Nullabor Adventures

I did it in 2000, what a great bit of road and that huge long straight, need auto pilot
We don't have suitable country capable of holding roads together in my part of Qld so I was impressed.
Even the secondary roads, out to Esperence etc were excellent and yet carrying road train traffic and not disintegrating.
But only 110, car was happy at 120 to 130 and there's a big police presence.
Driving West in the arvo, aircon flat out and getting sunburnt from the waist up. We set up all the windscreen shades and Mrs moved to the back seat.
Trucks were courteous and maintained excellent average speeds, although limited to 90.
Morning and dusk was bad for animals, especially big eagles so we sat back behind a semi and dodged the mince.
Stopped at some derelict water tanks to set up the tent, ground like concrete so the pegs just bent. As far as we could see, bits of dunny paper as it was impossible to dig a hole.

First time in '74 or 75 Melb to Perth. Kingswood panel van. Still 250 miles of dirt. Late November or early December. Road was in good condition, apparently had just been graded for the upcoming school holidays.

Travelling in daytime, hot as hell; 50/50 air con (50 mph, windows 50% open) soon filled up with dust! Long, LONG straights; wind from the south, so from left to right. Something ahead, bit slower than me, but couldn't see past for dust. Semi pulls onto RHS so I could look up the left, and all clear - 'undertake' till past, then I swing to RHS and he goes back onto the left to miss my dust. (No CB, so couldn't talk.)

Had to pull into Nullabour Homestead for fuel, 70-something cents per gallon! The dearest I'd ever encountered. Per gallon - how cheap that sounds now! (Homestead powered by a DC wind generator atop a very tall mast.)

After the dirt called into a roadhouse/ motel/ hotel/ campground (Mandurah?) for a shower to get rid of the dust. Took all the gear out of the van and shook it out (double mattress). In for a shower - 'hard' water, but duly got lathered up - then the water stopped!. After a delay, wrapped lower regions in a towel and wandered back to the office (still soaped up), what's happening? Sorry, elevated water tank has run dry, pumping up now, should have water in 5 or 10!

Also somewhere drove through a fire on both sides of the hwy. Next roadhouse I questioned them about the fire. Q. Anything being done about the fire? A. Yeh, few graders putting lines around homesteads and stuff. Q. When it'll be out? A. When it rains, probably about Easter!

Got flagged down somewhere by a semi, early morning. Battery problem, wouldn't crank. 4 x 6v batteries. I reckon 'this' one is crook he says - can you put jumper leads across it please (ie. from my 12v system across one of his 6v batteries?) Nope, I says, I'll put it across the dead battery AND the next one (ie. 12v across 12v). that does no good. Bugger. Do as he originally asked - my 12v across a 6 v battery. Instant start. Good deed for the day done.

About 4 weeks later when returning to Melb, decide to cover the dirt at night - cooler, so don't need to have windows open. Not putting up with that dust again! Corrugated now though. Rough as guts, had to stop about every 30 minutes to re-aim and tighten the driving lights! Also broke a mounting bracket (out of 6) on roof rack.

Left Perth morning, stopped for a shower in Coolgardie, then hit the dirt at night, pulled up near Port Pirie after lunch next day. Benefit of NoDoz - jumping at rabbits, thinking they might be a steer or a camel. LOL.

I find this thread really interesting as a story of the development and perception of what is an "adventure" over the years as society develops.

When John Eyre trotted across the Nullabor, nearly dying in the effort, it was certainly very remote and rough. The people who followed him (surveyors, prospectors, squatters) slowly turned a wilderness into a sparsely populated, but connected route from East to West or West to East as the mood takes you.

Many crossings were made before the motor car but it took serious planning to keep your horses - and yourself, alive and watered. Birtles had pedalled his bike across several times well before WW1 and crewed, with Ferguson, the Brush car which made the first ever (almost uneventful) motor crossing.

Jack Bowers and Frank Smith, the two teenagers who were first to circumnavigate Australia on a motorcycle in 1929, had serious life-threatening adventures but made it. Others had actually ridden motorcycles over their Nullabor section long before 1929.

The photos above of the 1950's trucks are pioneering stuff but they are only carrying on a trucking route regularly used by others for close on 30 years previously. My own story of a crossing in a piss-ant car in 1956 is only a personal milestone as we were probably the millionth car to cross the Nullarbor at that time.

As each story comes from a later date the adventure is more perception than reality. Allan's interesting story above shows how you can get a kick out of the trip even if you could have left at breakfast and finished the dirt section by lunchtime.

There are a couple of stories about post road realignment full bitumen trips which on the face of it is just a long drive. It is still an adventure and the new route along the cliffs makes it one of the great scenic Australian roads.

Everyone who has not done it should do so, if only to look out to the side of the road and imagine what it would have been like to walk, ride a horse or drive your Model T across the unmade surface of the Nullarbor 4 or 5 generations ago.

We were all born a 100 years too late!

Here are Jack Bowers and Frank Smith. They look older but were only 18 and 19.

Interesting side note: Jack and Frank pooled all their money to buy a Harley Davidson and went to Harley in Sydney for sponsorship. All they got was a shirt each but Harley trumpeted their victory all over the world in magazines and newspapers. "Harley Davidson completes the greatest ride ever" - Jack and Frank were not mentioned in any advertising whatsoever and in fact Harley alluded to their huge support of what could be taken to be two Americans!

Lang

Better check this out on the journey.
saforeveryone.com.au/city/ceduna/public-...arbor-readymix-logo/

www.google.com/maps/place/Sydney+NSW,+Au...3f:0x3017d681632a850

Lang interesting what we do even do now will be an adventure for future generations

...great stuff Clarkie .. i was buggered if i could find that link you sent me ages ago ....cheers to you mate

...i've only one ridiculous story to tell about the Nullarbor Plain, and that was where the road meets the Great Australian Bight...full desert on one side and ocean on the other ...

...that bitumen had been very bloody boring so we went off the Highway and stopped at the cliff edge and started taking potshots at any passing seagull or anything that took our eye with one of the .22's we had with us...

...we also for some inane reason decided to shoot the decrepit old Valiant and put a bullet through her back door...just for fun : :

....all was good till we decided to camp in the Woolies carpark in Hay St Kalgoorlie and at about 3.00AM we get a knock on the window..(the wagon was our motel)

...the wallopers had seen the Vic reg'd car and having a look around her spotted the bullet hole and decided to wake us up to enquire why?

...we had no other answer than to say...''we just kinda shot it!'' : : :-[ :-[

...so after viewing our arsenal of guns and ammo and other details, they told us to go and register all this stuff first thing in the morning

The Eyre Highway was sealed from Port Augusta to Ceduna around 1966 to 1967, followed by the section from Norseman to Eucla in 1969.

I did one trip, as a hairy assed boy on Christmas holidays from school, around 67 or 68 in one of Elson's B model Macks. All I remember is they had a couple of bloody great lumps of Jarrah on board and a Chamberlain tractor that was delivered somewhere in Adelaide. The road was as rough as guts, 3 or 4 days was a quick trip between Norseman and Ceduna. Sleeping under the stars was good, as was the sausages and eggs or a lump of steak, cooked using a Trojan shovel as a frying pan over the fire. And don't forget the billy tea too. A tall Golden Circle pineapple tin, boiled in the coals and a handful of tea leaves chucked in. No luxuries like milk and sugar then.

The early 70's saw the sealing of the highway between Ceduna and Penong, and the final section from Penong to Eucla was completed in 1975 or 1976.

They sealed the final section during winter, and as soon as summer came, the road surface started to melt.
I remember some of the Travlos trucks coming back into Melbourne with tar spray right up both sides of the vans and the rear doors completely covered with tar.

They hadn't allowed for this tar melt to happen, and that section of road between Penong and Eucla had to be re-surfaced again. I am pretty sure BP was heavily involved in this.

I have been across the Nullarbor quite a few times since the blacktop was finished, the last time in 1995, towing an 18 foot boat behind a 60 series Land Cruiser and being rounded up constantly by Bunkers, Cleveland, DeVito and the likes. I do remember that the beer at the Penong Pub was the sweetest, coldest beer I had tasted in a long time.

There must some good stories about other bits of special roads that would make great threads on the forum

My first trip down the Newell in the 60's was a bit of a shock, bitumen stopped just out of Boggabilla.
Road did a right angle turn in town and if I remember correctly, there was a shop that scored a few trucks through the front.
Some pretty rough dirt excursions until the bitumen started again before Moree.
Almost as much shock as the Moonee Highway.

This is an interesting thread. When did the major relocation take place? Was it 1962, when a lot (but not all) was surfaced, anticipating a flood of private vehicles heading to Perth for Commonwealth Games. I have a clipping (buried) from Australasian Post, showing a Vespa motorscooter fitted with a sun canopy, ready to make the crossing.
The Port Pirie - Port Augusta - Kalgoorlie railway construction was an epic part of Australian railway history, and was home to the famous Tea & Sugar supply train. It was still an adventurous crossing into the 1960s and 70s. Now is more sterile and more expensive. The crossing was also adventurous for aircraft. Forrest became a refuelling stop for light aircraft, and for the front-line Vickers Viscounts.
In this thread, I admired Lang's contribution, as I had retoned the photos of one of his later WA adventures.
I never crossed on dirt. In 1983, I went westbound by Greyhound, but alighted at Kalgoorlie. I remember very little of that journey. In 1989 I came eastbound with Deluxe, a double-deck bus, and I was in the 'death seat', above the driver. That was fast, and only one night from Esperance (where I boarded at around 4.00) to Adelaide. Landmarks were Cocklebiddy roadhouse (I felt that I really was out on the Nullarbor), and a brief stop at the limestone cliffs (an appreciated move even though it was an express service, not a tourist one).
When Weagles played in a Melbourne grand final, Qantas had two B747s leaving Perth at dawn. The cheapskates left Perth after work on Thursday by bus, had Friday has a sickie, and headed like zombies into MCG on Saturday at lunchtime. They then slept through the whole match for which they had paid the money.
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor