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.  

WA for Easter - Monday 15th April 2019 623KM

Heading for WA for Easter Orienteering we had a later start than expected as we cleaned up all the loose ends before heading off. Lucky there wasn't a plane to be caught.  (just the low flying prado) .

First stop was Pt Pirie, where we checked the progress of the camper trailer that Peter and Matthew are building and ate our lunch in the excellent company of Peter, Belinda, Isabelle and James (even a brief hello to Matt) before heading onwards. 

The plains opened up and gave us low saltbush and our beloved far horizons, with the small few tress bent as though in a frozen dance.  We saw the new Lincoln Gap Wind Farm (still under construction) and laughed at the metal structures, shot to pieces on the army land... testament to good practice sessions. 

Kimba was the next stop, where we admired their silo art, while enjoying a cuppa. What would we do without the trusty thermos on trips like this?

first road-side cuppa of many

We slowly made our way past the various towns along the highway, accompanied by the sound of "Hot Money" by Dick Francis being read to us.  An excellent story that had us amused and awake most of the way to Perth (Thanks Ev). 

Finally we arrived at our intended stop for the night - Tcharkulu Rock (near Minnipa).  A rock rising from the ground (as they do across the Nullarbor in various places) , with some good camping spots and some peace and quiet. 

A couple of vans were already pulled in on one side of the rock, but we headed around to our favourite western side, and the Pony club shelter where we have stayed before.  Sure enough we had the place to ourselves, and set up our swags as the light started to fade to the buzz of many bush flies (initially we thought we had some bees). 

As the light fell, and we enjoyed our drinks and quick meal, the flies were replaced by mozzies.

We fell into our comfy swags, happily relaxed on a balmy night - the first of many to be had in the next few weeks.

The moon was very bright, and stayed up till about 4am, when we finally had a couple of  hours of good dark to see the stars better, before the sun was saying "good morning" to us again.

Christmas Hill 9/4/19 with Four Seasons Walking Group

The walk this week was at Kuitpo, and led by Carol.
We met at the bottom of Christmas Hill (Opposite the Hall)  and walked from there.  Nineteen of us turned up to walk.
Today we had Elly, Richard, Michael, Doug, Param, Carol, Bev, Beda, Di, Gary, Janet, Paul,Diny, Vicki, Bob, Kathryn, Ian, Trevor and Erica.
The weather was cool. Some took the risk of leaving umbrellas behind, but I was too scared to do that after my last rainy day experience at Kuitpo. (I was very glad of my umbrella and rain jacket in the pouring rain and hail in July last year). They were right to lighten their packs, as we didn't need the rain gear.
Carol led us mostly through native forest areas for a walk of around 14km length and just over 300m of climb.
We headed out going directly South after the standard circle count.

there were a few mountain bike hazards to negotiate. 

I was hoping for some Parson's Band orchids. but we didn't see any. 

These gums were just starting to come out in flower

It was Kathryn's first time out for a while and she is still not quite over her cold/flu, but still full of laughs.

a bit more logging has occurred in this area - Sad to see, but part of being a forest. 

We walked down so that we could walk up again....

 Just after this we tackled our steepest downhill section, which was a bit of a challenge.  We all made it down in one piece.

Our leader doing her thing.

Lunch break at last

I think Doug was relieved to find a comfy tree to lean against for a break. 

Nearly finished... one last gate to climb through. 

And then we enjoyed a lovely snack and drink a the Mawson  House  Cafe in Meadows to finish off the day.  (complete with a donation towards our larder of lovely plums, cucumbers and tomatoes from Bev, fresh from their garden).