Day 7 Ceduna to Border Village

Had a great meal on our last night in Ceduna.  We went to a seafood outlet and brought some prawns and some whiting fillets.  They were so fresh the guy was still filleting the whiting when we arrived.  Just floured the fillets and cooked them in margarine - delicious!

Headed off in the morning on the Eyre Highway and stopped at Penong to have a look around.  Penong is named after a derivative of the Aboriginal word meaning "waterhole" and is known as the town of 100 windmills.  You can see the windmills from the highway.  This is where the Nullabor Links Golf Course starts.  This is a unique golf course as there is only one hole in Penong and as you go across the Nullabor you come to places that have another hole. There is a community run museum in the old woolshed that used to be an outstation of the vast Yatala sheep run.  It was really interesting to look through and even had an old cord and plug switchboard which I have used years ago when I was a telephonist in Roma.  It brought back lots of memories of party lines and trying to get all your cords up on calls.  It was very windy in Penong and the lady in the museum said that it is windy most of the time.  Most of the people work in the nearby gypsum mine.

This is the first hole of the Nullabor Links Golf Course at Penong.

The Woolshed Museum at Penong

Continuing on, we took a detour off the highway to go to Fowlers Bay.  This is a tiny little place right on the water.  There is a really long jetty (longer than the one in Ceduna) and you look out onto the Southern Ocean in the Great Australian Bight.  All you can see is ocean.  It is a popular fishing spot and has some amazing sand dunes.

The jetty at Fowlers Bay

A view of the sand dunes at Fowlers Bay

Went past Nundroo Roadhouse which has the next hole of the Nullabor Links golf course. 

Next stop was  Head of Bight which was 12 kms off the highway and is a premier whale watching  area of Australia.  There is an interpretive centre and lots of boardwalks have been built with viewing platforms which give you fantastic vistas of the Bunda Cliffs with sheer drops from the towering cliffs.  It cost $5 per adult to get in but was well worth it.  It was a little unnerving with all the signs telling you to watch out for snakes but we didn't see any.  The buildings are very new and very tastefully done.  I imagine it would be very busy in the whale season.

Peter on one of the viewing platforms at Head of Bight

One of the views

Some of the boardwalks at Head of Bight

We stopped at Nullabor and filled up at the roadhouse and paid a whopping 193.9 cents per litre.  You have to go in and show your driver's licence before they will start the pump as too many people have driven off without paying.  Nullabor was named by a surveyor (Delisser) and it was from "nulla" for no and "arbor" for tree as this is where the treeless plain starts.  This is also next hole of the Nullabor Links Golf Course.

We drove on to Border Village to stay the night.  We were going to go to Eucla, just over the WA border but we still had some fruit and veg that we wanted to use up (we previously had to give up some fruit and veg at the quarantine points in NSW and SA) so decided to stop in Border Village which is at the Quarantine Station but on the SA side.  This was the first caravan park that we had to put money in to get hot water for the shower.  It was only $2 and you got 10 minutes so that wasn't too bad.

Tomorrow - Western Australia!

cheers

Pete and Roz