Welcome to TiddlyWiki created by Jeremy Ruston, Copyright © 2007 UnaMesa Association
*Casio ~QV-3000UX/Ir digital camera. Andrew was able to transfer photograph thumbnails via infra-red to his trip diary in his PDA. With a 1GB Microdrive in the camera, Andrew took 694 photos (847MB worth).
[img[Digital camera|qv3000.gif]]
*Ericsson ~MC218 handheld computer (PDA). Andrew used this as a moving map (while connected to the GPS) and to keep notes in a travel diary.
[img[PDA|mc218.jpg]]
*[[D-Res 30AW|http://www.lowepro.com/pages/bySeries/dres.htm]] camera bag made by [[Lowe Pro|http://www.lowepro.com/]].
[img[Camera bag|D-Res30.jpg]]
*A small travel battery charger from Tandy Electronics (Cat No. 23-034), see also [[RadioShack in the US|http://www.radioshack.com/]].
[img[Battery charger|23-034.jpg]]
*A power supply suitable for vehicle use. Now available as [[a kit from Altronics|http://www.altronics.com.au/cat.asp?cat=11&grp=428&id=K3230]], Andrew built his from scratch. Required because the vehicle 12V can have spikes up to 1000V as motors and things switch on and off. Not many things like 1000V and this power supply is designed to ensure such spikes don't get through to the devices it powers.
[img[Power supply|pwrsup.jpg]]
*[[Celestron|http://www.celestron.com/]] ~NexStar 4 telescope. Brought along for the dark skies far away from city lights. Shame about the clouds and thunderstorms...
[img[Telescope|n4sml.gif]]
[[Introduction]]
[[Trip Eve]]
[[Day 1]]
[[Day 2]]
[[Day 3]]
[[Day 4]]
[[Day 5]]
[[Day 6]]
[[Day 7]]
[[Day 8]]
[[Day 9]]
[[Day 10]]
[[Day 11]]
[[Day 12]]
[[Day 13]]
[[Day 14]]
[[Day 15]]
[[Day 16]]
[[Day 17]]
[[Day 18]]
[[Day 19]]
[[Day 20]]
[[Day 21]]
[[Day 22]]
[[Day 23]]
[[Day 24]]
[[Day 25]]
[[Day 26]]
[[Day 27]]
/***
|''Name:''|CryptoFunctionsPlugin|
|''Description:''|Support for cryptographic functions|
***/
//{{{
if(!version.extensions.CryptoFunctionsPlugin) {
version.extensions.CryptoFunctionsPlugin = {installed:true};
//--
//-- Crypto functions and associated conversion routines
//--
// Crypto "namespace"
function Crypto() {}
// Convert a string to an array of big-endian 32-bit words
Crypto.strToBe32s = function(str)
{
var be = Array();
var len = Math.floor(str.length/4);
var i, j;
for(i=0, j=0; i<len; i++, j+=4) {
be[i] = ((str.charCodeAt(j)&0xff) << 24)|((str.charCodeAt(j+1)&0xff) << 16)|((str.charCodeAt(j+2)&0xff) << 8)|(str.charCodeAt(j+3)&0xff);
}
while (j<str.length) {
be[j>>2] |= (str.charCodeAt(j)&0xff)<<(24-(j*8)%32);
j++;
}
return be;
};
// Convert an array of big-endian 32-bit words to a string
Crypto.be32sToStr = function(be)
{
var str = "";
for(var i=0;i<be.length*32;i+=8)
str += String.fromCharCode((be[i>>5]>>>(24-i%32)) & 0xff);
return str;
};
// Convert an array of big-endian 32-bit words to a hex string
Crypto.be32sToHex = function(be)
{
var hex = "0123456789ABCDEF";
var str = "";
for(var i=0;i<be.length*4;i++)
str += hex.charAt((be[i>>2]>>((3-i%4)*8+4))&0xF) + hex.charAt((be[i>>2]>>((3-i%4)*8))&0xF);
return str;
};
// Return, in hex, the SHA-1 hash of a string
Crypto.hexSha1Str = function(str)
{
return Crypto.be32sToHex(Crypto.sha1Str(str));
};
// Return the SHA-1 hash of a string
Crypto.sha1Str = function(str)
{
return Crypto.sha1(Crypto.strToBe32s(str),str.length);
};
// Calculate the SHA-1 hash of an array of blen bytes of big-endian 32-bit words
Crypto.sha1 = function(x,blen)
{
// Add 32-bit integers, wrapping at 32 bits
add32 = function(a,b)
{
var lsw = (a&0xFFFF)+(b&0xFFFF);
var msw = (a>>16)+(b>>16)+(lsw>>16);
return (msw<<16)|(lsw&0xFFFF);
};
// Add five 32-bit integers, wrapping at 32 bits
add32x5 = function(a,b,c,d,e)
{
var lsw = (a&0xFFFF)+(b&0xFFFF)+(c&0xFFFF)+(d&0xFFFF)+(e&0xFFFF);
var msw = (a>>16)+(b>>16)+(c>>16)+(d>>16)+(e>>16)+(lsw>>16);
return (msw<<16)|(lsw&0xFFFF);
};
// Bitwise rotate left a 32-bit integer by 1 bit
rol32 = function(n)
{
return (n>>>31)|(n<<1);
};
var len = blen*8;
// Append padding so length in bits is 448 mod 512
x[len>>5] |= 0x80 << (24-len%32);
// Append length
x[((len+64>>9)<<4)+15] = len;
var w = Array(80);
var k1 = 0x5A827999;
var k2 = 0x6ED9EBA1;
var k3 = 0x8F1BBCDC;
var k4 = 0xCA62C1D6;
var h0 = 0x67452301;
var h1 = 0xEFCDAB89;
var h2 = 0x98BADCFE;
var h3 = 0x10325476;
var h4 = 0xC3D2E1F0;
for(var i=0;i<x.length;i+=16) {
var j,t;
var a = h0;
var b = h1;
var c = h2;
var d = h3;
var e = h4;
for(j = 0;j<16;j++) {
w[j] = x[i+j];
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),d^(b&(c^d)),w[j],k1);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=16;j<20;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),d^(b&(c^d)),w[j],k1);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=20;j<40;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),b^c^d,w[j],k2);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=40;j<60;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),(b&c)|(d&(b|c)),w[j],k3);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=60;j<80;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),b^c^d,w[j],k4);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
h0 = add32(h0,a);
h1 = add32(h1,b);
h2 = add32(h2,c);
h3 = add32(h3,d);
h4 = add32(h4,e);
}
return Array(h0,h1,h2,h3,h4);
};
}
//}}}
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '24 March 2002' 'Home' 'Camp 1' '334' '~SH50-14 Perth, ~SH50-15 Kellerberrin, ~SH50-16 Southern Cross' 'Grandparents, The Lakes, Northam, Meckering, Merredin'>>
Got up relatively early to complete the packing. In particular were the two fridges that had been kept running inside the house. They had been packed the night before and simply had to be put into the back of the Land Rover.
There was some final packing of items into the cabin and eventually, just before midday, we left home! Six hours later than we had originally planned.
[img[Stuart and Andrew|03240002.jpg]]
The first stop was the service station to fill up with diesel. The jerry cans both inside and out were already full, but the sill and main tanks needed to be topped up to establish a base for calculating our fuel consumption. Then we visited Stuart's parents to say goodbye.
Just after leaving them and while we were driving south on the freeway (back in the general direction of home), we did some last minute checking to see if we could think of anything we had forgotten before we passed the turnoff back to home. All we came up with was a lens cleaning cloth, bought especially for this trip. Although it was such a small item, we hadn't passed the turnoff for home so we decided to go back and pick it up and have some lunch.
Just before 1:00, we left home again.
As we crossed the Darling Ranges, Andrew kept an eye on the GPS altimeter and at 1:30 we reached a peak altitude of 356m. Just after that we stopped at The Lakes to check the tyres and make sure they were handling the heavy load.
Just before 3:00, we stopped near the Meckering fault line. On 14 October 1968 there was an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale. At the time it was Australia's second largest on-shore earthquake. The University of Western Australia has [[a web page on the Meckering earthquake|http://www.geol.uwa.edu.au/~swsz/mecktext.htm]].
[img[Meckering Earthquake Fault Line|03240003.jpg]]
Originally you could see a raised line in the earth where the earthquake had pushed up, but with so many years since the earthquake and the farmer ploughing the paddock, there is now nothing to see!
Not long after leaving Meckering, there was a bit of excitement on the road. An oncoming 4WD had drifted on to the wrong side of the road! Luckily the driver 'woke up' while it was still a little way off and swerved back to the right side of the road.
We stopped at Merredin at 4:30pm for a bit of a stretch and walk around an information bay. The map there needs a bit of work as there is a list of buildings and places with a numbered key, but on the map there's no numbers or labels! Just unmarked lines for roads and rectangles for buildings. Utterly useless.
At 5:30pm, we stopped to camp just inside a nature reserve on the Great Eastern Highway. We found a very nice clearing which just had some short clumps of soft grassy plants. Close by was a large area of exposed rock and a quarry, probably for road gravel.
[img[Camp|03240005.jpg]]
It was a very mild night and we just got out some cold chicken, salami, eggs, and tomatoes for dinner, followed by a cup of tea and some fruit.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 1' 'Home' 'Merredin' 'Kalgoorlie'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '2 April 2002' 'Camp 9' 'Camp 10' '183' '~SH51-12 Seemore, ~SH51-16 Naretha, ~SH52-13 Madura' 'Premier Downs, Skylab Well, Rawlinna, Lime mine, Haig'>>
[img[Day 10 Map|day10map.gif][day10map.gif]]<<imagebox 396 512>>
----
[img[Camp|04020001.jpg]]
We broke camp at 8:30 this morning. On the way south, we passed a wrecked car not too far off the track. At about 10:30 we passed by Premier Downs. They appeared to have a new windmill - it was very shiny. The fences nearby all seemed to be new as well. They were made of four strands of barbed wire.
Kangaroos were plentiful in this area. Many had joeys with them, big enough to hop about themselves. They were mostly grey, but one or two reds could be seen. They obviously like the better access to water in these parts where cattle are run.
It's a very poor and desolate place for grazing. We could see evidence of horses and cattle.
<<panorama "Premier Downs" "020402_03-11.jpg" 30.0 70.0 360.0 "no">>
When we were planning our trip, we had originally intended to turn left here and head east for a fair distance, to a place called Decoration cave. However, we made the decision last night to miss the cave and continue south to the Trans- line and try to make up some time on the better road. As it turned out the road ended up being in quite poor condition and we probably didn't make up any time at all. We did, however, end up seeing quite a few interesting things...
We continued south and about an hour later we approached Skylab Well. About 2km before we got there we passed some cattle heading south. About ten minutes later we reached where they were heading. Skylab Well is in good condition, with a pump, tanks, and troughs.
[img[Skylab Well|020402_15-16.jpg]]
We stopped at a gate in the fence about 100m from the well. Once through the gate we got out and walked closer to the well. All [[ the cattle|Sky%20Lab%20Well%202.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Cattle At Skylab Well'>> about were kicking up a [[low dust cloud|Sky%20Lab%20Well%203.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Cattle At Skylab Well'>> and they were mooing continuously. A huge number of finches were flying about, moving from one bush to the next when we got too close.
[img[Finches At Skylab Well|04020022.jpg][Sky%20Lab%20Well.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
We also surprised a rabbit and even a feral tabby cat! The cat was no doubt having a good time here, what with all the finches and water about.
We kept on going south. Soon we could see what looked like white sand dunes on the horizon. Getting closer they turned into big white mullock heaps. One of them started "smoking" and we realized a dump truck had just deposited a new pile of white rocks onto the top. We now knew the mine was operational and we'd have to see if we could have a closer look.
[img[Lime Mine Mullock Heaps|04020026.jpg]]
We arrived at Rawlinna at 12:30. The first thing we did was find the [[public telephone|Rawlinna%20Railway%20Stn.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Rawlinna Railway Station'>> and call home. The phone was located at the old railway building.
<<panorama "Rawlinna" "020402_33-35.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
Next, we walked over to a likely set of [[buildings|Rawlinna%20Mine%20Office.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Rawlinna Mine Office'>> to see if we might be able to have a look at the mine. We found a woman named Joan. She's the cook, cleaner, and mailperson for the Loongana Lime company that's doing the mining. Loongana Lime are owned by [[Amalg Resources NL|http://www.amalg.com.au/]]. (In September, 2006, the mine was acquired by Adelaide Brighton Cemtent Limited.) Joan also does a spot of work for ARTC (Australian Rail Transit Corporation).
We talked for a while before she went over to her ute and called up the mine on the two-way radio. She tried to get the mine boss ("Boof") on the radio, but he was out keeping his hand in, driving a grader and must have had his radio turned off. Joan arranged for someone to meet us, then she showed us the very young joey she was hand-rearing. It was tightly wrapped up in a bundle of blankets on the front seat of the ute. She has three other joeys at home, but this one was so young it needed feeding every two hours so she kept it close at hand.
Just before we left she took a photo of us (with her Kodak digital camera) to add to a number of others on a notice board. She's got her own computer and colour printer and had photographed other visitors, although most of the photos were of mine employees.
We made our way up to the mine, only about 1km from the townsite, listening in on the mine UHF channel. It was a bit hard to understand. They almost use a sort of "shorthand". When we got up to the mine office it seemed deserted, but then a young girl came out and when we asked about the mine she got the second-in-charge, Simon, on the radio and he came to give us a guided tour. While we waited for him to arrive, she described a bit about the crushing and sorting that we could see going on from the office area.
Simon may not be second-in-charge for long. On the following Monday (8 April 2002) he was going into Kalgoorlie to take a test and if he passed he was going to be the new boss! The current boss would move to another position closer to Kalgoorlie.
The mine had 14 people working there, but they'd prefer to have about 16. The mine is operated 24 hours a day. Simon offered to drive us around and we got into the works Land Cruiser. We started the tour off where they were doing some digging.
[img[Digging|04020028.jpg]]
The mine boss, Boof, was driving the grader getting things ready for more blasting and digging later on that night. Above the excavator you can see the top of the mine. That's the level of the Nullarbor plain. From that level there's 0.5-1.5 metres of topsoil that has to be removed and discarded. Then there's two layers of algae - they're the dark bands just above the excavator. Only then do they get to the good stuff - the high-grade limestone.
[img[Drilling|04020029.jpg]]
Just across from where they were digging was a higher level that was being drilled in preparation for blasting. The mine has an expected lifetime of 50 years. This was interesting as we were told that this mine was started when the company closed the Loongana mine. The Loongana mine was operational when we passed through there on our trip around the Great Australian Bite about 6 years ago. Stuart was keen to have a new look at Loongana in the next day or so.
In the photo below, start at the top-right. The dark shape is a truck backing (to the left) a load of rock into the "Grizzly". That's the name for the primary crusher that takes the big chunks of rock and turns them into much smaller pieces. Some gross sorting of really big crushed pieces from the rest takes place here too. The rocks that aren't too big are conveyed to another crusher that does some more sorting and finally a third crusher. From all these the rocks are graded into piles of different coarseness.
[img[Grizzly And Rock Piles at Rawlinna Mine|020402_30-31.jpg][Rawlinna%20Mine.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
No further processing is done to the crushed rock. From here it is sent by train to Kalgoorlie for further processing in a kiln. The end result is quicklime, used by the gold and other mines as part of their processing, typically to counter acidity.
[img[Crushed Piles|04020032.jpg]]
The mine and Rawlinna townsite run off the same power station, a three generator diesel fuelled installation. Normally only one generator is used to power everything, but the main crusher needs 800A at 415V to start up, so for that they need to have two of the generators running.
After an interesting hour or so, we returned to the town and filled up our water bladder with some of the desalinated town water. Then we headed out of town in an easterly direction. We dropped into the town rubbish tip (a couple of kilometers east of the town) to drop off our accumulated rubbish. It was there we suspect we staked the front left tyre, because only a couple of kilometers down the track (lucky 13km from Rawlinna, to be exact) a hissing could be heard from the front. We stopped, and sure enough, we had our first (and only) tyre puncture of the trip.
[img[Tyre Puncture|04020038.jpg]]
While we were changing tyres (we just swapped the ready-to-go spare off the rear carrier) we were passed by a freight train (the trans-Australia line was only about 10-20m away) and two motor vehicles! At least one of the vehicles was from a nearby station as the woman driver stopped to ask if we were OK. Presumably the other vehicle was also a local but we waved him through indicating we were alright.
Not far out of Rawlinna the track condition took a turn for the worse. Cable-layers were laying a new optic fibre for Optus and as they head west to east they were really cutting up the road with big ruts where they've been bogged in the mud, and bulldust where the mud has dried out. For the duration of our trip the cable layers remained close to Cook, 490km to the east. As they slowly move east, they're leaving behind a ripped up and very poor track.
We finally stopped for the night at Haig. Haig is now just a railway siding and an airstrip. The airstrip is in very good condition and has a working windsock.
The weather had turned extremely cold and windy, but thankfully it wasn't raining. We camped next to a microwave repeater tower and the wind made the guy wires "sing" all night!
[img[Camp Next To Tower|04020039.jpg]]
Dinner tonight was a warming meal of steak, onions, potatoes and peas. It seemed familiar...
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 10' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Rawlinna'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '3 April 2002' 'Camp 10' 'Camp 11' '117' '~SH52-13 Madura, ~SH52-09 Loongana' 'Nurina POW Camp, Loongana, Lime Mine'>>
[img[Day 11 Map|day11map.gif][day11map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 126>>
----
We broke camp at 9:30 and soon drove into some spots of rain. It was very light and very brief. Certainly not enough to even dampen the track.
At 11:20 we arrived at a railway siding on the Trans-line called Nurina and found an interesting sign posted next to the railway line:
[img[Prisoner Of War Camp Site|04030001.jpg]]
There was a matching sign on the other side of the railway. Clearly visible on the ground were rows of stones. Some formed an outline of a 'road', as in the above photo. Others formed the shapes of buildings.
We got out and walked down the parallel row of stones. At the end were a number of railway sleepers arranged in squares, presumably where some huts had been.
[img[Sleeper Squares|04030002.jpg]]
Elsewhere, barbed wire was strung out along the ground, the remnants of the perimeter fence?
[img[Barbed Wire|04030004.jpg]]
There was also what appeared to be the remains of a well, although it was completely filled in.
[img[Remains Of A Well|04030005.jpg]]
The other side of the railway line had more rocks arranged in lines. Here they appeared to form the outlines of buildings, although no remains of any structures could be seen.
<<panorama "Nurina POW Camp" "020403_06-08.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
When we got back home after the holiday, we searched the Internet looking for any information about this POW camp, but nothing could be found.
Down the railway a little from the POW camp, we found some abandoned railcars on a spur line off the main railway. Shoved in a document holder on the side of one of the card, were the consignment notes. On 8 June 1998 1600 head of sheep were transported from Kybo station (just south of Nurina) to Parkeston, just outside of Kalgoorlie. Three of the four cars were listed on the notes. Presumably the sheep were transported and the cars returned for more sheep, but were never used again.
[img[Abandoned Railcars at Nurina Siding|04030010.jpg][Nurina%20Siding.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
We continued our journey east. Just before 1:00, we found some ruins by the side of the railway line (30.97567°S 126.64111°E).
[img[Stone Ruins on Transline at Nurina|04030012.jpg][Stone%20ruins%20trans%20line%202.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
There appear to be many ruins by the side of the railway line. They never seem to be substantial enough to be a house or a hut, more likely they used to be some sort of small storage shed, or perhaps a forge used during the construction of the railway.
[img[Closeup of Stone Ruins on Transline at Nurina|04030013.jpg][Stone%20ruins%20trans%20line.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
Nearly an hour after leaving the ruins, a bright light appeared on the horizon. After a bit it turned into an oncoming train - the Indian Pacific heading towards Perth! This was the first (but not the last) time we'd seen it this trip.
[img[Indian Pacific|04030014.jpg]]
A little later, we passed a kangaroo family, although we didn't see the little joey until after we'd passed them. They didn't even move while we drove by. For those who don't know, the red one is the male, and the grey one the female. Both of them are 'red' kangaroos.
[img[Kangaroos|04030021.jpg]]
At about 2:30 we were approaching Loongana. We had been here before some years ago as part of another holiday touring the south coast of WA. Andrew didn't remember being here very well, but Stuart did.
Loongana used to be a limestone mine, worked by the Loongana Lime company until they moved to Rawlinna. There also used to be railway maintenance workers living in three houses by the side of the railway line with their families. They got their power and water from the mining company. Now the place is deserted and everything is left to rot.
The mine had plenty of rooms for workers, plus a kitchen/bar, recreation room (with pool table) and laundry. When the mine shut down, the railway workers left too as it wouldn't have been practical to provide power and water to so few people. All that's left now is a big hole in the ground, piles of waste dirt and ruined buildings.
[img[Mullock Heaps|04030023.jpg]]
The next photo shows the major structures of the mine. From left to right are the railcar loading bin, storage shed and conveyor belt going to the top of the roaster. Behind the roaster (just to the left of it in the photo) is the primary crusher. Off the edge of the photo to the right is the pit.
[img[Loongana Lime Mine|04030040.jpg]]
This was the main pit (with power transmission lines strung across it):
[img[Pit|04030025.jpg]]
From there the ore was taken to the primary crusher (the two big box things at the back):
[img[Primary Crusher|04030034.jpg]]
Two conveyor belts took the crushed ore to the top of the roaster, which was sitting on the side of the pit:
[img[Roaster|04030027.jpg]]
The roaster appeared to produce a fine while powder - lime - which was stored in a large shed:
[img[Storage|04030038.jpg]]
Under the storage shed was a tunnel with a conveyor belt:
[img[Tunnel|04030035.jpg]]
The lime dropped on to the belt and was taken to a loading bin, ready to load a train for transport to Kalgoorlie (or wherever):
[img[Loading Bin|04030036.jpg]]
All this was probably controlled from a desk inside one of the buildings next to the roaster:
[img[Control Desk|04030031.jpg]]
Everything around the mine pit was covered in a [[layer of white lime powder|Loongana%20Mine.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Loongana Lime Mine'>>. The railings below probably weren't originally white, but they are now, along with just about everything else around here!
[img[Powder Covered Equipment|04030030.jpg]]
Across the pit was the housing for the mine workers.
[img[Mine Housing|04030041.jpg]]
There's almost nothing left of the [[housing for the railway workers|Loongana%20Railway%20Stn.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Loongana Railway Station'>>. Only one house out of five is still standing, although the one next to it does have walls but the roof has caved in. All the others have been burnt to the ground. On our previous visit there were still two railway families living here as well as the people working in the mine. Stuart souvenired a blue mug from the last remaining house. This is looking south towards the houses. The mine is behind the camera.
[img[Loongana|020403_42-43.jpg]]
A while after leaving Loongana, we passed an old telegraph pole. Virtually all of the original telegraph line was pulled down, but a couple of poles are left for the eagles and other birds to build nests on. It's a long way to the next tree!
[img[Bird Nests|04030044.jpg]]
Just after that we passed another set of stone ruins.
[img[More Ruins|04030046.jpg]]
We still have no idea what these were for.
We stopped to camp at 5:00. It was very cold and windy. Luckily the rain was staying away, although as the sun set, it seemed to light up rain falling from the clouds. Maybe it was evaporating before it reached the ground.
Is that rain?
[img[Rain?|04030049.jpg][04030049.jpg]]<<imagebox 512 384>>
As the sun set, it put on a pretty show.
[img[Rays Of Light|04030051.jpg][04030051.jpg]]<<imagebox 512 384>>
Dinner this evening was a huge plate of spaghetti.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 11' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Forrest'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '4 April 2002' 'Camp 11' 'Camp 12' '120' '~SH52-09 Loongana, ~SH52-10 Forrest, ~SH52-14 Eucla' 'Mundrabilla Siding, Forrest, Old Homestead Cave'>>
[img[Day 12 Map|day12map.gif][day12map.gif]]<<imagebox 540 256>>
----
It rained several times during the night. Only one train passed by and woke us up. It was very cold and windy while we were having breakfast. We thought it was looking a little like rain so we tried to hurry things along a little. Just as we were putting the tent down, it started to rain. As we were breaking camp at 8:30, a Transfield ute drove by - on the train line! He was probably doing a line inspection. Wheels like that would be very handy...
Not long after leaving the camp, we saw some rabbits. It must be a hard life out on the plain. Not much of either food or water.
Half an hour on the track saw the rain coming down quite heavily. It was still raining a little another half-hour later when we got to Mundrabilla siding.
By the side of the track were piles of concrete sleepers. Lots of black rubbery squares were lying about too. These are what the rails rest on so they aren't in direct contact with the sleeper. The squares aren't really rubber because they are very stiff and difficult to bend, but they didn't seem to be plastic either.
At 12:00 we arrived at Forrest. Forrest is the major stopping-over and refuelling spot for light aircraft crossing the Nullabor Plain. It has a non-directional beacon (NDB) and two runways, one of which is all-weather since it has a full instrument landing system (ILS) installed.
[img[Forrest|020404_08-09.jpg]]
Looking after the airport and townsite were Max and Yvonne Williamson. They were leaving in a month to move back to Perth!
[img[Max, Yvonne and Darryl|04040007.jpg]]
Darryl is a fellow who wanders about and drops in from time to time. Today he was helping out by putting some mesh on the guttering to keep out leaves and birds. Also featured in the photo is Max and Yvonnes pet dog, Tess.
Max and Yvonne have been looking after Forrest for a couple of years now. They live in one of the six houses here, the other five are available for rent by pilots crossing Australia or for 4WDers. The best earner is not the airport itself, but the accomodation block on the railway line for the railway workers. Every few days a ute or two on rail-wheels comes through and they stay for a couple of days while they inspect the line. The block is on the south side of the line while the six houses are well away from the line to the north. All their water comes from a 430ft bore and is desalinated.
When we arrived they said a couple of [[RAAF|http://www.defence.gov.au/RAAF/]] [[PC9s|http://members.iinet.net.au/~2fts/aircraft.html]] were due to land shortly. We sat down on the verandah and chatted about our trip and remote airport life. Soon the radio crackled and spoke. Max went inside to talk to them and then came back outside and offered to take us to the airport with them to see the planes. We jumped in their 4WD and five of us (Stuart, Andrew, Max, Yvonne, and Tess) headed off to the airport.
Forrest airport is just a big hanger and a couple of smaller buildings.
[img[Forrest Airport|04040011.jpg]]
On the way one of the aircraft flew in a low curve over the airport, then turned around and lined up for the main runway. We beat it to the airport and were in time to watch it land.
[img[First PC-9|04040001.jpg]]
According to the pilots the second plane was about ten minutes behind them. They had flown in visually for the last few minutes, following the train line. Max quickly got to work refuelling it while the two pilots went into the airport hut to do the paperwork and eat some lunch - Yvonne had prepared several huge sandwiches for them ($6 each!).
[img[Refuelling|04040002.jpg]]
By the time the second plane arrived, heavy rain was passing over the airport. The changing winds forced them to land on the cross runway. Spot the plane!
[img[PC-9 Obscured By Rain|04040003.jpg]]
Soon we had two planes side-by-side.
[img[Two PC-9s|04040004.jpg]]
The "administration block" is just this small shed (altitude 508 feet). The geraniums around the outide have been trimmed by the local rabbits.
[img[Administration|04040006.jpg]]
There's a telephone and fax machine, plus a kettle for tea and coffee. The walls are covered in business cards on one side and photographs on the other.
While they ate their lunch, they planned the next leg of their trip.
[img[Pilots Planning Their Next Leg|04040005.jpg]]
They're on a training trip. They started in Perth out of Pearce airbase. Their next stop was Adelaide, then on to Newcastle and Brisbane. Then they basically turn around and come back again. They expect to be back here in 12 days.
By this time Max had finished refuelling the planes. They had each taken the exact same amount of fuel - to the litre! We left them to their planning and headed back to Max and Yvonne's house.
They invited us in for lunch and we accepted. Over lunch we talked about many things. Darryl was around when a fellow drove his reconditioned fire engine into the bush for six months and 'vanished'. He'd really just camped in a remote spot and tried to get some publicity from being 'lost'.
Darryl also related a story about Len Beadell, the man who surveyed and made many of the roads in the area. Apparently he was found driving on one of the roads he built, but was now within Aboriginal native title land. He didn't have permission from the owners (I guess he didn't think he needed permission to drive on a road he had surveyed and carved from the bush). He was fined $2000.
Before we left Forrest, we bought some fuel. Max gave us some good advice: "The only time you've got too much fuel is when you're on fire!". We bought enough to ensure we got to the next petrol station without having to drag the jerry cans out from inside the back of the Land Rover.
We headed south, past the NDB towers. At 4:00 we arrived at Old Homestead Cave. This is the longest cave on the Nullarbor Plain at 28.5km. [[CEGSA|http://www.users.on.net/smilner/cegsa/home.htm]] (the Cave Exploration Group of South Australia) have built a hut and an open-pit toilet. The hut is quite nice with a table, some seats and shelves. There are plenty of rainwater tanks, and with all the recent rains, every single one was overflowing. Nice water too! The toilet is a relatively long way from the hut - could be a problem if you're in a rush! Once you get there, there's a sliding door to keep the weather out, a hook for your coat and even toilet paper!
[img[Caver's Hut|04050002.jpg]]
Outside the hut were some benches to sit on, and some firewood stacked in a box.
We set up camp next to the hut. We still slept in our tent, but we cooked and ate our dinner in the hut. The hut even came with some good reading material (for Andrew, at least) - [[Endworld #2: Thief River Falls Run|http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/084393106X]] by David Robbins.
We briefly looked at the cave while it was still light. Even getting close to it, [[it didn't look like much|Homestead%20Cave%202.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Old Homestead Cave'>>.
[img[Close To Old Homestead Cave|04050003.jpg]]
Once at the edge, we could clearly see the entrances to the north and south caves. Apparently the [[north cave|Homestead%20Cave.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Old Homestead Cave'>> has 27km of surveyed passages! The next panorama is looking west, the south entrance on the left and the north entrance on the right.
<<panorama "Old Homestead Cave" "020405_06-09.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
We didn't go down them at this stage, we first wanted to set up our camp and have some dinner.
After dinner at about 7:00, we went back to the cave. The first one we went down was the south one. It went down quite a way, a bit of a scramble down rocks. In the first big chamber down was a visitors book. A passage down through the rocks had us reach a much smaller chamber where people had left their 'signatures'. A crawlway left this chamber, but we didn't go down it.
The north cave was more interesting. It went down to a small opening with an old wooden ladder. The rungs were rough tree branches. Down even further there was a rope-assisted drop down to a small chamber with an unshored shaft going straight down. It had been cut out of the rock and there was a windlass and bucket there. Down the shaft was a rope ladder with very widely spaced rungs made of tree branches. Stuart didn't go down, but Andrew did. At the bottom of the ladder, the shaft continued down with some rough shoring, but it was filled with rubble. Next to where the shaft ended, there was a small chamber with a visitors book, which Andrew signed. There was a slight breeze at the book. It was coming from a small crawlway leading away from the chamber. The breeze became much stronger through the crawlway. It was blowing into the cave! Andrew didn't want to crawl anywhere, particularly alone, so he climbed back up to where Stuart was waiting and we left the cave.
Andrew now regrets he didn't take his camera with him into these caves.
On our way into both of these caves, we disturbed many small birds, which then flew about in the dark trying to find a new spot to rest, often flying into us in the process.
After our exploration we returned to the hut and enjoyed a bit of a wash before going to bed.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 12' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Forrest' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '5 April 2002' 'Camp 12' 'Camp 13' '89.6' '~SH52-14 Eucla' 'Nothing!'>>
[img[Day 13 Map|day13map.gif][day13map.gif]]<<imagebox 234 493>>
----
We woke up and it was raining, cold and windy. The horizon all around was a flat gray. The rain passed over in waves. The area around the cave is quite flat, so we had ample warning of when the next lot of rain was to arrive.
Breakfast was extended while we waited for gaps in the rain to dash out to the Land Rover for things.
After breakfast we spent some time fixing the switch between the dual batteries. While repairing it we found out that both batteries had been connected all through the night! We could have flattened both of them and been in a spot of bother.
We also fixed the gas light. The piezo starter switch had come loose and was shorting on the metal frame.
Eventually we finished breakfast and the repairs and got everything packed away. We waited for quite a while after the rain had stopped for the tent to dry out a bit before putting it down. We also washed some of the mud off the running boards to limit the mud we tracked into the cabin. It seemed a bit pointless - it will surely be back soon.
We finally broke camp at 1:00. A new record late start! As we left, we stopped by the cave and took some photos (see Day 12).
We drove south towards Mundrabilla Homestead. We passed through several gates before reaching the crossroads that would take us towards the homestead if we went south, or towards Webb's Cave if we headed west.
We started west, but after only a few kilometers we decided to turn around. The track was a poorly used one, and after the recent rains it was quite muddy and we were sure we would do excessive damage to the track. Much better to go back to the better used roads and perhaps visit the homestead for advice on the best way to get to Webb's Cave.
We stopped at 5:15, about 3km short of the escarpment. It was cold, but not windy. The ground was wet and muddy in parts. We've decided dust is much preferable to mud. There were dark, rainy looking clouds all around. We found the remains of four sheep scattered about close by.
After a dinner of savoury mince and rice, we decided to try and walk to the escarpment. After a good long walk Stuart thought we had encountered a car camped by the side of the road. Andrew couldn't see any sign of a car, just two reflectors. In the morning we discovered it was just a gate and the escarpment was only 300m further on.
----
No photos today? The photos taken around Old Homestead Cave today are on [[Day 12]] with the commentary of the area and exploration. No other photos were taken today.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 13' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '6 April 2002' 'Camp 13' 'Camp 14' '122' '~SH52-14 Eucla, ~SH52-13 Madura' "Mundrabilla Homestead, Webb's Cave, Kelly's Cave, Madura">>
[img[Day 14 Map|day14map.gif][day14map.gif]]<<imagebox 542 191>>
----
[img[Camp|04060001.jpg]]
While having breakfast this morning, we started hearing sheep in the distance. They got a little louder and eventually we could see them at the other end of the straight bit of track near out campsite. They looked like they usually came down the track to get to their water, but we had camped in their way! We didn't even know where their water was!
Wandering around near the camp we found the remains of four sheep. With all the rain and mild weather this area had recently, a missed morning drink probably won't hurt anything.
Just as we were packing up camp, a young fellow on a motorcycle rode up the track from the direction of the escarpment. He turned out to be Gus, one of the sons of the station owner. He was out checking stock and water levels. They had had about 12mm of rainfall in just the last few days, compared with 2mm since February. The stock have been having to make do with bore (salty) water and the fresh water from the recent rains should help them quite a bit.
Just after 10, we broke camp and drove down the track we had walked along last night. We arrived at the gate with the reflectors, drove through and stopped near the top of the escarpment. The view from the top is quite spectacular.
<<panorama "Escarpment View Over Nullarbor Station" "020406_02-05.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
You can see the station homestead on the plain below. Beyond the station (above and to the right) is a white chiller out by itself. A little to the above and left of that you can just make out an airstrip. Beyond that again (although it can't be seen), the Eyre Highway stretches right across the plain. At the far right of the panorama you can see an orange-red strip of earth going down diagonally to the left. That is the track down the escarpment. Not surprisingly, it is very steep. Between that and where the photo was taken was a small valley. The valley had a couple of dams built into it, but they looked old and didn't have any water in them.
[img[Looking Down Valley towards Mundrabilla Homestead|04060006.jpg][Mundrabilla%20Homestead.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
We drove down the escarpment (in low gear - no brakes!) and called in at the homestead. We met Bob (and Ben, the dog). Bob told us the best way to get to Webb's Cave, then mentioned another cave called Kelly's Cave that had been discovered only very recently. Across the entire Nullarbor Plain, new caves are being discovered on average one per week!
We arrived at Webb's Cave around 12:00. It's located at 31.77058°S 127.81836°E if you want to get there.
[img[Webb's Cave Entrance|04060010.jpg][Webbs%20Cave%20Entrance.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
The cave is named for Charlie Webb, a dam sinker (someone who builds dams). He lived in the cave for a while and in one part of the cave are a few bottles and an old table.
[img[Old Table And Bottles|04060011.jpg]]
The cave can be divided into three sections. To the left as you enter the sinkhole, there is an open area where the table and bottles are. It isn't very big area wise and the ceiling is quite low too.
Clockwise from that is quite a large room. A crouching/crawling area, wide but short with a column in the middle, led to another room where you can stand up.
[img[Column|04060012.jpg]]
The room had two very narrow columns.
[img[Two Narrow Columns|04060013.jpg]]
Another crouch-sized opening led to another large room. A very big stalagmite grew here.
[img[Big Stalagmite|04060016.jpg]]
Parts of the ceiling in this part of the cave are covered in hundreds of tiny stalagtites.
[img[Many Stalagtites|04060017.jpg]]
The third section of the cave we almost missed. We had explored the cave opening in a clockwise direction and at the end we found an opening going down. It was narrow and sandy and went a long way down. It seemed to be going back underneath the cave we had just been exploring. At the bottom was a small room with a passage leading off. Through that passage was probably the best part of all Webb's Cave! A huge room with dozens of good-sized stalagmites and stalagtites.
[img[Large Room in Webb's Cave|04060019.jpg][Webbs%20Cave%202.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
There wasn't any water activity in this part of the cave. Everything was bone-dry and whenever we moved, dust was kicked up into the air. There was no discernable air flow either, so the floating dust just hung about and slowly settled. We often had to wait quite a while before we could take photos otherwise the flash would light up all the dust particles and make it look a little like a snowstorm!
[img[Large Room in Webb's Cave|04060020.jpg][Webbs%20Cave.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
Climbing over the rocks to the back of the room we located a passage that quickly petered out. Further exploration in the big room found another passageway that led between two flows (it looked like the rock had been frozen while flowing down the walls) to a small room with hundreds of tiny stalagmites and stalagtites growing all over the floor and ceiling. I wish I'd taken my camera exploring with me!
----
The next stop was the new cave, Kelly's Cave. We almost drove past it, the cave is very close to the main track, but the track to it is very faint. It's not marked on any maps (yet) so here is it's exact location: 31.75728°S 127.77119°E.
What made Kelly's Cave special almost immediately was the gale-force wind blowing out the entrance!
[img[Entrance To Kelly's Cave|04060021.jpg]]
Immediately inside the entrance was a small room big enough for two or three people. The amazing thing was that the wind had disappeared!
The way into the cave was down a relatively steep slope made of loose rocks and rubble. At the bottom was a large room with a few stalagmites and stalagtites. In one part two columns formed a 'gate' you could walk through.
[img[The Gateway|04060022.jpg]]
There were very few leads from this room. It looked like that's all there was, but then Stuart tried a wide (-ish) but not very tall opening. Crouching (we didn't have to crawl) through it, we entered an enormous cavern - it was huge! There was lots of open space with stalagmites, stalagtites and columns everywhere.
[img[Columns|04060023.jpg]]
Some of the stalagtites were huge, and strangely, most of them had no sign of a stalagmite underneath.
[img[Huge Stalagtite|04060024.jpg]]
This was the biggest open space we had encountered in any of the caves we had visited so far. In a hollow on the side of cave we found some crystals growing.
[img[Crystals|04060026.jpg]]
Kelly's Cave is probably one of the better caves to visit. The tiny and unassuming entrace is a huge contrast with the size of the cavern and features of the cave below.
----
By this time, it was nearly 4:00 in the afternoon. We had to think about camping. Madura was only a short drive away (time-wise) and as this was about the half-way point of the trip, we thought a night in a motel room would be a great idea. Not to mention a shower and a nice meal in a restaurant.
We arrived at about 5:30. It was already nearly dark. We booked in, had our showers, then made our way to the bar for a drink before dinner. Andrew had a 'Madura Special' chicken in garlic sauce. Stuart had a ~T-Bone steak in pepper sauce. A couple of Hahn Premiums washed it all down.
Ahh! A proper bed for a change!
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 14' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '7 April 2002' 'Camp 14' 'Camp 15' '202' '~SH52-13 Madura, ~SH52-14 Eucla' 'Mullamullang Cave'>>
[img[Day 15 Map|day15map.gif][day15map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 180>>
----
[img[Our Motel Unit (#44)|04070001.jpg]]
We had breakfast in the restaurant. Some juice, a bowl of cereal, and some toast with a cup of tea. While we were having that, we put on a load of washing in the laundry that serves the caravan park. One load in the machine, then several goes in the dryer got most of the important things done.
We refuelled before we left at about 9:30. We crossed the highway and drove straight up a steep and narrow road to the top of the escarpment. At the top are the airstrips servicing Madura. We initially drove around one of the strips, then had to cross one (looking carefully!) to find the track we wanted.
We left the airstrips and headed north through a gate in a fence. Just past the gate the track forked. We took the right branch and headed in a north-easterly direction.
In spite of the recent rains the ground still looked very dry. We passed a windmill which had a lot of sheep milling around it. Parts of the grounds were wet, but whether that was from the rain or just overflow, we couldn't easily tell.
Further on, parts of the track were just lakes of water. We had to make brief detours off to the sides where it was dry (we got out and checked on foot first). It's not really the right thing to do as it tends to create new tracks and damage the ground, which wouldn't impress the station owners!
We arrived at Mullamullang Cave (31.72322°S 127.22942°E) a bit before 11:00 to find two vehicles and a campsite already there! No people though - obviously they were down in the cave. A generator hummed a little way off and we could see the cable running from the campsite through the scrub in its direction.
Although there are two holes in the ground, only the north hole has an entrance you can climb into. The south hole is completely blocked off. There is undoubtedly a lot more cave down there if only it was possible to get to!
<<panorama "Mullamullang Cave" "020407_02-05.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
It's a very long way down to get into the cave. It looks a fair way from the outside, but once you get into the cave itself, it's still a long way down all the rubble and sand covered rocks. On the way down Stuart found a small hole that had air blowing out of it. This indicates a connection to a cave.
[img[Mullamullang Cave Entrance|04070006.jpg]]
There's one very tricky part where the cave opens up beneath you, but it's much too far to drop down. You have to brace yourself between a wall and a rock, with your back to the wall and your feet on the rock and work your way over the hole to where you can climb around and down the other side of the rock. Once past that there is still a long and steep rocky slope to get down.
Initially Stuart didn't want to climb over this part, but Andrew managed to convince him.
The way down is shown by reflectors previously set up by professional cavers. They reflect in your head light in one colour on the way in. The other side is a different colour to show you the way out. It sounds a bit silly, but in a dark cave you can lose all sense of direction, and you wouldn't want to follow the reflectors into the cave when you wanted to get out!
Mullamullang Cave is distinguished as being one of the best walking caves on the Nullabor. The passages at the entrance are huge. Its vast size makes it impossible to take photos without proper lighting eqipment. A couple of 100W lights at the least would be required. A regular camera flash has a range of only a few metres and is useless in a cave this big.
Once at the bottom, the going was easy. The passage was wide and tall and the floor is mostly flat, without any rubble or rocks to make it uneven. The walking passage opened into a cavern with a large sand dune and a couple of signs dated December 1993. They warned us not to disturb the big dune there, and not to go into the 'Dome' for two years, long since expired.
Further on, the cave was still a huge walking cave until we got to a spot called the 'Southerly Buster'. The cave here drops to a crawlway while staying relatively wide. The reduced cross-section of the passage funnels the air flow and it really blows a gale!
Stuart was tired of crawling through caves, so Andrew went ahead a little to see what happened. Only a few meters of crawling and the cave opened up again. The wind stopped too. It's really amazing what a difference a narrowing of the passage makes to the flow of the air! Again, Stuart had to be convinced that a little more crawling would be worth it - and it was.
The passage became even bigger than before, and the sand dunes were absolutely huge. The sand dunes aren't like the ones you'd find at the beach. These ones in the cave have solidified and although not rock, are firm and easy to climb.
We walked on a long way (still following those reflectors. There isn't much in the way of stalagmites or stalagtites - this part of the cave is 'dead'. It's the size that makes it impressive. We did pass a couple of side passages or rooms that seemed to have had more water activity in the past - they had a few stalagmites and stalagites, but they were all dry now.
We stopped and turned around when we reached a spot where the passage narrowed to about half what it had been and climbed steeply up. We estimated we were about 600-700m in. There was going to be enough crawling and climbing to get back out - we weren't looking for any more!
We had got back to the end of the good walking passage and had started climbing up the rock pile towards the outside when we heard a 'Hello' from behind us! He introduced himself as Paul. He was one of three guys doing some cave diving (using rebreathers) and they were finishing up their exploration today. He was carrying out a couple of air tanks (very heavy), photography lighting gear and some other stuff. He huffed and puffed and caught up to us very quickly. We had a chat for a while as he caught his breath, before he continued on and immediately outpaced us.
We caught up with him at the top of the cave entrance on the Nullabor Plain, but he was immediately going back in to pick up more gear. At the same time another two figures had appeared at the bottom of the hole. We waited for them. They were Dave and another Paul. This Paul was Paul Hosie, a guy Stuart had read about while he was researching caves on the Nullabor Plain. He's done a lot of caving, not just on the Nullabor.
[img[Cavers' Camp|6_13.jpg]]
It turned out that the three of them had been at Mullamullang for about three days. Before that, they had dropped into several other caves on the Nullabor. At Mullamullang they were diving off a lake that was not too far into the cave (further than we went, though). They had explored and surveyed 500m in one direction and 150m in another.
Paul Hosie recommended we visit Abracurrie Cave (already on our list), but also mentioned three others close to it: Chowilla Doline, Kutowalla Doline and Winbirra Cave. He also mentioned Koonalda Cave. It has an entrance similar to Mullamullang, but has been closed off by the 'gate from hell' put in by a government heritage department because some Aboriginal handprints had been discovered in a side passage.
Koonalda Cave is known for being the site of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of South Australia.
Paul H and Dave went back into the cave, leaving Stuart and Andrew to have some lunch. By this time it was 2:45 and it would be 4:00 before we got back to the highway. There wasn't much driving time before we would have to stop and camp.
The Eyre Highway can really let you eat up the kilometres. By the time we stopped to camp at 5:20, we had driven all the way to the Nullabor Roadhouse. We found a track on the map that went up the escarpment behind the roadhouse. At the top was a large quarry where they appeared to have dug up rocks for building and maintaining the highway.
Just up from the escarpment, the map showed the road forking, with one track heading ENE and the other NW. We wanted to go on the ENE one, but although we drove back and forth (using the GPS and moving maps for guidance), we just couldn't see anything heading in that direction. The sun was nearly setting by this time, so we had to be quick about locating a suitable camp site. Andrew made time to take a photo of the sunset.
[img[Sunset|04070007.jpg]]
After dinner, Andrew decided to try out his telescope for the first time this trip! While setting up, the telescope kept on pointing to the wrong stars. After several attempts it suddenly worked. The power cord was also tripped over twice, resulting in the telescope having to be setup again and again (still stubbornly pointing the wrong way the first few attempts). After a mere half hour of viewing the cold night air caused the lens to dew up and brought the evenings stargazing to an unsatisfying end. Jupiter, normally clear enough to make out the separate cloud bands, ended up being just a fuzzy ball of light.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 15' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '8 April 2002' 'Camp 15' 'Camp 16' '95' '~SH52-14 Eucla' 'Chowilla Doline, Abracurrie Cave, Weebubbie Cave'>>
[img[Day 16 Map|day16map.gif][day16map.gif]]<<imagebox 498 180>>
----
[img[Camp|04080002.jpg]]
We broke camp at 8:20 and set out. We passed an elevated water tank that the map indicated was the water supply for the Mundrabilla Motel.
We made our way onto the Old Coach Road and turned east. When we reached the T-junction on our maps with the road we had been looking for last night, sure enough, a track joined the road from the south. It was quite clearly defined and it would have been interesting to follow it to see where the other end got to and to find out why we missed it last night.
A bit before 10:00 we arrived at the Chowilla Doline (31.64233°S 128.48472°E). It's nothing more than a great big hole in the ground. The size of the Land Rover provides a good comparison.
[img[Chowilla Doline|04080003.jpg]]
It's nothing more than a great big hole in the ground. All the walls are vertical faces, requiring the use of ropes and climbing equipment to get down. No doubt cavers have climbed down into it looking for cave entrances, but nothing has been found. It makes you wonder how many more holes there might be just under the surface of the Nullarbor Plain as you are driving along? Note the size of our Land Rover in the top left of the photo.
The Chowilla Doline is the northern-most cave of a series of four north-south cave formations. The next one is Abracurrie Cave, which we went to next. The other two are Kutowalla Doline and Winbirra Cave, neither of which we visited.
Abracurrie Cave is just a few minutes to the south (31.65631°S 128.49000°E).
[img[Abracurrie Cave|04080005.jpg]]
The entrance to the cave is at the end of a long(-ish) valley where the ground has collapsed into what would have been more cave. Although the valley is a nice and easy walk, the entrance end is quite steep and overgrown getting into the cave itself. (The next photo was taken as we were heading out).
[img[Overgrowth At Cave Entrance|04080009.jpg]]
Once inside the cave, the rock slide down to the bottom of the cave is still quite steep, but quite open.
[img[Rock Slide|04080008.jpg]]
At the bottom of the rock slide, the floor of the entrance passage is huge, at least compared to the previous caves we had been in. There were rocks (small boulders) all across the bottom. The entrance tunnel curves around to the right as you go in. It turns out that even the entrance passage is small compared to the main cavern - which is absolutely huge! In fact, it is the largest cavern in the southern hemisphere!
Once inside the main cavern, which joins the entrance tunnel like a 'T'-intersection, the floor was quite smooth and sandy. A few bats were roosting on the ceiling and 'rustled' when we shone our torches on them. We could see no hints of any passages leading away from this main cavern - the rock walls descended smoothly below the level of the sandy floor.
The outside valley would have been an extension of the entrance tunnel. The combination of a long, wide tunnel and the huge cavern would have been amazing.
On a somber note, we found a grave inside the main cavern with a simple wooden cross. We can't believe anybody could have gotten lost inside - there are no passages to choose from and only one way out. It could only have been something sudden like a heart attack.
Just like some of the other caves, there was no way to photograph the inside of this cavern - it was just much too big!
After an hour exploring the cave, we left it and went back to the Land Rover. While we were having a drink, we spotted a strange cloud, low to the ground in the distance. It was a swarm of bees! (At least we assume it was bees - we didn't go to investigate and they were quite a long way off). We got out the binoculars and soon spotted two other swarms. We watched for a while, but they didn't get any closer. They just kept on swirling around in the wind.
We left Abracurrie Cave and continued on the Weebubbie Cave. If you look at the map at the top of this page, you'll see where we turned south off the Old Coach Road. This turnoff doesn't exist on any of the maps we have! When we saw a track diving off to the south we said "bet the cavers made this as a short cut to the cave!" - and we were right. It probably saved half an hour of driving.
Weebubbie Cave is one of the more famous caves on the Nullarbor Plain. It was closed by DOLA after an expedition of Girl Guides was affected by a rockslide about two years ago (2000). The Speleological Research Group of Western Australia have compiled a [[report on the collapse|Weebubbie Cave Collapse]]. When we met the three cavers yesterday and they recommended this cave, we just had to climb down into it and have a look. We weren't going to let a sign stop us!
[img[Weebubbie Cave|04080024.jpg]]
Before that we stopped to have a bite of lunch and reconnoitre around the top. The entrance to Weebubbie Cave, as the next photo shows, is at the bottom of a large pit. The Cave Divers Association of Australia has provided some [[information|Weebubbie Cave]] on the cave.
[img[Weebubbie Cave|04080025.jpg]]
At the top of an overhang into the pit, an old winch was simply resting without any apparent anchoring to the ground. It looked so old anyway, it couldn't have seen any use for many decades.
[img[Old Winch|04080011.jpg]]
Around the edge of the top of the pit, several plants had a strange yellow-orange fungus looking growth on them. Very strange.
[img[Growth On Plants|04080027.jpg]]
Climbing down into the pit presented some difficulties as it was a near vertical drop. There were plenty of hand and foot holds, but better safe than sorry. We unloaded a long rope from the roof rack and tied it to a handy star picket that had been sunk into the rock at the top and climbed down.
This photo shows the route we selected from the top before we tied the rope:
[img[Weebubbie Cave|04080012.jpg]]
And from the bottom, with the rope in place:
[img[Weebubbie Cave|04080022.jpg]]
The rope made it so much easier to climb down and up, especially when you're carrying torches and cameras! The bottom of the pit had a lot of a groundcover plant growing all over the rocks. It made it look quite pleasant.
[img[Bottom Of Weebubbie Cave Pit|04080021.jpg]]
Once in the pit there was a steep rock pile to climb down to get to the cave. At the bottom of the rock pile in the pit was an old wooden ladder.
[img[Climbing Down The Ladder|04080014.jpg]]
The ladder allowed for a much easier descent down to a small ledge and another, inner rock pile inside the cave.
[img[Wooden Ladder In Weebubbie Cave|04080020.jpg]]
The inner rock pile had reflectors placed on the rocks giving a guide to the correct way down. More climbing followed, mostly down. The next photo is taken looking back up the rock pile towards the entrance. Stuart is the lesser light on the left.
[img[Inner Rock Pile|04080017.jpg]]
As we reached what looked to be the end of the cave, something caught Andrew's attention and made him stop. Whatever it was, he decided it might be water and he called to Stuart, "I think there's water here!". He stopped just as he was about to put his foot in it.
[img[Water!|04080016.jpg]]
The flash from the camera makes the water look obvious, but with only the relatively dim light from our torches, the water is quite invisible. There is no breeze to stir the water - it is completely still and absolutely clear. The only hint of the water in the next photo is a darkened line around the rock at the bottom. All the white and blue rocks in the upper and right portions of the photo are completely covered in water.
[img[Water!|04080015.jpg]]
The water is so clear and still, the only way to tell it is there is by the slight green-blue colouration of the rocks as seen through it, or by sticking your hand in it. We tried tasting it - it was slightly salty.
This first lake of water was reasonably large. It looked quite deep at the wall furthest from the cave entrance. Further around to the left of the that pool was a much larger pool, which also looked much deeper. It was just as clear and still as the first pool. It extended to the limit of our lights and disappeared to the left around a corner. It would have been interesting to go swimming and see what was around that corner!
Both of us noticed we were sweating quite a bit in this cave. We suspect it might have been caused by the increased humidity due to the presence of these pools of water at the bottom.
We climbed out of the cave - our last cave of the trip - and re-coiled our rope and set off to look for a camp for the night. By this time it was after 4:00. We continued down the track towards Eucla. We didn't want to go into the town, so instead of heading east, we found a track heading west along the escarpment. Shortly before 5:00 we stopped at a spot not too far from the edge of the escarpment.
[img[Camp|04080028.jpg]]
As the sun set, the clouds turned a pretty red.
[img[Sunset|04080029.jpg]]
The evening was much warmer than the previous night. The skies were fairly clear too, so it would have made a much better stargazing night if it wasn't for all the tall trees crowding around the campsite.
Instead of looking at the stars, we walked the 120m to the edge of the escarpment to see what traffic went by. After several minutes a car drove by. Not much traffic!
Dinner tonight was a huge feed of sausages, onions, potatoes and peas.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 16' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '9 April 2002' 'Camp 16' 'Camp 17' '206' '~SH52-14 Eucla, ~SH52-15 Coompana' 'Eucla, Old Telegraph Station, WA/SA Border, Geocache "Nullarbor Numbness"'>>
[img[Day 17 Map|day17map.gif][day17map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 132>>
----
We woke up around 6:00. During breakfast we were rained on, but only a very light, spitting rain. We heard on the radio that showers were predicted on the south coast, contracting eastwards later in the day, so we got some rain much earlier than expected.
[img[Rain|04090001.jpg]]
We broke camp at 9:20 and headed for Eucla. We thought we'd have a quick look around before continuing to the border. We arrived half an hour later and decided to re-visit the old telegraph station (31.71278°S 128.88617°E). We had visited it on a previous trip, but that was many years ago and we thought it a worthwhile detour to see if it had changed.
[img[Eucla Telegraph Station|04090003.jpg]]
From memory, it seemed as though a lot more of the building had been uncovered since we had last seen it.
[img[Eucla Telegraph Station|020409_04-05.jpg]]
The next photo is of an old telegraph pole, taken looking towards the Station (which is just to the left of the big green clump in the middle). At the horizon on the left is not the ocean, but the escarpment.
[img[Telegraph Pole, Looking Towards Station|04090006.jpg]]
After leaving the Telegraph Station, we stopped at a monument to Edward John Eyre and company.
[img[Monument|04090007.jpg]]
The plaque:
[img[Monument Plaque|04090008.jpg]]
Edward John Eyre (1815-1901), together with his aboriginal friend Wylie, was the first man to cross southern Australia from east to west, travelling across the Nullarbor Plain from Adelaide to Albany. Lake Eyre and the Eyre Penninsula are named after him. John Baxter was shot dead by Joey and Yarry as they made off with provisions when supplies later ran low. Only Eyre and Wylie managed to complete the crossing. They left Fowler's Bay in February 1841 and reached Albany in July 1841.
A little further on from, closer to the highway, was a monument to the telegraph station:
[img[Telegraph Station Monument|04090009.jpg]]
The plaques commemorate the establishment of the east-west telegraph link in December 1877. The service operated through to March 1927.
By now it was nearly 11. We continued on the highway to the WA/SA border, which crosses the highway at a 60 degree angle.
[img[SA/WA Border|04090015.jpg]]
It was here where we thought we would refuel and get the tyre we punctured on 2 April repaired. However, there was no garage at the border! Just a restaurant, motel and fuel. Of course, there's also the quarantine checkpoint:
[img[Quarantine Checkpoint|04090018.jpg]]
This is mainly to check for fruit entering WA and make sure the fruit fly doesn't get in and ruin the fruit industry.
We bought $20 worth of fuel, then turned around and headed back to Eucla. By the time we got back to Eucla it was 11:40. The guy at the service station spent quite some time looking at the puncture and eventually, with some help from Stuart, pulled a 2cm piece of wood from the tyre.
While that was going on, we took the time to buy some frozen milk and bread, plus some bacon and eggs. Afterwards we each had a shower ($1 for a few minutes water) and had some lunch. By this time it was 3:00 and we'd barely travelled further than 20km from our last camp!
[img[SA/WA Border|04090014.jpg]]
We headed east and zipped past the border, but stopped about 15km down the highway at a lookout. It offered a view of the vast Great Southern Ocean, and the Merdayerrah Sandpatch which extended back towards the border.
[img[Merdayerrah Sandpatch|04090019.jpg]]
We drove on for another half an hour (50-60km) before we stopped at another lookout. This time for our first view (this trip) of the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.
[img[Cliffs|04090021.jpg]]
It was now 4:00, and getting close to when we should start looking for a spot to camp. Some pre-trip research had discovered the location of a geocache ("[[Nullarbor Numbness|http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=9602]]" at 31.57052°S 130.38478°E) that wasn't too far away. We decided to try to make it there to camp for the night.
We arrived at 5:05 and found a nice little camping spot about 300m from the highway down an access road to a microwave tower.
Before the sun went down, Andrew set up his telescope for a bit of stargazing later on. The temperature was quite mild meaning that dew shouldn't be much of a problem.
After dinner of baked beans and sausages, we grabbed our torches and the GPS and went looking for the geocache. We spent half an hour looking in the wrong spot before Andrew realized he'd left the GPS in the wrong datum, putting us 200m off! Once that was sorted out the cache was quickly found (by Stuart). We'd come back for a proper look in the morning when we could see what we were doing.
By now a couple of clouds had appeared in the sky, but they weren't really an impediment to using the telescope. We viewed Saturn, Jupiter, the Omega Cluster, and all the major stars of the Pointers and the Southern Cross.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 17' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '10 April 2002' 'Camp 17' 'Camp 18' '267' '~SH52-15 Coompana, ~SH52-16 Nullarbor, ~SH52-12 Ooldea, ~SH53-09 Barton' 'Geocache "Nullarbor Numbness", Grader Monument, Nullarbor Roadhouse, Head of Bight, Ruins, Disappointment Cave'>>
[img[Day 18 Map|day18map.gif][day18map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 484>>
----
[img[Overcast Sky|04100003.jpg]]
We woke up at 6:30 this morning to an overcast sky. After breakfast we set out to rediscover the geocache we'd found the night before. With little trouble we found the hidden container and popped it open. Various things were inside, including a set of Christmas reindeer antlers:
[img[Antlered Andrew|04100002.jpg]]
We broke camp at 8:30 and backtracked down the highway a little to see a 'monument' positioned nearby at the top of the cliffs. It turned out to be an old grader placed in commemoration of the sealing of the Eyre Highway.
[img[Commemorative Grader|04100004.jpg]]
Since we were at the top of the cliffs again, we took some photos looking east:
[img[Cliff Top Looking East|04100008.jpg]]
and west:
[img[Cliff Top Looking West|04100006.jpg]]
On the top of the cliffs many fleshy cactus-looking plants were growing:
[img[Fleshy Clifftop Plant|04100007.jpg]]
We left the monument and continued on the highway to the Nullarbor Roadhouse, arriving at 9:50. We fuelled up the Land Rover, then fuelled up ourselves on a couple of cartons of choc milk.
From there we decided to visit the Head of the Bight, arriving just before 11:00. This is used during winter by people wanting to watch the migration of the Southern Right Whale. There's a building on the way in. You're supposed to leave some money to go towards the upkeep of the site. There was nobody there when we visited, but undoubtedly during the popular months there are people there to ensure the money is collected. We left a $5 note.
You can't walk to the actual head of the Bight (the northern-most point of the Bight), but you can see it from the walkways:
[img[Head Of The Bight|04100012.jpg]]
All the walking areas are fenced off to protect the fragile cliff-top area.
[img[Head Of The Bight|020410_10-11.jpg]]
There were no whales to be seen when we were there, however the view was still spectacular!
[img[Bay|04100015.jpg]]
The cliffs stretched out into the distance:
[img[Distant Cliffs|04100016.jpg]]
At the end of the walkway, there was an open viewing area perfect for a panorama:
<<panorama "Head Of The Bight" "020410_18-26.jpg" 30.0 70.0 360.0 "no">>
All the mod-cons are there too - there was a very new looking solar powered and rainwater supplied toilet block.
Having seen enough of the coast, it was time to return inland. We headed back to the highway, drove a short distance, then turned north onto a narrow dirt track.
[img[Dirt Track|04100030.jpg]]
After about half an hour on the road we saw a dingo, but it slipped away out of camera range before we could take a photo.
Not long after that we came to some ruins (31.27100°S 131.19489°E) that we had seen marked on the map. We were curious about them and had deliberately chosen this route to go right by them.
[img[Ruins|04100028.jpg]]
Two concrete pads and some pillars - we have no idea what they were.
[img[Ruins|04100029.jpg]]
There were also some mysterious round mounds of earth nearby.
We continued on up the track until we reached a junction with an east-west track. There was an old well sunk here and tossing in a few stones revealed it was quite deep, but no water.
[img[Old Well|04100031.jpg]]
We turned east and soon arrived at Dissappointment Cave. With a name like that it met all expectations! It's a large cave with a hole in the roof back up to the level of the plain. Some water seeps/drips down into it. At the back was a crawlway. It wasn't possible to see the back of with the little LED torches we had with us, but we suspect they were only short. Not worth any photos.
We made a special stop for this panorama (31.08333°S 131.39922°E), mostly because from this vantage point the Nullarbor Plain lived up to its name - we couldn't see a single tree!
<<panorama "Nullarbor Plain" "020410_32-40.jpg" 30.0 70.0 360.0 "no">>
Five minutes after taking the panorama we saw five camels, but they were too far away for a good photo.
An hour later we reached a junction. The track we were on continued, but another, less used track, went to the north. Of course, we chose the lesser-used track!
[img[Faint Track|04100043.jpg][Track%20Nth%20of%20Nullarbor.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
This was a little used track - just [[two lines of bent grass|Track%20Nth%20of%20Nullarbor%202.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Faint Track'>> disappearing into an unbroken horizon. Here's a passenger's eye-view of the track:
[img[Passenger View Of Faint Track|04100041.jpg]]
At 5:00 we reached the main access road between Ceduna and the ~Maralinga-Tjarutja community at Oak Valley and stopped to camp for the night next to some large bushy trees just at the side of the road.
Virtually the entire track we took to get here from the Eyre Highway was excellent. No corrugations, few stony parts, no mud. Just towards the end (within 30km of the access road) some furrows appeared in the road, probably dug by a grader.
After dinner, we set out for our usual evening walk. To the north/north-east we could see flashes of lightning. These continued for hours, but we never saw any clouds associated with the storm, so they must have been a fair way off. We also saw two aircraft flying the same route, but in different directions.
Our walk was to take us to some ruins of water tanks, about 1km to the north. However, after we'd been walking for about five minutes we noticed the lights of a car behind us coming towards us. As it was dark, we'd noticed it while it was still a long way off. Nevertheless, we ran back to camp to turn the gas light down and waited probably another five minutes before the vehicle drove by. It was a small cab-over truck (mini-sized) without any tail-lights!
We didn't resume our walk.
Occasionally we could hear trains rumbling in the distance - we were only 24km from Ooldea and the ~Trans-Australia railway line!
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 18' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla' 'Adelaide'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '11 April 2002' 'Camp 18' 'Camp 19' '177' '~SH53-09 Barton, ~SH52-12 Ooldea' 'Water tank ruins, Ooldea, Trans-line ~E-W join marker, Ooldea Well, Barton'>>
[img[Day 19 Map|day19map.gif][day19map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 160>>
----
[img[Camp|04110001.jpg]]
When we woke up, all we could see out the window from the tent was blue sky, but when we got out and about there were clouds in all directions! In particular, it looked like it was raining heavily to the north.
[img[Rain|04110002.jpg]]
Just as we put the tent down it rained a little, so we had timed things well!
We broke camp a little after 7:30 and drove to the ruins we had tried to walk to last night. They turned out to be just a pair of water tanks with a dilapidated corrugated-iron shelter to one side.
[img[Rain Water Tanks And Shelter|04110006.jpg]]
We had a look inside the tanks, but there was little water.
[img[Looking In The Tanks|04110003.jpg]]
Behind the tanks was a rusted, overturned car wreck. About thirty galahs had landed on it to drink the rain that had collected on it.
[img[Galahs On Car|04110008.jpg]]
We continued on to Ooldea, arriving about 8:30. Ten minutes to the west is a marker where the ~Trans-Australia railway lines, one side from Kalgoorlie heading east and the other from Port Augusta heading west, joined.
[img[Historic Marker|04110009.jpg]]
We returned to the Ooldea siding to look for a track to the north-east. Out in that direction was a place called Ooldea Well and we wanted to see what was there.
There weren't any tracks marked on the map in that direction, but we did find tracks going all over the place!
During our search for the right track, we came upon a grave of a man and woman belonging to the Kokala(?) tribe.
When we found the track, it was very sandy, up and over sand dunes. We got to about 1km from where the Well was supposed to be before a really big soft dune stopped us with our normally inflated tyres.
[img[Big Sand Dune|04110010.jpg]]
We could have made it by letting the tyres down, but instead we got out and walked as our GPS indicated the track was heading away from the Well and it would probably be just as quick to walk. Before we left, we let the tyres down and turned the vehicle around.
[img[Track To Ooldea Well|04110011.jpg]]
The track didn't go directly to the Well, of course, but instead went in a long loop around and approached the Well from the north. As we got closer, some pink coloured cockatoos (not galahs) flew in to the trees.
[img[Approach To Ooldea Well|04110012.jpg]]
Once there, we found little evidence of prior habitation. There was a spot where a windmill and water tank may have been.
[img[Remains Of Windmill And Tank|04110015.jpg]]
The area was very [[green|Ooldea%20Well.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Ooldea Well'>>, with large trees and bushes growing all around. It was very different to the ground-hugging shrubs away from the area of the well! Some of the plants were ferny-looking. Some of the trees had reddish coloured berries on them. These were what the cockatoos had flew in to have a feed on.
[img[Green Trees And Bushes|04110014.jpg]]
Another spot was a bit of a well or soak. It had been fenced off fairly recently with a maze to try to stop emus and kangaroos from getting in. Some copperlogs had been put in to make a bit of a ramp.
[img[Fenced Off Well|04110016.jpg]]
There were a few other [[structures|Ooldea%20Spring%204.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Ooldea Well Structures'>> scattered around the area, including one that looked to have the remains of a low roof.
[img[Old Shelter at Ooldea Well|04110019.jpg][Ooldea%20Spring%205.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
The ground had lots of small rocks and stones on the surface. Sometimes there was a bit of tin or glass.
When we left, we used the GPS to cut [[across country|Ooldea%20sandhills.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Ooldea Sandhills'>> and head directly back to the vehicle. At the top of the first big dune before we lost sight of the well area, we stopped for a final photo:
<<panorama "Ooldea Well" "020411_20-22.jpg" 35.0 70.0 140.0 "yes">>
On our way back to the vehicle, we saw several rusted tin cans - even though we were way off the track! Pretty sad, really.
We got back to the vehicle and started the drive back to Ooldea siding. As soon as we had left the soft sand dunes behind, we re-inflated the tyres so we'd be less likely to puncture them on the stony Nullarbor Plain.
When we got back to Ooldea siding, we noticed a monument by the side of the tracks.
[img[Memorial To Daisy Bates|04110023.jpg]]
It was a memorial to Daisy Bates, who had spent many years at a mission helping the local Aboriginal people.
[img[Memorial Plaque|04110024.jpg]]
We left Ooldea siding behind and headed east. We were heading for a track north towards one of the atomic bomb test sites at Emu. We had been denied permission to travel through Maralinga, and to get to Emu any other way would have taken us much too far out of our way, and taken too long. After two hours on the trackside road, we passed an old car jack by the side of the road. Shortly afterwards we passed an old rusted car with "Rough Road" painted on it and an arrow pointing west.
[img[Rough Road|04120005.jpg]]
After another kilometer or so we passed another rusted out car body. When we got to within 5km of Barton we saw a dingo.
[img[Barton|7_12a.jpg]]
At a quarter past three we arrived at Barton and spoke to a guy named Peter. He works for Transfield looking after the railway line. He told us there's an 83-year-old hermit living just down from the Transfield accomodation houses.
[img[Hermit's Property|04110025.jpg]]
Peter delivers his supplies once a fortnight, which includes 35 tins of Milo! He's lived there since he retired from working here at Barton on the railway. The next photo shows his house:
[img[Hermit's House|7_10a.jpg]]
We kept on going east alongside the railroad track. 30½km from Barton a black cat crossed our path! Feral cats really can survive anywhere.
As we travelled we watched the GPS. Andrew had forgotten to include the relevant map on his PDA and we had no paper maps of the area, so we were guessing as to where the track might be.
Towards 5:00 we reached the general area we expected to find the track. We had trouble finding the fence turnoff. There were many vehicle tracks all around. They could have been to do with the railway or with the telephone cable that was nearby.
We eventually found it after almost dismissing the track that led to the corner of the fence. The track itself was sandy, but well defined. It was almost sundown, so we backtracked a little and found a place to camp.
The sky this night was quite cloudy. Lightning could be seen on and off to the north-west. We hadn't seen any trains at all since we rejoined the track at Ooldea siding, just after midday.
After dinner we walked a kilometer or two down the railway line. From where we camped the railway had been built up onto the top of a sand ridge. From the top we had a good view of the various thunderstorms off in the distance. Not just to the north-west, but now to the south-west and east as well.
It started raining not long after we got back to camp, so we decided to pack up and go to bed. It continued to rain for the rest of the night. Around 3:30 in the morning a train finally rumbled by - the first in 15 hours!
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 19' 'Home' 'Barton' 'Tarcoola' 'Emu' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Laverton' 'Eucla' 'Coober Pedy' 'Adelaide'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '25 March 2002' 'Camp 1' 'Camp 2' '371' '~SH50-16 Southern Cross, ~SH51-13 Boorabbin, ~SH51-09 Kalgoorlie, ~SH51-10 Kurnalpi' 'Southern Cross, Kalgoorlie, Superpit, Geocache "Camerons Cache", Perkolilli Dam'>>
[img[Day 2 Map|day02map.gif][day02map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 450>>
----
After a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we broke camp at 8:20 and headed off towards Kalgoorlie.
Around 10:30 we stopped at a 'scenic lookout'. It was quite a large outcrop of rock. From the top you could see quite a way, but it was all tree tops except for a dry lake off to the north east.
[img[Scenic lookout|03250002.jpg]]
We arrived in Kalgoorlie around midday and spent half an hour driving around just looking at first, then looking for the police station so we could leave our itinerary. Stuart went in to talk to them, while Andrew popped into the local supermarket looking for a brush so the daily layer of dust could be brushed off the canvas back so we wouldn't get showered with dust when opening it.
The response at the police station was a bit of a surprise. They wouldn't accept our itinerary! Apparently they had no place to file it and suggested we contact Laverton police. So often you hear the police say "let us know where you're going" and then when you try they don't want to listen!
We had lunch at a very nice 24-hour cafe called "Monty's". We started with a cold beer each, then progressed to a couple of huge toasted sandwiches. A BLT with chips for Stuart, and a steak, egg and onion one for Andrew. A couple of coffees finished off the meal.
[img[Monty's|03250003.jpg]]
After lunch we started to head east again. The plan was to find a geocache planted a little way out of town. On the way out of town we passed near the Superpit and decided to take a look. It's huge!
<<panorama "The Superpit" "020325_04-10.jpg" 55.0 110.0 170.0 "yes">>
It's very hard to grasp the scale of it, but the following photo shows one of the ore trucks next to a regular 4WD vehicle:
[img[Ore truck and 4WD|03250014.jpg]]
The tyres beside the road are from the ore trucks. They cost $26,000 each new! The roads are watered to keep the dust down and apparently increase the life of the tyres.
The ore trucks were going right down to the [[bottom of the pit|Super%20pit.jpg]]<<imagebox 'Bottom of the Superpit'>>. It looked like they were going underground! They disappeared one at a time behind a wall of the pit. Each time one came out another one went in.
Leaving Kalgoorlie, we went in search of the geocache ("[[Cameron's Cache|http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=16608]]" at 30.69822°S 121.73208°E).
For those who don't know, geocaching is the "sport" where someone places a weatherproof container in the bush somewhere and publishes the GPS coordinates (at a minimum, often there are some clues provided too). Someone else gets those coordinates and tries to find the cache. It used to be quite difficult when GPS units were only accurate to the nearest 100m. Now that they're accurate to less than 10m it is so much easier. At least so long as you use the right coordinates (more on that later in the trip).
According to our maps, we should have been able to follow a road heading directly east of Kalgoorlie, then take a track heading due north and end up almost right on the cache. "Should" being the operative word. In the first of many such occasions this trip, the expected track simply wasn't there! We checked the map and GPS coordinates, but no track. We decided to travel on down the road a bit. About 1 or 2km further east, we found a track heading north. It was a small and narrow track, very overgrown, and in one place it had washed out very badly. It did get us to the cache, although at the end it went straight up a very steep and rocky hill.
Having got to within about 300m of the cache, we got out of the Land Rover and started walking. We got about 50m away before we realized we ought to make a waypoint of the Land Rover so we could get back again! It's so easy to get lost. The bush looks the same wherever you look and you could be within 50m of the Land Rover and still not see it.
The cache itself was at the top of the next hill across. We walked down the hill we parked on, jumped a wire fence, and climbed the next hill to the cache. The view from the top was unremarkable as there were a lot of trees obscuring the view.
We were the first people since it was planted. Not too surprising as it had only been there about three weeks.
[img[Found the geocache|03250015.jpg]]
If you're interested in geocaching, there's a web site: http://www.geocaching.com/ . People who plant geocaches register their cache with this site and you can search for caches close to you.
Having set the Land Rover as a waypoint, it was easy to return to it. From there we had a little bit of trouble heading north. We couldn't find any of the tracks shown on the map, and the ones we were using weren't on the map. We kept on guessing until we found an intersection that was on the map. Having a GPS and digital maps on the PDA really helped. We also saw our first emus for the trip here. We would have taken a photo of them except we thought we'd been seeing plenty more later in the trip. As it turned out, we didn't see any other emus until we returned back to Kalgoorlie four weeks later!
On the way north we passed a place called Perkolilli Dam. Either there had been a lot of rain recently, or the windmill and tank had been overflowing for a while as there was a large but shallow lake. We saw a kangaroo, a rabbit, and some sort of bird that was duck-diving in the lake (it wasn't a duck).
<<panorama "Perkolilli Dam" "020325_16-19.jpg" 45.0 90.0 140.0 "yes">>
It's looks like grass around the lake, but it's really some sort of ground cover.
It was getting very close to sunset, so we pressed on, driving right through the middle of Perkolilli Lake! Good thing it was dry. We found a nice camping spot just before 6:00 a good distance from the nearest "main" road.
[img[Camp|03250021.jpg]]
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 2' 'Home' 'Kalgoorlie' 'Queen Victoria Spring'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '12 April 2002' 'Camp 19' 'Camp 20' '224' '~SH53-09 Barton, ~SH52-12 Ooldea' 'Barton, Ooldea'>>
[img[Day 20 Map|day20map.gif][day20map.gif]]<<imagebox 700 129>>
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[img[Camp|04120001.jpg]]
We got up around 6:30. At about that time we saw Peter, the Transfield guy from yesterday, drive by on the railroad track (his 4WD has the special wheels needed to fit on the track). It wasn't raining when we got up, but it started to during breakfast. Also during breakfast, at around 7:30, a train passed by.
By the time we'd finished breakfast and it was time to pack up, the rain had stopped. At the same time as we packed up, we transferred the water in one of our 20 litre plastic containers into the sill tank. The plastic containers don't have a tap, so the easiest way to get to the water is to put it in the sill tank, which does have a tap.
As we were leaving camp, a bunch of very black clouds appeared to cross our northerly path in the distance. The track was very good where we were. We wondered what it would be like after heavy rain.
The track to the north was on the west side of a fence line. The fence line goes for a long way and we were hoping to follow it to an east-west track where we'd turn west, then north again and head for Emu. There was another track on the east side of the fence. After a few kilometers it turns east. What we saw of it, it looked like it hadn't been driven on for decades. Probably not since the fence had been put in! It was in such poor condition, we didn't consider it to be passable. It even appeared to completely disappear in some parts! The track we were on looked better.
Almost immediately we struck trouble. At about the third sand dune in, we got to a big one.
[img[Sand Dune|04120002.jpg]]
Not only was it long, but almost to the top was a shrub that had to be driven around, robbing the vehicle of momentum at a critical time! We tried twice, then with both diff locks, then finally we let the tyres down. That got us over.
We continued north. The track we were on was probably made by mining surveyors. Tracks were going in every direction. Soon reached a sign marking the boundary of the Woomera Prohibited Area. We drove past it on our way north. The track was really quite good in this part, but after ten or twenty minutes Andrew noticed we weren't heading north anymore. We were heading west! Being without moving maps didn't help either.
We continued on a little and soon the track forked. We took the one to the right, to try to head in a more northerly direction, but it finally ended in a turning circle. We returned to the fork and took the more westerly track, but it too ended in a turning circle.
Sadly, we had to turn around and head back to the railway line. The track to the north we'd hoped to find just wasn't there. We got to the railway line and turned west towards Ooldea.
When we got to Barton we saw a bloke walking from the hermit's house towards the main part of Barton - obviously the hermit himself! We met up just as we crossed over the railway line and stopped for a chat.
[img[Ziggy|04120003.jpg]]
Ziggy is from Poland, drinks rainwater, and eats rice, oranges and Milo! He can talk the legs off a cane chair too - we spoke for 40 minutes! No doubt he gets a little lonely living so remotely.You can read a story about [[Ziggie]] taken from the book //Great Flying Doctor Stories// by Bill "Swampy" Marsh.
We continued on from Barton. At a place where the railway line had been built up onto a particularly high embankment, we stopped for a photo.
[img[Railway Embankment|04120006.jpg]]
Not far outside of Ooldea, we saw an emu. We've haven't seen any Emus since leaving the Kalgoorlie area! At Ooldea, we stopped for a break and to transfer two jerry cans (40 litres) of diesel into the sill tank.
Just before 5:00, we spotted a dingo not far from the tracks. We haven't seen too many of those either. A couple more minutes driving and we decided to stop for the night. The sunset was beautiful and there were interesting clouds formations all around.
[img[Sunset|04120007.jpg]]
We ended up setting up camp right next to the railway line. We managed to bust one of the aluminium tent 'bows' tonight. Nothing a bit of Gaffer tape won't fix, at least temporarily. It was savoury mince and rice for tea.
[img[Camp|04120010.jpg]]
Today was quite literally a turning point in our trip. We had found the fenceline track north that we were looking for, but it was in such poor condition we couldn't use it. It left us with no choice but to turn around and head for home.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 20' 'Home' 'Fisher' 'Cook' 'Emu' 'Vokes Hill Corner' 'Laverton'>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<storyViewer April2002>>
<<tripstatsTop '13 April 2002' 'Camp 20' 'Camp 21' '228' '~SH52-12 Ooldea, ~SH52-11 Cook, ~SH52-07 Wyola' 'Cook, Batt Tanks, Muckera Rockhole'>>
[img[Day 21 Map|day21map.gif][day21map.gif]]<<imagebox 436 512>>
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We broke camp at around 8:15 after a breakfast of bacon and eggs. About an hour later while we were still 36km from Cook, we saw a dog.
It was a little after 10:00 as we were approaching Cook, when we saw some machinery in the distance. Closer inspection revealed it to be a rock saw, digging the trench for the new fibre optic cable for Optus.
[img[Rock Saw|04130001.jpg]]
The driver stopped the machine, got out and introduced himself as Alex.
The machine needs a service every hour, and full overhaul every four-five days. Each one (they have two - the only two in Australia) costs USD$1.6million. The saw has 100 tungsten tips which cost $30 each and all of them are replaced on each overhaul. The entire body has had to be specially strengthened with extra welding and metal plate due to stress fractures throughout the frame.
When the trench is dug, a grader comes along and fills it back in again! Then a D7 bulldozer with a special plough feeds the cable into the ground. All up, they do about 6km a day, working 24 hours.
[img[Trench|04130003.jpg]]
The cable is eventually going to Brisbane. They've been 15 months getting here from Kalgoorlie. When they get to Ooldea, where the limestone Nullarbor Plain stops and the Great Victoria Desert appears, they plan to stop using the saw and use a D10 bulldozer to just plough through the sand.
Alex also mentioned that a Malaysian company is putting in another fibre optic cable and they're currently in Port Augusta heading west.
[img[Rock Saw / Trenching Machine|04130006.jpg][Trenching%20machine.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
We left Alex and continued to Cook. Just outside Cook we found the Indian Pacific about to head east. It had just stopped in Cook to let the passengers out for a break. When we arrived, one of the drivers got out of the engine and we stopped to have a chat.
[img[Ray Climbing Back Onboard The Indian Pacific|04130007.jpg]]
His name was Ray, and he was getting out to change the points to allow the Indian Pacific off the siding and onto the main line. They have to change the points manually by opening up a small control box at the points and pushing a button. However, the points don't actually change for 90sec to give any oncoming trains a bit of a warning. They reset themselves automatically after the train passes.
We arrived in Cook a few minutes later, at about 11:00. We had a poke around looking at the buildings, including the old gaol cells.
[img[Cook Gaol House Rock|04130008.jpg]]
We met a guy named Pete. He's a fitter with Leighton and comes from Adelaide. He's been up north in the Territory and was offered a better job. He's been on this job for six weeks and has been taking advantage of a slab of concrete to lay on to service the vehicle, instead of the saltbush he'd have to make do with outside of town. There's even a ramp, so he plans on getting as many vehicles as possible up onto it before they all move on.
We started looking for the track north. On the way we noticed the local cemetary and stopped for a look. The photo below shows part of the cemetery with the Leighton cable layers 'camp on wheels' in the background.
[img[Cemetery and Cable Layers' 'Camp'|04130009.jpg]]
All the accomodation, kitchen, etc is on train carriages. They just roll the carriages to the nearest siding and work from there.
We left town and headed north. Just before we got to Batt Tanks, we saw a post with a plaque to the side of the road. It was a pretty desolate part of the country so we stopped for a look.
[img[Post With Sign|04130010.jpg]]
The plaque read, "Two Springs Plain - Named by 6 members of the Barossa 4WD Club who camped here for three days awaiting new springs. 13-15 July 1999".
Shortly afterwards we arrived at Batt Tanks. It was just the remains of corrugated iron water tanks.
[img[Batt Tanks|04130012.jpg]]
More interesting was when we got close to Muckera Rockhole. When we still had about 7km to go, we caught up with a dog running along the track. It just wouldn't leave the road. For ages we sped up to try to scare it off, then slowed down to let it get away and hopefully pull off into the scrub. No luck. It averaged 30-35kph for just about the full 7km!
We finally stopped when we reached a patch of quite large shrubs and trees. The dog kept on going. We thought this would be Muckera Rockhole, with all the plant life around.
[img[Trees Near Muckera Rockhole|04130013.jpg]]
We looked around, but could see no sign of a rockhole. There was evidence of people camping, though, with plastic drink bottles and other rubbish in places.
We gave up looking, got back into the Land Rover and kept on going. After a mere 500m we found the rockhole!
[img[Muckera Rockhole|04130014.jpg][Soak-well%20on%20Cook%20to%20Hill%20Track.jpg]]<<imagebox>>
It had about 50cm of green water in two main pools, and a bit more in a third pool. Probably quite a bit of water. There was evidence the dog we had chased had "refueled" here before moving on. We didn't see it again.
Once past Muckera Rockhole, we started to get off the Nullarbor Plain and back into the sand dunes of the Great Victoria Desert. The dunes run roughly east -west and we were traversing them south-to-north. The south side was steeper than the north, which had a gentle slope, but it was much firmer than the north side, which made it easier to climb.
After making our way through 15km of sand dunes, the track suddenly became graded, firm and flat. We could just about get up to 60kph! We stopped to camp at 5:00, 7km south of an intersection with an Aboriginal business road between the Oak Valley community and the Tjuntjuntjarra Community.
<<tripstatsBtm 'Camp 21' 'Home' 'Cook' 'Emu' 'Vokes Hill Corner' 'Laverton'>>
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