Report No 4

As we've heard that the Eyre Peninsula should be very nice, we decided to take the detour and have a look.

Well, things didn't start too pleasantly. On the way down to the south tip, we wanted to stay overnight at a conservation park. But once we arrived there it said "no entrance". This meant heading on (after sitting in the car for a long day :-( We ended up staying at a very nice free campsite right next to the beach where we stayed 2 nights :-)

On it went to the Lincoln NP. Here we went for a very nice 4WD drive over sand dunes and rocks. We also swam in the sea and watched pelicans and a seal right from our campsite. (The rubbish was bothering though!) Temperatures were getting unpleasant but there was more to come ...

At Port Lincoln visitor centre we enquired about the Coffin Bay NP and we were told that it would be quite different and absolutely worth visiting. So on we went to this place where we stayed again for 2 nights.
Ohhh well, we saw some nice sand dunes. But apart from that we had temperatures between 45° and 50°C and a bee swarm (going for the water from underneath our camper-trailer) turning our camper-trailer into a prison! Even though the European bees were not aggressive, Luca and Alisha got stung. Inside our prison we measured 48°C and we cooled ourselves down with fans and with water.
At night then we could get out and packed most of our things up to be +- ready to leave next morning early.
Well, also the bees were back very early and so Alex had to do some things with lots of bees buzzing around him.
We surely were very happy to be in the car again with everything packed up :-) That day the said on the radio that Adelaide would be the hottest town on earth with 46°C. Juheee!

As the car was the only air-conditioned place we had, it was good to drive. On the radio they informed about bush fires going in the area where we had to travel through. In Ceduna we again informed ourselves at the visitor centre and found out more about the fires and about a nice place to spend the night. Only 40 km west of Ceduna is Davenport Creek. Here we found a lovely spot right on the beach where we put up our trailer. There were lots of flies around but we were so happy not to have bees anymore! We went swimming and had a beer outside.

Just at sunset the flies went and left us alone ... with millions of mozzies :-(
We dived into our camper-trailer and saw hundreds of mosquitoes hanging on to our fly-nets. Damn! We hadn't been to the toilet yet :-(

We survived and only lost some litres of blood each ;-) Next morning the mozzies disappeared again and we drove to the actual creek. The track took us on good roads through sand dunes and ended with a steep descent over a sand dune. We managed well even without lowering the tyre-pressure. After a nice swim in the brack-water we headed back and - sure enough - we had to drop the tyre-pressure a lot to make it UP that steep hill.

The problem only started when our air-compressor died after the 2nd tyre! And instead of putting air into the back tyre, it let some more air go out of the tyre. Grrr!!!

Luckily we eventually got some help from a local farmer who carried an air-compressor :-)

We arrived at the Nullarbor (lat. for "no trees"). A strongish wind was blowing ... in the opposite direction (against us) and let us watch the petrol gauge go down very quickly :-(

But this didn't bother us too much. It was Alex' birthday :-)

After the heat, the bees, the bush fires, the mosquitoes and other stuff we just wanted to find a nice spot to celebrate and spend the night. Along the Nullarbor there should be several lookout-points where we targeted to. After not finding any that were marked on the old maps (they were abandoned) we just took one of the tracks leading south to the cliffs dropping down 60 meters into the sea. Wonderful! Temperatures around 24°C, no flies, no mosquitoes, no bees :-)
... but the wind was a little strong. Äääähhhmmmm the wind was actually picking up and we spent a night with big worries about the wind destroying our camper-trailer! We kept the windows open all night so that the wind could go through our home instead of blowing it over. - What a night!

We crossed the Nullarbor without too much excitement. We found a pleasant bush camp spot where we felt comfortable, no insects and even no wind- what a bonus! We only saw 2 emus along the whole Nullarbor- there was really lots of nothing!

After a couple of days we arrived at our next highlight- the Cape le Grand National Park! We were extremely lucky to find a campsite at the nice campground (Le Grand Beach) as it is very popular, quite small, long weekend coming up, school hols,... the site 7 was just waiting for us!

Lovely white beaches, blue turquoise water, nice campground.. pleasant temperatures.. we ended up staying for 12 days . There we celebrated Alisha's 8th birthday, Australia day and had very good company. The kids loved the company of Finn and Skye, and we enjoyed socialising with Cad, Rob, Bruce, Sharon, Gary, Jenny, and other friendly people. It was good for all of us.

We enjoyed some hikes, went swimming and boogie boarding, baked bread, garlic bread and a cake for the birthday girl, and of course the kids also did some school. Luca and Alex had the oppoertunity to join Gary on his motorboat to go fishing in the ocean. Unfortunately the sea was quite rough, but nevertheless it was an experience to launch the boat and go out. Luca also spent a morning fishing with Gary from the rocks.

We will all keep Cape le Grand in our fondest memories!

After Cape le Grand we headed up north to Kalgoorlie, where we visited the Superpit, a huge open gold mine. It was 1,5km wide, 3.5 km long and 500 m deep. Unfortunately we didn't see the blasting.