Norseman to Ceduna 25th January .
From Norseman to Ceduna is around 1300 kms and it it is pretty much a straight road through desert of varying description for most of it . The monotony of the road is broken up by roadhouses that have cleverly created the longest golf links in the world with a hole at each roadhouse from one end to the other .
The road gets close to the Great Australian Bight . Im sure all Aussie kids are taught what this is but i learnt at 52 that a bight is a curve in the land sea and this one runs for 1600 kms. The most impressive part southern coast at points and the most impressive are the cliffs which are up to 200 metres tall .
The 90 mile straight on the crossing is Australia’s longest straight unbroken road .
Our trip across the Nullarbor was in the high forties each day reaching the top temp of out trip so far at 47 degrees C ( 116 Farenheit in old money )
We stopped overnight about 1km off the road on a bit of scrubland that used to have some buildings of some sort on. There were some cracking old car wrecks there too. Sunset was pretty good after a long days drive of around 720 ks !
We dropped off the Nullarbor down to Fowlers Bay – originally a wheat export port. Now a fantastic sleepy little village on amazing beaches . We stayed for a couple of nights and explored the nearby beaches and dunes.
Its know as being one of the best salmon beaches and it didnt let me down with my heaviest salmon to date .
Our neighbours were a lovely family from near Dumbleyung which we had visited (scene of Sir Donald Campbells water speed record) who spent almost all their waking hours fishing of some sort either squiding off the jetty or hunting salmon on the beaches . Unfortunately they didnt catch anything in Fowlers Bay but did give me some tips on beaches they had luck on further east.
I got chatting to a good old boy who was part of a family fishing trip that had to be extended because the teenage boy with them got very badly burned when fishing from the beach all day . His legs were like sticks of rock ! We was bedridden on the day we left .
Ceduna is the first town that you hit after crossing the border from Western Australia into South Australia . As usual we had to bin all our fruit and vegetables lurking in the fridge due to fruit fly controls in place at the border- you would think we would have learnt this by now ! My tight scottish genes were screaming at me as it was dumped !
The Caravan park at Ceduna had been refurbed this year and the facilities were like those of a top hotel . Kate when talking to the staff said that it must be great not getting any complaints about facilities ( as users of wikicamp app we know that this is a serious hobby for most travellers) and she was told that one lady had complained that they should have put a bath in !
It had a great old jetty and the locals were catching loads of blue swimmer crabs .
I travelled out two days on the trot for the last 3 hours of the rising tide to the back beach at Davenport Creek which is about 40ks north of Ceduna . For once i had done a fair bit of homework and it paid off with 3 Mulloway over the 3 days ranging from 55cm (21 inches) to 75cm (30 inches) . These are spectacuarly beautiful fish and these ones were bright silver with a pinkish sheen to them. Even after balancing my phone on the car for the selfie I was still very excited .
We stayed at Ceduna for 4 days in the end due to a combination of Kate absolutely loving it and me waiting for parts for my Alvey reel to arrive at the post office. These reels are renowned for being bombproof due to their agricultural simplicity but i lost some parts that were rattled loose when on the car rod carrier. The old fella in the post office and i struck up a good dialogue on salmon and mulloway fishing during my daily visits. He even punked me with a ” yes the parcel did arrive but one of our trainees sent it back ” I did consider giving him a glasgow kiss for over extending his perceived friendship with me but i have mellowed somewhat .
During my fishing exploits Kate has been getting pretty good at her etchings !
And of course watching the Australian Open is always a bind !
Are you absolutely sure your catchimg these fish.
I remember watching Donald Campbell breaking the records.
Haha – I will send you an email to prove it !