To my delight, the time-warp 1972 Holden SS sedan was parked opposite our motel unit when we awoke on Wednesday. They must have done some serious sight-seeing, as I thought we’d lost them on Day 1 with our Kellerberrin tyre repair. They’d rocked in late and were showing no signs of life at 8am when we made our escape.
We are on the Nullrabor! We have been since Norseman, actually, and we will leave it at Ceduna, only because it finishes there. We’re not about to zoom skyward or anything. On January 20, 1988, the Knowles family were not so lucky. A ball of light chased them in their Ford Telstar for 90 minutes before becoming tired of toying with them, and decided to lift their car into the air and drop back to terra firma with such force, it blew a rear tyre.
Faye Knowles and her 3 teenage sons were visibly shaken and reported the incident to the Police the next day. The media and the public got a main serve’s worth of titillation out of it. The black smokey stuff that filled the cabin and coated the car’s exterior was either UFO residue, or the results of an Aussie Cheech and Chong road trip gone bananas, depending on who’s telling the story.
The only ball of light we saw was a slow-rising sun that hung about the eastern sky for seemingly half a morning. It wasn’t the morning’s focus. It was time to see the Bunda Cliffs and do some whale-watching on the Great Australian Bight. Travellers must be on the lookout for the small signposts with camera motifs and “T” insignias. We saw just 3, but there are 2 others, according to my later Google research. I might do the missing ones on the way back to Perth.
The cliffs didn’t let us down. Swapping between my Oakleigh Bowls shirt and my North Perth Bowls jacket was the job of a moment, as all I had to do was take one off to reveal the other. Bill Nielson at Oakleigh was doing pretty well with the unofficial competition of wearing the Oakleigh shirt in weird places. Getting my snaps taken at the Bunda Cliffs and doing some whale-watching probably puts me back on the level with his photos of him wearing his shirt to the Birdsville races and Uluru.
A full tourists’ set-up is located at the coves where the whales show up in abundance. At any one time, we saw 10 whales in close proximity. What an existence for them, and what an experience for us. These massive creatures just float about in the purest of ultramarine blue waters, opening their mouths, letting a bit of krill go in. There were several calves in plain view, as the area is a significant calving sanctuary. Every so often, they exhale with a relaxed ‘psshhhh’ and put on a bit of a frolic. Mostly though, they cruise about slowly and quietly and make visitors not want to leave.
I was most grateful on the day for the heavy skies. They lent a certain atmospheric charge to each photo, and never the same. In some photos, it was hard to tell where the sky started and the ocean finished.
The conditions hung around for our next stop at the Nullarbor Roadhouse. Here, once again, the business and movement of this country was in full swing. As was the wind. Jackets and jumpers were not required as the warm wind swirled around the cream-coloured dustbowl of the giant forecourts and aprons of the roadhouse. I’d like to say it was silent, but it wasn’t. It’s eerie when only the wind fills your ears, punctuated on occasion by the staccato start-up of a Cummins diesel.
As the Eyre Highway starts to turn in a south easterly direction, civilisation beckons. Streaky Bay welcomed us with a spot of rain, lots of wind and our first truly comfortable night away from home.
