Update - Albany to Ceduna

Tuesday 20th December

Well it’s been nearly a week since I last posted anything and quite a lot has happened since then, with very little access to the internet on the way, so here’s an update.

I decided to leave Albany on last Thursday’s bus to Esperance, since there wasn’t another one till the following Monday and, although Albany looked quite an interesting town, the weather didn’t look promising for cycling around. I did take another pic of the entertainment centre before leaving, as it looks a pretty impressive building:

The 450km bus journey to Esperance took around 6 hours. The bike fitted nicely on board the bus, there were only a handful of other passengers:

Just as I arrived in Esperance I received a text message from 2 young German guys responding to an ad I’d placed on Gumtree the previous evening, asking whether anyone was offering a lift eastbound from Esperance - as there are no bus services, and I didn’t want to take the train, for reasons I explained earlier.

As I arrived in Esperance, an unprepossessing town with no buildings of any interest, the annual Christmas carnival parade was in full swing:

Shortly afterwards I met up with Gunnar and Kevin, who were in possession of an ancient, but still vaguely intact, Falcon station wagon in which they were heading east. They were happy to take me and my bike in return for a share of the fuel cost and the driving.

We decided it would be good to take a look at the nearby Cape leGrand National Park first, so we set off there the following morning (Friday 16th).

On the way we stopped off at Stonehenge:

The national park is about a 50km drive from Esperance. The first thing we did was climb Frenchman’s Peak, the highest point (212m):

Then onto Lucky Bay, where there was a beautiful beach, sadly it wasn’t warm enough to go swimming:

There are lots of tame kangaroos around the camp site:

Later on we went for a walk over to the next bay, Thistle Bay:

The next day, Saturday 17th, we drove over to Hellfire Bay, another excellent beach - the weather had improved considerably:

Then back to Esperance, and onward north to Kalgoorlie (not exactly on the way east but only a 200km detour north and it seemed worth it)

We arrived at Kalgoorlie quite late that evening and found wherever we went the hotels were full, the Xmas party season being in full swing, however eventually we found accommodation in Hannan’s Hotel:

Sunday 18th was baking hot. We drove over to the neighbouring town of Boulder and managed to get on a free tour of the “super pit” - the world’s largest gold mining operation:

Certainly a big hole in the ground.

Afterwards we took a look around Boulder, some nice old buildings there:

Zoom in on the last photo above, of the town hall, and you’ll see the extensive cracks caused by the earthquake that struck the town last year.

Then it was back to Kalgoorlie for some more photos of the many historic buildings along the famous “golden mile”:

Then we headed back south again, stopping off in Coolgardie, sadly now more or less a ghost town, its impressive public buildings the only remaining evidence of its illustrious gold mining past:

The road east starts at Norseman, a fairly nondescript small town:

From here it’s an unbroken stretch of 1194 kms of tarmac to Ceduna, the next town - only a few roadhouses lie between.

We stopped for the night at one of these roadhouses, Balladonia:

Monday 19th - continuing east along the lonely highway we hit the famous “longest straight” section where I couldn’t resist the urge to get back on the bike for a photo:

At the various roadhouses on the way there are loads of these distance signs:

A bit of exercise to relieve the boredom of the long drive:

Fairly good road surface, quite okay for skating!

Road Train:

View over the Madura Pass:

Sunset over ruins of the old telegraph station at Eucla:

We stopped for the night at another roadhouse at the Border Village marking the boundary between Western and South Australia:

Tuesday 20th - Just after leaving the border village roadhouse:

From this point the road follows the coastline more closely and there are a number of lookouts over the cliffs towards the Southern Ocean:

This is the head of the Great Australian Bight, a prime spot for whale watching, but sadly only between May and October:

By about 6pm we had arrived back in civilisation - the town of Ceduna:

Still a long way to go before we reach Adelaide and we haven‘t yet decided whether to go the long way round the coast or the direct route via Wudinna and Kimba. Keep following the blog and all will be revealed in due course!