For my final day of driving in Australia, before I hop on the plane for the rest of my adventures, I decided to continue driving down the 4wd Balladonia Track towards Esperance for a quick visit to Cape Le Grande National Park and my favorite beaches in Australia. I wasn’t expecting the 4wd track to continue for as long as it did, but it was quite an exciting drive and passed through one of the largest forests of its kind in the world. I never saw a soul along the way, but I did come to one very old homestead built in 1890 with hearth out front that was being lovingly restored and pretty cool to check out.
1890 Homestead along Balladonia Track1890 Hearth along Balladonia Track
While the Balladonia Track was a more direct way to Esperance from where I had camped, it certainly was much slower going for a while. As I continued down the track the road continually improved and even became sealed/paved well before I intersected with Fisheries Road just outside of Esperance. I eventually made it down to Lucky Bay, where you will find the whitest sand in all of Australia, and partook of a bit of body surfing. I think Lucky Bay also has some of the best body surfing in Australia as well. Afterwards I decided to try out a new exit from the park, driving the 22kms up Cape Le Grande Beach next door. I got advice from a park ranger who warned me what to look out for, but the trip was successful and I made it to the end without any problems. I did witness someone in a 2 wheel drive low rider car with a girlfriend who appeared as though may have not made the best choice in trying to drive on the beach (which normally has pretty hard sand), but he did have other people fishing nearby to help him out if he needed it. Not sure I would do the drive again because you never get to really appreciate the gorgeous beach you’re driving on when you are constantly obsessed with soft sandy bits that might bog your car.
Afterwards I popped into Esperance for a coffee and a rejig, and then hopped on the long road straight back to Perth. When I got to Raventhorpe I met up with a big police sting operation tracking car speeds and breathalyzing drivers. I was quick to point out that in the eastern states we were no longer required to blow in a straw – only count to ten – which probably came across as being a bit cheeky. Usually one of my favorite drives back to Perth, it did seem a little dried out and less beautiful than usual.
When I finally got to the outskirts of Perth, I met up with a few friends who were out on a mountain biking adventure over the weekend for some dinner in Armadale. Took the opportunity to scrub down my car while I was there.
Sometimes I think the Nullarbor, as much as people complain about crossing it, is one of the last undiscovered frontiers of Australia. There seem to be endless roads shooting off north and south of the Erye Highway to interesting places. There are spectacular cliffs along the southern edge of the continent and huge caves underneath. There are a number of bird and whale watching sanctuaries along the way as well. Other roads in the area lead to historical paths that once carried many more people. I found the road to Cook and followed it up to the Old Erye Highway, which runs parallel to the current Eyre Highway but chose not to follow it due to its roughness and remoteness.
Once you cross out of South Australia and into Western Australia, you find yourself descending down off of the plateau you’ve been driving on top of so you continue your journey along the coastal flats that are rimmed by cliffs to the north. Eventually you drive back up to the top of the plateau again to see spectacular views out across the coastal plane. Soon afterwards you reach the ninety mile straight, which is just what it sounds like – ninety straight miles of perfectly straight road. Not my favorite part of the drive, I must admit, because it can be quite trance inducing.
Nullarbor Plateau View
During the drive in Western Australia you come across a few signs about a mysterious timezone known as Central Western Time that nobody seems to recognize. The last time I drove across the Nullarbor I dismissed it as some relic from another era, but this time, as I crossed into W.A, I had my GPS watch contact the satellites to adjust it to Perth time. Lo’ and behold, the GPS system actually recognized that Central Western Time as legitimate and adjusted my watch accordingly! It is an odd time, 45 minutes earlier than Perth. When I drove past the signs and had my watch connect with the satellites again, it changed the time again to Perth time. Very odd since this time doesn’t seem to be recognized by anyone else. Most organizations just recognize one timezone for Western Australia. On the train there was “train time”, but that was an hour off from Perth time.
By the time I got to Balladonia Roadhouse I knew it was time for me to get off the highway for a night’s rest. Some friends had recommended traveling south down a 4wd track across the street, so I hopped on it and starting looking for possible campsites far enough south of the Eyre Highway to not be within earshot. I did manage to find quite a few places, but chose a nice quiet one to settle in for a night of bush camping.
Australia Day, and what a better way to celebrate it than hitting the Nullarbor. That was always my plan, anyway. I figured it would probably be a bit quieter over a holiday weekend, but as I drove up north from Adelaide to Port Augusta, the traffic sure looked heavier to me. Perhaps it wasn’t an original idea? Fortunately, by the time I got turned in the right direction and out on the start of the Eyre Highway, the crowds seemed to completely dissipate. I think I only passed about three cars and had three others pass me over the entire day, which did seem awfully light.
It is a little frustrating driving from either Adelaide or Alice Springs to Perth because the road networks force you to drive for hundreds of kilometers/miles in the wrong direction before you can get on the main southern highway and drive in the right direction. Occasionally you see a 4wd track that looks like it might be a little more direct, but you never know how rough it might be. In the case of driving from Adelaide to Perth you have this obstacle called the ocean sitting in the way. There is a ferry crossing that can help you make the journey more direct, but it is very expensive and only crossed once a day.
So after driving a few hours northeast from Adelaide, even though Perth is dead west, I stopped by the last major town for a coffee before heading westward. The whole town of Port Augusta seemed boarded up on Australia day, but I did manage to find a bakery open with mediocre coffee and, oddly enough, a hair stylist open a few doors down. I’d been looking for a place to get a cheap buzz-cut for weeks now since I had not been able to shear myself while on the road. Lo’ and behold the hair stylist had a sign in the window “Haircuts $10, enquire within”. That’s about half the cheapest price I found anywhere else. Turns out they had a apprentice who would cut hair and then get it reviewed by her supervisor. Worked for me! Can’t go too wrong with a buzz-cut, so I finally had my trim.
Point Sinclair Beach
After a long day of driving through forests that were getting shorter and shorter, I started looking for a place to camp that was not along the highway. Most camping along the Nullarbor is a bit too close to the highway for my liking. With roadtrains barreling down the highway with 3-4 trailers in tow, you would think a plane was about to land on your tent from all the noise they generate. Fortunately, I pulled out my trusty camping book and found a recommended site about a 1/2 hours drive south of the highway and next to an amazing beach with huge surf (and a fair few surfer) surrounded by monster sand dunes and saltwater lakes. It was called Point Sinclair and it was really special place I would have liked to have spent more time in, but couldn’t. The swimming was a bit disappointing to to all the sharp and holy limestone rock just under the shallows of the ocean, but I did manage to find a spot for a few dunks, anyway. The place was run by some old aging surfer/hippie who seemed to take great pride in making the place a comfortable and clean as he could.
Toilet Silo at Point SinclairSand dunes at Point SinclairSurf & Sand Dunes at Point Sinclair
1) Towards the very end of the Perth to Adelaide Indian Pacific trip, at 4am, I was sitting in my seat awake and wondering where we were. I decided to pull up a GPS app on my iPhone that I hadn’t used for a while. Unfortunately, the last time I had used it to guide me out of a confusing neighborhood in Perth I switched it off instead of actually canceling the navigation – so when it started up and found my location, it immediately started blurting out turn-by-turn directions to everyone in my train car still trying to sleep. Fortunately, many people laughed, but it still took me a while to finally shut it off.
2) When I was forced to sleep at the roadside rest stop in Victoria on my way to Wilsons Promontory there were already about a dozen camper-vans and caravans settling in for the night. I had to get the stuff in my car reorganized to make room for myself to lie down. In order to make room, I had to stuff a bunch of things on the drivers seat of my car. As soon as I shut the door some things fell over and pressed against my car horn which blared until I could remove them – waking anyone up who had fallen asleep.
On my last real day of sightseeing before heading out onto the Nullarbor for the three day nonstop drive back to Perth, I decided to check out a few parts of southern South Australia on my way to Adelaide from The Grampians. The regions I have been traveling through in Victoria and South Australia seem very similar to Perth, so things look quite familiar to me: lots of wheat fields that are a bit dried out and hot this time of year. There are some refreshing differences, however, in the architecture. Both Victoria and South Australia have done a very good job of preserving their heritage buildings and keeping their small country towns bustling. Western Australia seems quick to destroy old buildings in favor of building new ones which is unfortunate. Many country towns in Western Australia also seem about half closed for some reason.
The Grampians
The first place I headed to, at the recommendation of some friends who had the change to explore the area when they lived in Adelaide, was a coastal town called Robe. Robe had beautiful turquoise waters and a well preserved historic main street. After spending about 4 hours in the car to get there, I had to test the waters and have a swim for a little while.
Mount Arapiles Tooan State Park
Of all the places I’ve swum over the past week, including Wilsons Promontory, Robe, and Apollo Bay, the water has been refreshingly cool but definitely tolerable – except for Apollo Bay on The Great Ocean Road, which was so cold I thought I was going to start losing some limbs!
After Robe I took the coastal road straight up along Coorong National Park to McClaren Vale in South Australia’s famous wine growing region where I took a quick spin around some vineyards and stopped in long enough for a cup of coffee (as one does while they’re driving). Afterwards I also made a quick visit to a German themed town named Hahndorf before finishing my drive up into Adelaide.
The Great Ocean Road drive along the coast was very beautiful and had some beautiful rock formations to see along the way including Victoria’s 12 Apostles (less, actually. One or two just collapsed a few years ago) and the London Bridge natural bridge. It is a road that hugs the southern coast, sort of like California’s Big Sur drive but with a lot more development including several nice little beachside communities full of cafes and shops. Had a very cold swim at Apollo Bay along the way.
Beach near The 12 ApostlesLondon BridgeThe Grampians
Afterwards I headed up into The Grampians mountain range where I camped for the night. It’s always pretty amazing to drive up to a mountain range from the flats. A beautiful area that reminded me of Western Australia’s Stirling Ranges when I drove up to it through the surrounding flat wheatbelt countryside. Oddly, while returning to my 4wd campsite about 20 minutes before sunset, I came across my first wild deer running around when I’m usually used to just seeing kangaroos! Must have escaped from a local deer farm.
One of the last major places to visit on my list was at the very southern tip of the state of Victoria: Wilsons Promontory National Park. It has been highly recommended by many people I know. When I tried to make reservations for camping there on the phone they wanted to know whether I was a resident of the state or not. It seems all Victorian residents need to reserve spots in advance and all others must arrive in person to see whether any sites are available. It is a little nerve wracking to have to drive for a long distance just to see if there is space or not. Fortunately for me there was, but I can’t say I was too impressed with the campground.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
The camping fee was $30, which is a bit steep for a national park. They do have hot showers and clean facilities, but I’m happier to pay less and get less. Perhaps they are catering to the wrong crowd – one that seems more interested in recreation than conservation. They seemed to have two separate campsites available, one for Victorians and the other for interstate and international tourists. They had some 375 odd campsites available for multiple people in each spot, resulting in probably over 1000 people there, and they all seemed to be full by the end of the day. The place was a real zoo with children whizzing around on bikes everywhere and most families focusing on spending the day on the local beach. I can’t say I was too impressed. The place looked like a tent slum and the mostly European people staying there didn’t seem to respect each others limited personal space – instead they wouldn’t think twice about just cutting through your site between your car and tent to get to their friends a few blocks over. Interestingly, the campsite originated as an army training ground in WWII and the street names have stayed the same ever since (1st Ave on up).
Wilsons Promontory National Park
As for the rest of Wilsons Promontory, it was The quite beautiful, but not anything I haven’t seen or experienced in Western Australia in either Esperance or Fitzgerald River National Park. It would probably have been a more valuable experience there if I had the time to actually do some overnight hiking to more remote areas of the park or possibly do some sea kayaking around the place. Some beaches looked much friendlier to land on that others. I did manage to get a few short hikes in. One followed the coast south of the camp to visit a few more beaches without the hoards of people. The other hike was up to the very top of the highest point for a view down below on the entire National Park.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
After my morning peak hike, I had to get on the road to loop around Port Phillip Bay through Melbourne and down to the Great Ocean Road for my coastal journey back through Adelaide and on to Perth. It was interesting to drive through some of the old neighborhoods I used to visit when I lived there back in the early nineties. I got as far as Lorne before I decided to duck off the very busy coastal road and head up into the Otway National Park for some free camping.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
It is one of the very busiest weeks for vacationers at the moment because most kids finish their summer vacations this weekend and are due back in school next week. It is funny to think that in just over a week all these places will largely be empty until Easter.
Well, after three great straight days I knew that at some point I would be back to encountering average days – but I was expecting to hit my worst day of the trip so far. Charged up from my previous day of mountain biking, my plan was to tackle another interesting sounding ride over a few hours in the morning and then get on the road to visit Wilsons Promontory by the end of the day. My park pass was scheduled to expire at noon, so I had an early pancake breakfast (which worked well the previous day) and got out to Perisher Valley to try out one of the mountain bike tracks they had listed in detail in a brochure. The trail wasn’t marked, but the turn-by-turn directions were written out in the brochure with a map.
Well, I headed off to pursue the route expecting to be back within a few hours. To make a long story short, I lost the trail about 2/3rds of the way into it and tried to follow some other hiking trails and other hints of civilization to get back. The terrain was extremely hilly and I wasn’t keen to back-track, which in hindsight would have been the best idea. Instead, I followed a hiking trail that brought me into a valley with a horse and a house. I thought both the horse and the house would have to be connected to a road or driveway that would get me back out to the main road I started on. Unfortunately, the trail dead-ended at the house which was really just an emergency shelter for lost cross country skiers in winter. The horse just seemed to be out there on its own, possibly wild – it was really out in the middle of nowhere. Other roads or trails I spotted couldn’t be found or were simply not really what I thought they were when I got to them.
I took stock of the situation by the time I reached the end of the hiking trail at the emergency shelter and knew that I had full phone coverage if I needed it, access to very clean river water that was probably suitable for drinking, my topographic GPS to guide me, and a stack of muesli bars to keep me fueled up. The route I was taking kept getting harder and harder but I never wanted to go back through the hard part I just came out of. The only ways back to the main road seemed to be by crossing over a sizable mountain or by navigation along a stream that led to the road.
The stream route required about 6kms of prickly bush wacking with many hidden holes lurking underneath to get my feet caught in. Meadows were far easier to travel through but were few and far between. I kept pursuing the route because I kept thinking I was seeing a hiking path or a road 100m away, but they were always false leads. Throughout the ordeal I had to carry my bike because the terrain was too rough to push it. I was also under constant attack by very aggressive March flies (horse flies) and was getting my legs cut open by the prickly bushes.
I always knew that I could have called for an emergency pickup, but I wasn’t prepared to give up until I really couldn’t hack it anymore. Such a call could have costed me a bundle and they may not have wanted to rescue my bike. It was extremely agonizing and ended up taking me a full 5 hours to finally get back to my car. I had hoped the road would be all downhill when I finally got there because it was closer to the biggest mountains, but instead it was mostly uphill. To add insult to injury, when I got back to my car I found a ticket on my windshield for being in the park after my pass had expired. I tried to argue it with the office, but they acted like I would have to fight it in court if I wasn’t happy about it.
Aftermath of trekking through 6kms of scratchy bush and hungry march flies
The best part of the ordeal, if there was one, was taking refuge underwater in a few great swimming holes along the was. Because the march flies would attack the most when I stopped, I had to constantly keep moving – which became very exhausting. The only place I could get away from them and get a relaxing break was by swimming in these crystal clear beautiful swimming holes.
Fed up with the experience afterwards, I had a replenishment burger in town and decided to see how far I could make it to Wilsons Promontory before nightfall. The road I took south was very beautiful as it dropped down into the lower valley part of the park and then up into Alpine National Park when I crossed the state line into Victoria – but was far more remote than I was expecting. There were few service stations along the way, and those that I came across were closed, so I very nearly ran out of fuel towards the end. There were also no campgrounds available without prior reservations once I left the parks.
Suddenly, after driving 100’s of kms, I finally came into a town with just a liter or two of fuel left and lots of open service stations and restaurants to save me. In the end I was forced to sleep in my car at a restop, however, because all the caravan parks had closed for the night. Sleeping inside my car actually turned out pretty well and much like I had thought it would before my trip when I was planning for it back in Perth. There were lots of others doing the same because it was listed in a campsite book everyone recommends. In order to pull it off I just had to reorganize things a bit in the back by stacking my tubs of gear on one side of the car so I had room to lie down next to them. I did manage to get a good night’s sleep in, which wasn’t too hard considering all the dramas I encountered earlier in the day.
Continuing on from Canberra, I started driving southwest towards Australia’s highest mountain range and the famous Snowy River region. After a sweet little dirt road shortcut that led me through another fun river crossing, I found myself on a busy road connecting Canberra with Australia’s most famous alpine region. It was quite busy, but most of the traffic seemed to be going the other way. I was dying for a cup of coffee (still being subject to fire bans overnight) and noticed a popular looking family run pancake restaurant along the way. I decided to add a few hotcakes with maple syrup, ice cream, and cream – to my coffee order. Hotcakes were described as being bigger and heavier that pancakes (which they also sold). I should probably note that everyone who worked in this restaurant looked rather large – so this was not a meal to recommend having often.
Mount Kosciuszko National Park
I had my fill of cakes and coffee and proceeded down the highway until I reached Jindabyne, which is the gateway to the Snowy Mountains. They had a big information center there where you could talk with rangers and get answers to questions – which I always prefer to looking things up. My questions were “where can I camp?”, “where can I mountain bike?”, and “where can I hike?” The answer to all three questions was “lots of places!” And much information was given to me to show me where to go. It was mentioned that numerous hiking trails could also be mountain biked – but when the summit trail to Australia’s highest peak was mentioned as a cycling opportunity, I knew I had to try it.
Summit of Mount Kosciuszko
Truth be told, Australia is a relatively flat place. Even the highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko, is only a little higher than Mexico City at 7310ft (2228m) – but STILL! It had to be done! The actual trail is about 9kms each way and follows an old gravel road up to the summit, but I was told you are not permitted to ride your bike for the last mile (1.6 kms) of it. Having now cycled the trail I can tell you that it is definitely thigh-master stuff for the 9kms up, with only one dip for recuperation on the way there. You climb out of low forested areas and up into alpine views with no trees and very low scrub with snow still clinging to the south side of some peaks in the area. The trail also crosses the Snowy River in its infancy.
Mount Kosciuszko Panorama View on Descent (click to enlarge)
I was able to peddle the entire bike-able portion without the need for a break, which felt great. I do think the pancakes must have helped! I locked up my bike where they wanted me to and walked the last mile in my cycling shoes. It was really beautiful at the top (especially looking south, where the trail spirals up from) and I really wanted to hang out there for a while. I took lots of iPhone pictures, including several panoramas, before I decided it was finally time for the descent. After I walked the mile back to my bike, I hopped back on it for a ride I will always remember! Mostly all downhill with plenty of berms to jump over – put there by the park service to channel snowmelt off the trail in spring. Lots of fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.
Mount Kosciuszko Bike Stop
Fired up from that experience, I headed into the ski resort town of Thredbo to see about other mountain bike trails you can get to by ski-lift. I figured I earned my climbing credentials and deserved it. Only problem was that Thredbo was packed for a weekend blues festival and nothing was open, so I decided to skip it and find a campsite for the night that I could use as a springboard for some other mountain bike trails in the morning. I found a great little campsite along a river tucked away in a busy camping area for the night.
My GPS’s carry sunrise and sunset tables. For weeks and weeks, while up north, I found the sunset time would barely chnage from day to day and place to place. Now that I have crossed back south of the Queensland / New South Wales border, the sunset time seems to increase significantly with every days drive further south. I was getting used to early evenings (7pm) for a while, but now that I’m back on daylight savings time and getting further away from the equator, it is staying light until 9pm!
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