Cumulative distance: 2967 kms
At 4am the heavens opened and we cowered inside our tents hoping we kept dry. The rain stopped and we went back to sleep until the waves breaking on the beach woke us up again at 7 am. We broke camp - slowly in Alan's case and half way through the rain started again. The end result was two wet tents and unhappy campers.
We eventually got away at 10 am and headed to Ceduna for a Big Brekky - along with a few dozen other bikers heading for the same place as us. We heard that the tourist industry had not been aware that 3,000 Ulyssians would descend on them enroute to the AGM in Albany and they were not ready. One cafe was so overwhelmed and understaffed that it just closed down!
We headed off for the beginning of the famous Nullarbor Plain which begins out side Ceduna and runs to Norseman 1,300 kms to the west. While the Nullarbor Plain might be famous ( for its flatness and lack of trees, no-one actually lives there so travellers have to rely on the Road Houses that are at about 150 kms spacing for fuel and food. One of these was called Yalata and we had planned to stop there for fuel. There was another Road House 50kms before Yalata but we sailed through until I spotted a sign "No petrol for 144 kms". Yalata had closed and even the pumps had been removed. The Scots girl serving at the Nundaroo RH told us that they often had to rescue stranded motorist with a can of petrol. No doubt it was a nice little earner for them too!
We kept on riding through the frequent showers and were buffeted by the strong cross winds coming off the Great Australian Bight. One lady serving us at a RH confidently informed us that a couple of riders had been blown off the road and crashed and one had been killed. That slowed us down and we kept below 100 kph for the rest of the day.
The eastern end of the Nullarbor was really barren with only saltbush and scrub. It is a huge limestone plateau that falls straight into the Southern Ocean with 80m high cliffs. The Plain goes back inland for 100's kms. The Eyre Hwy (the road to WA) passes within 500m of the cliff, but you wouldn't realise it from the road. There were very few signposted viewing places and most of these were in locations that didn't have the really high cliffs. I suppose a few tourists had fallen to their deaths. Colin found an unmarked track that lead to the top of the sheer cliffs and we could look over at the heaving seas below.
We had a camp-site arranged at Eucla just inside the WA border. We didn't fancy sleeping in wet tents so we tried to change to a motel room. We and half of the other Ulyssians; there was no room at the inn. We pulled into Border Village on the SA side of the border on the off-chance there was a room there and there was! The place was run by a Belfast man as well - actually he had come to Australia from the Shankill Rd when he was 8 years old. We had a sunny evening to dry our tents as well which was a bonus.
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