I am not sure what I really expected from the Nullarbor other than a really long straight road! I thought it would all look the same and I was pretty sure there would be tears from at least one person in the car at some point but I was proved wrong on both counts.

Over the course of the last four days of driving, we have covered 1404 km to get us from Ceduna in S.A. to Esperance in W.A. For UK context, the drive from Lands End to John O’Groats is 1347km (or 837 miles). The distance may be similar but the big difference would be that the drive across the Nullarbor takes you through a vast open area with only a handful roadhouses to break up the journey and fill up with yet more fuel!

Leaving Ceduna on Wednesday, we set our sights on the Bunda Cliffs as our destination for the first leg of the journey. We covered just under 300km on day one, easing into the big road trip ahead. The scenery from the cliff top camp was incredible, treating us to a pretty cool sunset. It’s amazing to look out at the cliffs and think that the next stop would be Antarctica!

Day two, we set our sights on a place called Madura Pass, approximately 400km drive from Bunda Cliffs and our first official stop in WA. The border village between S.A. Ans W.A is basically a roadhouse and quarantine checkpoint, with border police checking we had our G2G passes and had disposed of all fresh fruit and veg. Knowing we would have to make the remainder of the journey without any fresh fruit and veg, we overloaded on apples and banana for breakfast!

Finding an opportunity to stretch the legs, we paused at some ‘caves’ before Madura which had been given some mixed reviews on the wiki camps app. Without any sign posting whatsoever ever, we set off 8km down a track of the highway for a bit of an explore following a GPS mark to a pin on a map. I have no idea how someone even found this cave in the first place but apparently the Nullarbor Plains are full of them. It makes sense as it’s the largest limestone platform on the planet. I am not sure what I had in mind but the caves we found were definitely not it! Cave number one opened up and we were met with the smell of decay after a few kangaroos have clearly gone in and not come out. The kids thought it was cool but a bit creepy. Cave number two was the winner. We didn’t spot the entrance at first but Andy was determined to find it and after scrambling down some rocks, it opened up into one of the coolest caves we have been in. It was also full of bats which caused a lot of laughter and shrieks from everyone as they swooped around our heads, clearly not happy we had disturbed their sleep.

Cave exploring ticked off the list and we set up camp for the night on the ridge line over looking Madura Pass. I had assumed that the elevation along the Nullarbor would be fairly consistent (i.e. flat) all the way along. Camping on top of ridge line gave a chance to see it from a different perspective.

Day three we covered around 350km to take us to Newman Rock and apparently a watering hole! It turns out that the Nullarbor is home to over 100,000 wild camels which were first brought here in the 19th century by early settlers for transport whilst building the railways. They figured they would eventually die out but the camels thrived and are now the largest population of feral camel in the world! Unfortunately for us, the watering hole was dry so we didn’t actually see any but we did find prints in the sand and fresh camel poo so clearly they are around. Fun place to camp and opportunity for a camp fire and set up a tree swing – always fun.

Our final drive of the trip took is through the township of Norseman and then south to Esperance. It seemed so strange driving down towards Esperance to see fields and agriculture again after days of shrubs and vast open space. It turns out that the drive to get to W.A has certainly been an adventure with lots of laughs along the way. Looking forward to seeing what the southern portion of W.A has in store for us now.