Veronika Wild

 Old Telegraph Station at Eucla West to East across Australia After a great reunion with my daughter and her family in Perth, I headed across the Nullabor again. Won’t bore you too much with the details – just look at last year’s post “ Across the Paddock .”  I didn’t stop to see the whales this time, but basically not much has changed there in several thousand years. See how the wombat is drawn larger than the camel. That's why I was expecting to meet Muttaburrasauraui - the giant mammals that used to inhabit the place. I am surprised that only 90 miles got a mention. It was more like 2000! Because it was daylight this time when I came through, I did see this road’s only hill which I missed last time and also called in at Eucla where the old telegraph station still stands though it is slowly being covered by drifting sands.  No one appreciates now what a tremendous achievement that was in 1872 when it connected Australia with the rest of the world or how diffic...

*Translation: A paddock is the Australian word for field. When truck drivers say they are going for a run across the paddock, they mean they are driving across the Nullabor Plain, that vast area near the bottom of Australia called the Great Australian Bight, the bit which looks like someone has taken a bite out of it. Nullarbor means ‘treeless.’ It is. I'll swear that in 2000 kms there is only one hill and one bend. The last time I did this trip, the road wasn't sealed and it was a long, death defying ordeal of dodging enormous pot holes, wild life and gigantic road trains which loomed out of clouds of red dust. You also had to carry in everything yourself – food, fuel, water and spare parts, as there wasn’t much in between other than a lonely tank or a bore, if you were lucky. This time it was a long, easy, sometimes boring drive with very few distractions. Only the wind was a bit of a problem, tossing the van around like a shoebox and making it use much more fuel that it s...