The western part of what is popularly known as the ‘Nullarbor’ is neither treeless nor flat. True, there are areas that are treeless and areas that are flat, but undulating and scrubby are probably better descriptors. The true Nullarbor doesn’t start until just under 1000 kms from Norseman, 500 kms further East from our camp spot.
What the Nullarbor certainly is, is isolated. Three Roadhouses in 500 kms and still 1000 kms to civilization on the eastern side and yet another 500 kms to Adelaide. Our big excitement for the day was driving the “Longest straight stretch of road in Australia”. At 146.6 kms, we’d agree it was LONG.
Where the Roadhouses are today, there were once small settlements, some with interesting histories. Caiguna, 200 kms East of Norseman, had its first European contact in 1841, when Edward John Eyre and his expedition passed within 20 kilometres of the present Roadhouse, on 29 April 1841. It was a tragic encounter. One of Eyre’s companions, John Baxter, was brutally murdered by 2 fellow members of the expedition. At the time, Eyre felt Baxter's untimely death was all the more ignominious given that he couldn't even be given the dignity of a proper Christian burial. According to Eyre's journal, the whole area around present day Caiguna, was overlain with solid sheets of limestone bedrock and ,apparently, under the circumstances the best that could be done was to wrap his friend's body in a shroud, leaving it exposed to the elements.
Nearly forty years later, a search party was organised to discover Baxter's remains. Under the leadership of John Healy the search party did, in fact, discover Baxter's remains - minus the skull however. Near the site were also found a number of other relics, including the lock mechanism of a gun.
By all accounts, Baxter's bones were then packed into a calico bag and despatched to the Colonial Secretary's Office in Perth. In a peculiar twist of fate, the final resting place of Baxter's bones still remains something of a mystery. Apparently all records relating to the disposal of Baxter's remains have been lost.
10 August - 81km East of WA/SA Border
As the highway wound closer to the Bight today, there was a lot more to see than yesterday. Just before the South Australian border, is the small settlement of Eucla, once home to one of the telegraph stations that were strung out along the Nullarbor.
Eucla was established in 1877 as a manual repeater station for the Overland Telegraph. The ruins of the old stone station lie partly buried in the shifting dunes of brilliant white sand. In its day, the station was supported from the sea using a jetty and 1km of tram line. Not many people seem to bother to make the 1-2 km trek through the to what is left of the jetty. We almost didn’t bother, but our curiosity got the better of us and so we trudged off through the dunes. It was well worth the walk! Along the way, bits and pieces of the tramway and other ’relics’ were exposed in the ever-shifting dunes. The jetty itself is now home to hundreds of sea birds that take advantage of the safety it provides as it is no longer connected to the shore.
Further east along the coast, it is possible to walk right to the edge of the sheer limestone cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. Here the now dead flat plains of the Nullarbor come to an abrupt and spectacular end, dropping 90 metres to the ocean.. These magnificent cliffs stretch for more than two hundred kilometres along what must be one of the most isolated coastlines in the world.
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