I spent the last night away at Byron Bay, a spot I quite like visiting! I was sitting there reading the local paper last night and there was an article with some local history which I found interesting...  Byron Bay was a fertility healing place of the local Aborigines. Today it is still considered a healing place where people can come and be healed and if they remain they are to heal others. The author also mused that as the area was a healing place for women maybe that is why men don't stay around long and, according to this author, the population of Byron Bay has a female to male ratio of 11:1....

Anyway, I had a nice breakfast and returned home via Brisbane where I visited my son. 

SO my wonderfully comfortable and reliable car made it home safe after 11543Km, using 724Lt of fuel, which is 6.3Lt/Km average, very good on fuel!

Now I have to unpack, and was everything.....

Tomorrow I'll go through this and update it... Looking forward to a good nights sleep!!

I departed Dubbo this morning with the intention of going to Byron Bay, now I can say I have travelled across Australia from coast to coast!!

Some of the towns I passed through...

Ending my trip as far east as can be driven!! Byron Bay.

Check back in a couple of days as I'll go over the whole lot and elaborate. There's a lot missing story wise as most of these posts were done late at night when my brain function was operating at sub optimal capacity....

Two of the three things which prevented me from travelling through the centre of Australia this trip......

I seem to have been dogged by rain since leaving Melbourne! Despite the rain closing the centre of Australia from the south, I have enjoyed my trip immensely. 

I left Peterborough this morning heading for Broken Hill thinking the Silver City highway might be open and I could possibly make it north from there and perhaps at least see Cameron corner... 

It had been raining over night and this is what I saw for a lot of the trip to Broken Hill....

A couple of shots of the north eastern sheep plains of SA.

A nest in an old telegraph pole....

One of the many old water towers which still remain along the rail line from Broken Hill to Port Pirie, remnants of the steam train days....

Of course now the cargo is moved by these.....

And move along it did....110Kmh.... Wouldn't want to be near that if it fell off the track!!

A big sign saying bye bye SA... Funnily enough there was no welcome to NSW sign on the other side.

The view of Broken Hill as you approach it from the west

The mine on the edge of town

An old mine, now closed and fenced off, right next to down town.

A remnant loading ramp on the side of the mine site.

Emus..... can you see them?

Some of the storms across the plains that where the bain of my trip!!

I passed through Wilcannia 

And Cobar, Cobar was a pretty town for a mining town, copper is mined around Cobar

I pushed on into the night and stopped at Dubbo.

Below is what I found a lot of whenever I wanted to go anywhere not on a highway! I didn't drive up to Meekathara, but authorities said the only things going north were semis, the Great Central Road from Laverton was closed, the trans access road from Kalgoorlie was closed and this is what I found at Wirrula after driving on a nice gravel road for 22Km trying to cut across to the Sturt highway, So onwards from Ceduna its across the Eyre peninsula to Port Augusta again. Not many photos today as there's nothing new until I left Wilmington for Peterborough, where I am currently sitting listening to the weather forecasters talking up the rain covering this part of the world for the next 4 days!!! I shall continue east to Broken Hill tomorrow.

The Big Gum Tree.... awesome!!

A nice town sign with cool 3D corrugated iron kangaroos....

So I'm driving across the Eyre peninsula totally off with a variety of fairies and suddenly realise the road has changed shape... so I look at the next sign and find myself on the Todd highway heading towards Port Lincoln... 28Km off course!!! Backtrack and get back on course... still off with the fairies and contemplating the fact that heading east across the Nullabor at the speed limit of 110Km one is actually travelling 220Km faster than when heading west relative to the sun! Cool.... 

The next fairy is even cooler... travel the length of this country from the eastern point at Byron Bay to the western most point at Cararrang Peninsula, approximately 5500Km, in 24 hours, which means you'd have to travel an average speed of 229.16 Kmh.... I doubt the authorities would allow such a thing........ 

Fairies are fun......

I drove into the night last night and ended up at Cocclebiddy. A truck came in and parked next to me in the early hours just prior to dawn, that woke me up so I decided to get going. The following are a sequence of shops of the sun rise as I headed east. They span about 45 minutes from first to last.

Looking east at the western end of the Great Australian Bight! It's a big country, you drive for a day and only cover half the width of West Oz....

Heading up the hill onto the Great Australian Bight where the border between SA and WA is a line drawn in the limestone... The Nullabor plain is the largest lump of limestone land in the world, it covers over 200000 sq kilometres.

Looking back at the western end of the Bight...

South... nothing but the antarctic...

east...

A sign at a viewing point along the road with a few details about the place. Mr Eyre was heard to remark after surveying the Nullabor "this is the type of country which impinges upon your nightmares"

This is a spot near enough to the middle of the Bight, 599Km each direction.. As you can see it would be unwise to drive off the highway on one of these side tracks at night as the last little hill you go over ends with a splash!!

It's an average 70M drop along here to the ocean.

The Head of Bight park was open today and there were several whales in the bay today, these are some shots of one I spotted nearby...

This bay is called The Head of Bight, it's kind of like a bight in the bight....

Looking east....

south....

west....

I took a back road to Fowlers Bay and came upon these old buildings along the road....

I wanted to get to Cape Adieu Cheetima beach, so I followed the signs. This was as close as I could drive as the track became sand, I still had memories of last time I tried get to the beach!!!!!!

There are lots of old school houses land marked all over South Australia, here's one I spotted....

The approach road to Fowlers Bay, 2 days ago it was still closed...

Looking wast at Fowlers Bay, this is the eastern end of the Bight....

I continued on to Ceduna where I stayed tonight.

786Km