Nullabor security patrol...

And then off we went across the Nullabor in earnest – to engage another mad fruit/vegetable eating frenzy before the WA border and to spend the equivalent of our combined annual income on fuel. We stopped at the whale-less Head of Bight to torture ourselves by reading accounts of the fabulous things we could have seen had we been there in July/August – but the cliffs were pretty spectacular so things weren't all that bad. On our first real Nullabor night we stopped at one of the numerous rest areas to camp. It seemed that we were alone there, but as we were putting out the campfire and starting to get ready for bed, a man suddenly leapt out of the trees yelling ‘nullabor security patrol’! We soon regained our composure when we realised he was a harmless odd person, travelling across the desert with his wife (although we never saw her...). They had set up camp on the other side of the rest stop and he was pretty desperate for some social interaction. He told us that the Nullabor was a happening and busy place compared to where they were from (WA wheat belt – near Hyden). He stood and told us funny stories of his life in a slightly manic manner before apologising for not asking us anything about our life then disappearing into the night again. We went to bed slightly bemused and just a tad apprehensive… 

At Border Town, we dutifully admired the big kangaroo and the sign that tells you the distances to various parts of the world, while we ate carrots, parsley, cucumbers and raw broccoli until we were green in the face. We crossed the border into WA and pulled up in Eucla where the kids played happily on a playground that had not been updated since the 1960s (hugest, most dangerous see-saw we have ever seen, a painted old metal tractor and a squeaky swing). Fortunately, they both survived. Bill purchased a lettuce and 2 tomatoes for an exhorbitant price – little did we know that they would be our last fresh veggies for a long time… The kids and Kate were keen to visit the nearby ruins of the old telegraph station (the kids keen because it’s where the Are we There Yet? family eat sandy sandwiches, and Kate because she visited the site with her family many moons ago and got in big trouble for dropping her new sneakers down a chimney of a sand-buried house). Ruins were kind of cool, no sign of Kate’s sneakers but we just stopped Sash from dropping his sandals down the same chimney as a mark of respect for his mother.