Nullarbor Traveller Day 3
Pushing on we hit the Nullarbor Plain for a long day’s drive with the reward at the end, the Koonalda Homestead, an old abandoned sheep farm and roadhouse. Along the way we meet a large white pointer and pass over the Dog Fence.
Coodlie Park Farm is owned by Hassie and Jo, the people who run Nullarbor Traveller. Like most Aussies they’re good people to know and have a great to place to stay since the farm is also a hostel.
Nearby beaches provide an excellent spot for learning to surf, just don’t expect to be any good in one morning! Over in Streaky Bay at the Stewarts Roadhose you’ll find the replica of a 1520Kg white pointer which is the largest shark caught with a rod and reel.
Crossing the Dog Fence, the world famous fence designed to keep the dingos and sheep apart. Stretching 5614 Km from the Great Australian Bight all the way to Dalby in Queensland. Not perfect but since being built in the 1980s it has helped considerably in protecting livestock in the south east of Australia.
Then it’s onto the Nullarbor Plain and the sheer expanse of very little. This vast piece of limestone covers about 200,000 square kilometres of Australia. John Edward Eyre described it as “a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams.” I thought it brilliant!
Eyre managed to cross the Nullarbor despite horses dying and his companion John Baxter being killed by Aboriginals. The help of another Aboriginal and finding a French whaling ship at Rossiter Bay enabled Eyre to complete his journey.
The Bunda Cliffs form part of the Great Australian Bight. There are no beaches, no gently slopes to the sea here, only land and a sheer drop down to the ocean.
The cliffs, like the Nullarbor are limestone and porous. Parts of the Nullarbor Plain have many underground caves with blow holes.
It was the Koonalda Homestead we spent the night, and a fun night it was. The homestead was left in the 1980s after the new Eyre Highway took away the roadhouse business and the sheep farm was no longer profitable. The house and a stockman’s house remain for shelter but it’s much more fun to sleep outside though maybe not amongst the mass proliferation of cars which have been left behind.
Just hide your shoes, the wild dingos that roam the area are partial to shoes.
