Why did the chickens cross the continent?

We are still in the transit phase of our journey. It is all about getting to the other side. The consequence is that we have a growing 'must come back' list of fascinating places that we would like to spend more time in. Near the top of this list is the Streaky Bay area. The coastline here is as fascinating as it is windy. A jumble of bays, beaches, cliffs and huge dune fields bordering weatherbeaten scrub.

playing on the Yanerbie Sand Dunes

The Granites

Tucked behind a scrubby dune on Sceale Bay is the house that Muz built. A house that really reflects his character and is all the better for it. Recycled bits and pieces built into the structure, solar power, composting toilet. A definite 'must come back'.

the house that Muz built.

From Streaky Bay it is half a day to the isolated settlement of Fowler's Bay, and more huge sand hills. There is no mains power here, its all solar, wind and gennys. And the water tastes of lime, but the caravan park has a rustic cuteness and an incredibly welcoming manager. Yes, that's right I said caravan park. I know we swore to avoid them like the plague but the landscape around here seemed so inhospitable that we gave in.

Fowlers Bay

Sunset over the dunes, Fowlers Bay

The Head of the Bight, just east of the Nullarbor, is one of those places that flabbers your gaster. To the east the coast is blanketed by vast sand dunes. But here, at the northern most point of the Great Australian Bight, for reasons known only to itself and perhaps a few smartypants geomorphologists, the coast very suddenly sheds its sandy blanket to reveal the Bunda Cliffs that form the forbidding coastline along much of the Bight. The limestone that forms these cliffs seems no different from the stuff to the east so I am stuffed if I can figure out what is going on.

Bunda Cliffs, Nullarbor

Mallee mucking round on top of Bunda Cliffs and giving Nic a heart attack

As we continued west, the trees got smaller and sparser and eventually disappeared and we were on the Nullabor Plain. Like many limestone landscapes, this one has caves, deep sinkholes in which the water pools forming oases. Often these holes are home to figs, stone fruit and other 'useful' plants thanks to seeds dropped by settlers. We drove out to look at Koonalda Cave and the nearby homestead. Its really hard to capture the scale of these caves in with a camera but those little specks on top are Nic, Mallee and Jaz.

The homestead itself is interesting for the walls being made of railway sleepers and the rafters being railway line. The corrugated road to Koonalda was responsible for our first major equipment failures. We stopped halfway back the main road to set up camp and discovered that all but one of the rivets on our awning had sheared and so had one of the bike brackets. A few more kilometres and both would have fallen off. Our compensation was being treated to a beautiful Nullabor sunset to the west coincident with an equally beautiful moonrise to the east.

We'll see you when the dust settles