Passing the Time

To many people, when you mention the thought of crossing the Nullarbor, they do the eye roll and say, “How Boring!”. Now none of the people we meet on the road are of that opinion, and I would guess many of you readers aren’t either, but they do exist. Some of them would travel the road too, but they probably aren’t the ones that would socialise. They do however leave their mark.

One of the more bizarre aspects of travel we have seen, and repeated here on the Nullarbor, is the concept of a theme tree. We have seen underpants trees, bra trees, thong trees and teddy bear trees amongst others. Today’s seemed to be a generic clothing tree.

Somebody with a bit more planning and a bit less spontaneity has come up with the concept of a Nullarbor Links golf course. Stretched between Kalgoorlie in the West, and Port Augusta in the East are 18 holes of golf, the longest course in the world. In keeping with standard practice, there are green fees. It costs $60 to play the 18 holes, plus whatever it costs you to drive the 2000 odd km of the course. As with all of the best courses, there is also an annual tournament. Lucky we missed it – it starts in a couple of weeks and takes place over 5 days. I presume they only play one round, or perhaps they play each hole four times. I wonder what sort of galleries they get? By the way – forget the concept of lush fairways and immaculate greens. I think the greens were sponsored by a plastic turf company, and the fairways are a narrow dirt path in amongst the rough, which is quite rough. The skylab hole pictured here, has a red target behind the green to give you a target through the trees. I’m not sure what the rules on taking a drop are.

Also to break the monotony people have painted rocks, dressed trees and created sculptures from bush trash. Usually they are well-known characters, but sometimes picking them can be difficult. I’m reasonably certain we saw Yoda today, and there may have been a dalek as well. They are gone in a flash though, so no photos I’m afraid.

We’ve also been in the heart of skylab territory. When skylab fell to earth in 1979 it did so primarily between Esperance and Caiguna, through which we passed today. Some sizeable chunks came down. Reputedly the largest was around 70 tonnes, but fell into the ocean. Enough other bits fell on land to prompt then president Jimmy Carter to ring the Balladonia Roadhouse, about 180km from anywhere, to apologise for the mess and offer to clean it up. NASA also offered a reward for the first returned piece of skylab to arrive in the USA, and a 17 year old Esperance boy received the $10000 prize. Another shire mayor also issued a littering infringement notice on NASA.

This part of the journey is through limestone country. We missed the Cocklebiddy Caves due to a lack of signage, but we’ll try again tomorrow. One thing we did see though which was quite interesting is the blowhole. Most blowholes are at the seashore and are blown by wave action. Indeed we have seen some good ones of these. This one is quite different though. There is a large underground cavern completely sealed except for a small opening. During times of high atmospheric pressure air is pushed into the cavern through the small opening. When the pressure falls, the air is returned through the hole to the atmosphere. There are many places where this happens, but it is most dramatic when the cavern is large and the opening small, because then the pressure can take a long time to equalise, and the wind blown through the hole can be quite remarkable. The fastest recorded was some 70km/h. The one beside the road performed nicely for us today. When the temperature was 28 degrees outside, the blowhole was blasting a constant stream of air at 20 degrees at probably 20-30km/h. Enough to blow our scraggly hair and eject leaves thrown into the hole.

We are in Cocklebiddy tonight camping at the roadhouse. Quite expensive considering we get nothing but a patch of ground and showers for $3 a time included in our $30 camping fee. We are also trying to get used to a new timezone. To ease the transition into South Australia they run border time, at 45 minutes it is half way between the 90 minutes that normally separates the two states.