Nov 19 - 25

19th November Sunday
Week 31
Leaving Hopetoun this morning and making our way towards Esperance, although our stay will be 25km North of Esperance, at Gibson’s Soak RV friendly 72 hr free stop over rest area for self- contained travellers.
The Gibson Soak Hotel is an iconic and popular bar, nestled beneath the Morton Bay fig trees with timber decking, jarrah bar tops and rustic barrel tables where you can enjoy the “Gibbo steak” one of Esperance’s largest steaks.
We ended up camping here right next to Richard and Andrea, who we have been crossing paths with on the road as far back as Port Hedland a few months ago now.
We took a drive into Esperance township which is only 20 minutes from camp that will be very handy for shopping in a few days. We had lunch then a scenic drive across the top of the Great Ocean coastline road stretching 40km with some of the most spectacular beaches in WA.
The first beach was West Beach, a hidden gem and only 3km from town, this extraordinary beautiful beach stretches as far as the eye can see. Access is via a winding 125 step wooden staircase spiralling down to turquoise waters and swimming lagoons between the reef and shore, as well as surf breaks between/ beyond the reef.
As we continued along the ocean coastline more beautiful beaches were seemingly unending and I have listed a few we saw.

Blue Haven 6.7kms from town very similar to West Beach with winding staircase for access to beach.
Salmon Beach 7.2kms from town- spectacular
Fourth Beach with sweeping endless ocean, very popular with surf and body board enthusiasts, paddle board and kite surfing.
Twilight beach 11.1 kms from town was one of my favourite and voted most popular beach in WA. Crystal clear waters, snow white sand and the ‘iconic rock with the hole in it’.
Our afternoon finished down at the Esperance Foreshore and the Tanker Jetty precinct where the iconic collapsed jetty stands broken.  This jetty is one of only three long timber jetties remaining in WA and is possibly being restored at some stage by state government funding. On the North side was a shaded world class discovery based nature playground, surrounded by a landscaped myriad of native plants, historical art installations depicting the history of the evolving beach front.
“Sammy the Seal” the historical sculpture shared a photograph with Billy.

We discovered the beautiful art work of “Direction” sculpture which is a manually revolving art piece of North, South, East, West in timber, inlaid with a mosaic turquoise pattern of tiles.

20th November Monday
Today we are continuing our Ocean Drive sightseeing, and will have many walks on the beaches.

21st November Tuesday
Left Gibson’s soak and travelled North to Noresmen which is only 184 kms for us today.
Will be staying overnight at Noresmen Recreational reserve camp in town with green grass to walk on, this quaint little town offers travelers free camps, so to spend a few dollars in the local IGA is our way to say thank you. If it wasn’t for the many travelers passing through these towns and spending money on a few items, these businesses would struggle to survive.
The weather forecast is very windy and cool, hoping it stays like this as we cross the Nullarbor on Wednesday.

22nd November Wednesday
Leaving Norseman this morning and this will be the start of our journey towards home on the Nullarbor- Eyre Highway. This section of the trip we will be conserving fuel and water even more so as there are few services available.
The caravan water tanks hold 320 litres. Diesel fuel 270 litres in cruiser and 10 litres for diesel heater, 20 litres of unleaded in jerry can for generator.
Lots of interesting things to see along the way including the Nullarbor’s longest golf course in the world being 1,000km in length. These roads climb and rise, and currently we are at a height of 426mtrs, so not as flat as some people think the Nullarbor is.

We have had no mobile phone service since this morning, so we are relying on Wiki camps for a place to stop for the night. About 240kms of driving today from Noresmen as we stop at Baxter which is just a 24-hour rest stop off the main highway. A sink hole was located out amongst this area following the GPS, and it would have been about a 5mtr drop. Apparently there are a lot more scattered everywhere here.

As usual with the majority of these off the road rest stops the rubbish littered everywhere is the same. Toilet paper is by far the worst followed by general waste of plastic bags, anything in plastic containers, cardboard and tins.
We had quite a few other travellers come into Baxter rest area throughout the afternoon and late night.
23rd November Thursday
15 degrees, overcast all day.
Back on the Nullarbor Eyre highway by 8.30 this morning and stopping as often as we can finding points of interest along the way.
We crossed a timeline whilst on the Nullarbor so all our clocks are 45 minutes in front now.
Following Wiki we located a few caves off the main road of which the photos are below. We stopped at Murra El Evelyn cave for morning tea and spent time taking photos and making sure Billy doesn’t get too close to the edges.

Pannikin Doline cave. Our camp for tonight was off the main highway, following a dirt track to a lookout aptly named ‘On Top Of The Ridge’. We can see the highway and the Madura Roadhouse.

24th November Friday.
Leaving camp this morning continuing onto Eucla to have a look at the Old Telegraph Station out here, as we remember it there is an old ruin half under sand. Tracks running all over the escarpment and out towards the Great Australian Bight, many would lead to great camping areas. We have crossed the border into SA now after leaving Eucla.
We have been in Western Australia for the last 5 months, a bit sad to leave it all behind with still so much we didn’t see.


This afternoon we camped on the Great Australian Bight, Eyre Highway Border village SA. A magnificent location and spectacular coastline views as far as you can see. There are some unstable edges on the cliff face, so we had to be careful with Billy so he didn’t run off the edge.


 25th November Saturday
Today we are spending another day here enjoying the views and relaxing.
Views of sunset.