The Nullarbor plain
1200 Miles of flat treeless road, with 360 degree vistas as far as the eye can see, the Nullarbor plain is one of the driest places in Australia, with an average of only 20cm of rain annually its aboriginal name Oondiri literally means 'the waterless'.
However when we crossed this 'dry' expanse the tail end of a cyclone struck and the place received half it's annual rainfall over the 3 days we took to us cross it. It tipped it down in buckets, every service station we stopped at joked that the Pommes had brought the rain with them and thats what it felt like! Maybe we should rent out our services to drought stricken nations - one visit from us and rain would be sure to follow!
The driving was tiring and pretty monotonous with the only break being the checkpoint at the border for Western Australia - our final Australian state - where we were made to peel our onions and make a salad out of our lettuce an green peppers because of some weird quarantine rules - how a salad will stop fruit fly we are not sure but we dutifully abided and chopped up our fruit and veg.
The rain continued to fall over the 3 days it took us to cross the Nullarbor, which included Australia's longest road in a straight line - 90 miles without even a little twist makes for very tiring driving. At one point there was road works and the tarmac had been taken off the road leaving a 20km mud track, we were stopped here for an hour as a large lorry slid off the road and jackknifed and had to be righted before the traffic could continue. The mud covered the van and just as the end of our journey was in sight the muffler fell apart leaving our engine sounding like a bulldozer on the rampage.
Again the Toyota proved worthy to its indestructible reputation and waited until we reached our destination of Esperence, and the West Coast before the exhaust finally gave up the ghost and clanked and spluttered inconsolably - we think she was trying to tell us something - it was great timing as we were, by some extreme stroke of luck, just passing an exhausts only repair shop (the first one we'd seen in 1800 Miles), so we chugged in and within half an hour we were on the road again with a shiny new muffler - hurrah. We crossed the Nullarbor with only one slight disappointment that we didn't see it as the fabled dry land we expected - we will have to add it to Iguazu falls in the list of places to see again when the weather is more favorable!
However when we crossed this 'dry' expanse the tail end of a cyclone struck and the place received half it's annual rainfall over the 3 days we took to us cross it. It tipped it down in buckets, every service station we stopped at joked that the Pommes had brought the rain with them and thats what it felt like! Maybe we should rent out our services to drought stricken nations - one visit from us and rain would be sure to follow!
The driving was tiring and pretty monotonous with the only break being the checkpoint at the border for Western Australia - our final Australian state - where we were made to peel our onions and make a salad out of our lettuce an green peppers because of some weird quarantine rules - how a salad will stop fruit fly we are not sure but we dutifully abided and chopped up our fruit and veg.
The rain continued to fall over the 3 days it took us to cross the Nullarbor, which included Australia's longest road in a straight line - 90 miles without even a little twist makes for very tiring driving. At one point there was road works and the tarmac had been taken off the road leaving a 20km mud track, we were stopped here for an hour as a large lorry slid off the road and jackknifed and had to be righted before the traffic could continue. The mud covered the van and just as the end of our journey was in sight the muffler fell apart leaving our engine sounding like a bulldozer on the rampage.
Again the Toyota proved worthy to its indestructible reputation and waited until we reached our destination of Esperence, and the West Coast before the exhaust finally gave up the ghost and clanked and spluttered inconsolably - we think she was trying to tell us something - it was great timing as we were, by some extreme stroke of luck, just passing an exhausts only repair shop (the first one we'd seen in 1800 Miles), so we chugged in and within half an hour we were on the road again with a shiny new muffler - hurrah. We crossed the Nullarbor with only one slight disappointment that we didn't see it as the fabled dry land we expected - we will have to add it to Iguazu falls in the list of places to see again when the weather is more favorable!
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