If yesterday was long today we travelled even further. By the time we'd stopped we'd gone 730 kms. Fuelled up in Ceduna and bought a takeaway coffee, dog marched and then on and on. I finished my book. Lunch stop. We have this down to a fine art so in half an hour the dog got plenty of steps, I made warm tasty toasty sandwiches out of the stale bread on board and we were off again. We had fruit to eat before the check point so that kept us sustained as the country side whizzed by.
They were easy kilometres, lucky Greg likes driving. Traffic was light, the wind was light and everything went smoothly. We travelled through the Yalata Aboriginal Land, the roadhouse is now ruins and luckily for us no dog this time to run in front of the rig. Nullabor National Park with its low stunted growth is fascinating in an arid barren sort of way. Finally we had some warmer weather with the temperature getting to 18C, shirt sleeves again.
We detoured to the "Head of the Bite" it see the whales. I was sceptical and didn't expect to see anything. Left Rifter in the vehicle with the windows and after paying $24 total frog marched quickly down the path and steps to the viewing platforms. Wow!!! Dotted in front of us were lots of Southern Right whales, mothers and offspring. Apparently the tally so far that day was 104. The story is that they cluster here to calve in the ocean where the warm Leeuin current meets the colder sub antarctic flow. They were snorting, blowing and the babies were flapping about their mothers. One of those magical sights. Managed to take a video of their antics. Loved them!!
Unfortunately that little detour meant we were now stuck behind two massive eight metre wide loads which took up the entire road. It was the tray of a mine dump truck accompanied by two escort vehicles and two police pilot vans. There was no way they could pull off. After about half an hour there was an emergency airstrip on the road so they pulled off to the right and we zoomed up the left hand side and into clear air.
A stop at the fruit fly check where we were inspected by a grumpy inspector. He was going to make sure we didn't have anything and so it was "open that door, what's under the bed, under the seats, let me climb in the back seat and look out the back of the car" bah humbug! A smile or a slight drop of pleasantness wouldn't have gone astray.
Fuel at Mundrabilla and finally Jilah Rock cam ground appeared. By this time the sun was set and just the gentle light of dusk to set up with. Too late to bother with too much so it was pumpkin soup and fresh..ish bread for tea, then a video before a well deserved sleep.
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