We got to Norseman in good time from Menzies via Kalgoorlie, where we stocked up on a few groceries to get us home across the Nullarbor.

You can park in some funny spots sometimes by total accident, this time it was right outside Kalgoorlie’s house of ill repute in Hay Street.

It has been there a long time, since the late 1800s and you can do a tour of the establishment to see what it is all about. We thought better of it and headed for Woolies instead.

Norseman is an interesting old town at the cross roads of WA’s connection point with eastern Australia. Roads come from the west and meet here to funnel onto the Eyre Hwy for the journey east across the Nullarbor.

We left Norseman early, wiping ice off the windscreen, and made about 320 km to another free camp at a spot named ‘Baxter’. Before reaching Baxter Allthego revisited a tee on the longest golf course in Australia.

The course stretches across the Nullarbor from Kalgoorlie to Ceduna. Eighteen holes of challenging tees, fairways and greens. They are located at various courses and roadhouses. This one is just out from Norseman and called ‘Golden Eagle’ after a 35kg gold nugget that was found nearby in 1931.

At current prices it would have been worth in excess of $6m. Allthego recommends the course to all travellers, his score a few years back, circa 150 plus.

Earlier we had lunch at the Balladonia roadhouse after getting some fuel. The roadhouse’s claim to fame is that parts of the US Space Station ‘Sky Lab’ came down here when it broke up over south west Australia in the 1970s.

There are about ten other vans keeping us company for the night well back from the Eyre Hwy. Watched the Broncos put the cleaners through Souths!

Moving on our next night was at the Mundrabilla RH. A pleasant spot. The wind started to get up on the way there. Fortunately, from the north west at around 40km an hour up and down. So it was tempting to turn off the engine and put a sail up. It pushed us along quite nicely, a little bit of side wise buffeting but all ok!

There is a road house at Caiguna, before Mundrabilla, where the longest stretch of straight road in Australia ends. It is 146kms long without any twist or turn, dead straight.

You sort of just point the vehicle straight ahead, it is tempting to put a knee on the wheel and do a blog entry to fill in time! But of course you wouldn’t do that.

Trees are starting to really thin out too! Endless stumpy bush and grasses stretch out to the horizon.

Mundrabilla saw another milestone reached with Allthego notching up 73 years on the road. We celebrated at the RH with a nice scotch filet and a Denmark WA red. All looking foreword to squeezing a few more road trips out of the truck and van.

Got away in the morning to a very red morning sky, a shepherd’s warning. But it came to nothing until later that night!

Leaving Mundrabilla the road rises through the Eucla Pass, from the plains that run along the coastline, back to the top of the Nullarbor plateau.

From here to our next stopover at the Nullarbor RH the road tracks close to the spectacular Bunda Cliffs.

We have been across the Nullarbor on an earlier trip but these cliffs seem to be magnetic, you just have to have another look! And I think they look different depending on the weather, the time of day and even the viewers mood!

The Nullarbor RH is located near what is known as the ‘Head of the Bight’. The road house has been here for a long time and was one of the first on the Nullarbor. It also has the most expensive diesel we have come across on the entire journey, $2.98 a litre. Glad we are going with the wind!

The overnight stop here was so that we could check out the whales at the ‘Head of the Bight’ Whale Centre. This we did the next morning after weathering a pretty fierce overnight rain storm. It came down heavily in a few bursts, particularly early in the morning (like 4am).

We woke up to a partly flooded van parking area, our feet were not in the water unlike a few other nomads. Those shepherds were right about the red skies yesterday morning.

Fortunately, we were relatively dry and quickly made our way the 25 km or so down to the Whale Centre at the Head of the Bight. It was extremely windy and chilly but we had some great views of the whales from the lookouts. A number of ‘mother’ and ‘baby’ whales performing in the waters below.

Here are a couple of videos of ‘whale times’ at the Head of the Bight’.

We are now at Penong not far from Ceduna and settling in for the night, pitter patter of light rain on the roof. Heading across to near Port Augusta tomorrow.