WA for Easter -Tuesday 16th April 2019 - 680km

We were on the road by 8am after a quick breakfast and pack up.  

We admired the ants having their "mothers' meeting" outside the ant hole (lovely to have time to notice these little things) 

and then headed off on the short 4WD track (the black one) to check out the water catchment area again.  The water from this rock used to drain into a catchment , which was used by the town for water.  It held 3 million gallons when it was built in 1914.  Now the dam sits empty, but you can still drive out to it, and around it and wonder at the creativity of the former occupants of this place.  

 Last time we were here we tried to follow the track out along the read line, but ended up backtracking. 

You can see our campsite spot to the upper west side of the rock (number 2) in the photo below.

the dam

4WD track

By 8:15 we were on the highway again.  We topped up on cheaper fuel at Ceduna (100 litres at $139.9/l) and drove down to the seafront to admire the views of Thevenard, the little sailing boats out on a sunny day on Murat Bay, and to laugh at the dog who was so reluctant to go for a swim with his owner.  We also ate a bit of morning tea and bought a paper before heading off again.

Lunch was a brief stop at a pull off  under the trees somewhere between Nundroo and Yalata . The flies were annoying so we left them behind and headed onwards.

We passed a couple of huge mining trucks (with police escort) somewhere between here and the border. 

Fuel was $2.07/l at Border Village, so we held off until Eucla before buying 50l (for safety) at $1.87/l instead less than 20km down the road.  

We passed the border and fruit fly check before heading out of town towards the airport and the old Telegraph Station.  

We had seen the old Telegraph station before, but had failed to find the Eucla Jetty on our last visit, so were keen to find it this time.  We followed some tracks in the right direction, let our tyres down for the sandhills and before long there was our first glimpse of the elusive structure.  

The old Eucla jetty (now a wreck) stands still. It was built in 1887 and had a tramway which travelled from it to the Telegraph station. The jetty remained in regular use until 1926 when the Telegraph station was abandoned. Since then the pummeling of the waves has slowly worn it down, but it still stands steadfastly almost a hundred years on. 

Some French tourists turned up (with their cat) to see the jetty, and left again.

We set ourselves up on the edge of the beach, with the wind and crashing waves for company, and as the darkness fell, the sky put on a light show for us.  We were dry, but could see the storm to the East continuing on until 4am at least.

Here we are in "the twilight zone" of time difference, with an unofficial 45 minute change in place.  Not that it made any difference at all to us as we headed off to bed to the sound of the crashing waves and raging wind.