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Transcontinental Road Trip Day #7

Our second last day on the road was largely a rest day – only around 200km from Norseman to Kalgoorlie. First to the Superpit to see the southern hemisphere’s largest gold mine – a huge gash in the earth’s surface that drops over 500 metres down, with massive trucks hauling out ore and rock 24/7.  Then we learned that the Superpit tours were finished for the day and the Royal Flying Doctor base didn’t run tours on weekends, so we did the tour of a working brothel instead.  The Questa Casa tour tells stories of old Kalgoorlie – it’s an hour of story telling rather than anything sordid, and kept us out of the heat for a while.

Tomorrow is our last day on the road – driving back to Subiaco and finally delivering our car to our new home.

Transcontinental Road Trip Day #6

The Nullabor has been conquered! We drove from Eucla to the end of the Eyre Highway in Norseman. Weather conditions were pleasant and far cooler than yesterday’s 48. Highlights: Old Telegraph Station (ruins) and beach/jetty at Eucla, space junk at Balladonia and the corrugated camels at Norseman.  We learned that Norseman was named after a horse which found a gold reef here in 1894 (or so the story goes).

Transcontinental Road Trip Day 5

Today was 48 degrees.  Oh my god, it was HOT.  I have never experienced weather anything like it. It was so hot that the road surface started melting.

This was my first time on the Nullabor. We got out for walks at some of the cliff lines in the Great Australian Bight – which were stunning – but it felt like we were in an oven. The ocean was remarkably calm in such hot weather.

Our car coped admirably, the air con kept functioning.  We arrived in Eucla and we went straight into our airconditioned room.

Transcontinental road trip day 4

Our longest scheduled day was 754km, from the Barossa Valley, through the Clare Valley and Port Augusta to Ceduna. The first part of the day was a nice run through to Clare – more winery regions – but then the territory turned arid as we approached Port Augusta.  Toasted cheesie at an old school cafe in Port Augusta before a long run across the Eyre Highway to Ceduna.  We saw our first “Perth” direction sign.  The photographic highlight of the day was the glorious sunset over Denial Bay in Ceduna.

Transcontinental Roadtrip #3

Happy New Year 2013! This is our rest day on the drive – a short day from Adelaide to the Barossa Valley.  Yuki’s new year custom is a lovely lunch – so we had our third new year’s day winery long lunch in a row.  It’s not o-sechi, but we spent some hours sitting enjoying at Saltram in Angaston. Tomorrow is a long day back on the road.

Transcontinental Road Trip – New Year’s Eve

Here we are in Adelaide for New Year’s Eve.  They put on a nice little compact fireworks display along the Torrens River.

Transcontinental Road Trip Day #2

Day 2 of our big road trip took us from Mildura to Adelaide. But not before we’d had an alfresco breakfast at Stefano’s bakery cafe and taken a ride on a paddle steamer on the Mighty Murray.  Yuki took her first photo of “nothing” (which coincided with our first arid landscape), and we arrived in Adelaide. Today’s kilometerage: 401km – a relatively short day.

Happy new year from Adelaide – we’re changed time zones today so we’re half an hour behind where we started, and therefore have a little extra of 2012 to enjoy.

Here’s today’s photo highlights.  We’re off to see some fireworks.