”, he said.  “A kangaroo” I said.  “Oh, we are finished” he replied.  (laugh here).  And by the grace of God we had to search to find a small dent in the side of the truck.

We moved on to Fraser Range Station for the following night, and saw many lovely wild flowers as we drove on the outback roads.  There had been plenty of rain and floods out there. We pushed on towards the Nullarbor, staying at Mundrabilla Roadhouse. We drove flat out (with a strong cross wind) to get to the other side of the Nullarbor.  We kept losing time as we drove.  Nullarbor means “no-trees”.  The Nullarbor was part of an ancient sea bed which was pushed up, and so the soil is very thin and trees won’t grow there.   There were plenty of small green bushes though.  How different to when we went over, so recently, when everything was green.    As we drove, we noticed we were up to 150 metres above sea level.  Of course, the ocean of the Great Australian Bight was right below us and to our right, but most of the time you can’t see it.  You can’t even feel the sea breeze which would have been nice for the temperature was 40 degrees or more. There are a few places where you can drive in and actually view the ocean.  Sometimes it is the great cliffs and sometimes the coast is just a beautiful beach,  and far below the road you will find the playground of the whales.

Crossing the Nullarbor I would quickly duck into the roadhouse and get a very fast shower to keep me cool as we travelled. Despite the strong cross-winds of the trip, we were very glad to find a place where we could stop for the night (Penong). This was the first place we came to that had water!  We cooked up vegies and fruit to save having to hand everything in at “Check Point Charlie” as we cross into South Australia. We only spotted one Eagle on the Nullarbor, standing over his kangaroo road kill.    He did not move as we hurried past.  Last time we saw a  lot of Eagles. Graeme is still recovering from trying to do so many kilometres in the fierce heat.

Thankfully, we arrived safely in the beautiful Barossa Valley.   What a joy to see such a lovely place - a virtual Garden of Eden.  In fact we found a place here called Eden and it was the place where the ancient Lutheran farmers settled in the early 1800’s. We also met some Muslim business men from the Middle East who were sourcing some lambs or sheep for the Middle East.  We met them inside an ancient tree where a family once lived with two children.  Later the family had 14 more children, when they got a proper home.  The tree was 34 paces around the base, so it was pretty big.