Good Morning
Balladonia!
Low 7°c (45°F) – High 22°c
(72°F)
Some early departures from camp this morning, there were so many vans,
campers, motorhomes, tents and swags at dawn, many of which we didn’t hear come
in and some we didn’t hear leave. It was
very cold in the van and hard to get out of bed. The wind got up and we watched a poor guy
struggle to put an awning down that was attached to his car and covering a
swag. Twice it blew out like an
oversized umbrella facing the wrong way into the wind. I’m just not sure why you would have such a
light structure with no ropes to hold it down, but each to their own. He eventually got it under control, packed
away, and headed off.
Almost dreading to look in the mirror this morning, I was happy to note
that while the swelling hadn’t gone down, it also hadn’t increased. I’ll take that small win for today. Still the headaches and nausea persist and I’m
not sure if it’s the pills or the infection but I’m really longing for it to
pass. We were about the 3rd
last to leave camp this morning, heading out around 9.30am having re-fuelled
when we arrived yesterday.
This part of the journey, just out of Balladonia, we got to experience
Australia’s longest, straightest, flattest road – the 90 Mile Straight – all 146.6km
of it. It’s here I thought Shane would
be driving me crazy being bored but there was so much to see and we talked so
much about the things we have seen generally on this trip that the straight
passed and we found ourselves in Caiguna.
Some of the roadhouses along the Nullarbor have been out of fuel
recently so we had decided to refuel at each stop to make sure we could get
through.
Our next stop was Cocklebiddy Roadhouse, with accommodation, a caravan
park, a restaurant and service station and home to Samantha and Bruce, two rescue
wedgetail eagles. Samantha was hit by a truck in 2012 and an employee at
Cocklebiddy who was travelling not far behind picked up the bird.
She had a broken wing, a bad eye and a broken breast bone. A bird
wildlife ranger was called and Samantha was flown to Karratha where she
underwent treatment for 15 months. Her
wing and breastbone healed but the eye could not be saved and so she couldn’t
be released back into the wild. The smaller of the two eagles, Bruce, was
hit by a car in 2015. He suffered a broken elbow and was sent to Perth
for treatment and rehabilitation but although the wounds healed he was unable
to fly. Bruce was returned to
Cocklebiddy to live with Samantha and the roadhouse work closely with the
Department of Parks and Wildlife to ensure the health and safety of these
magnificent creatures.
While Shane was paying for fuel I moved the car and van forward to
allow other travelers access to the fuel pump.
It was then I noticed the caravan park part of the establishment. The caravan park is currently closed, no
reason given, but it would be a pretty basic stopover being basically a gravel
car park with power posts.
We also saw four Royal Flying Doctor Service landing strips on the
highway on our travels today. According
to the RFDS two years ago, these strips have only been used twice since 2009
but form an important backup option in emergency cases where no other landing
strip is available.
Madura is a small roadhouse community at the foot of the
escarpment next to the Madura Pass. Madura
was settled in 1876 as a place to breed quality cavalry horses for the British
Indian Army for use in the Northwest Frontier region of India (now
part of Pakistan). The horses were shipped from the coast at Eucla. (Cervantes,
north of Perth, was also used for breeding.) The site was chosen as it was one of the few
with free flowing bore water in the area.
The surrounding area is part of Madura Station, currently a sheep station,
but previously used to graze cattle, horses and camels.
We pulled into the roadhouse around 1.30pm, re-fueled and after
checking in to the caravan park started hunting again for our preferred
spot. Once again we were first to
arrive, closely followed by another couple who had also camped at Balladonia
the night before. It was really hard to
find a site that was level but we managed to position the van relatively level
looking out over the rest of the camp. I
would hate to have arrived much later as each vehicle that drove in did a
couple of laps before settling on a spot – some of those having to get creative
with how they parked to level up.
Once again we set up the pens for Kitty who enjoyed some sunshine while
Shane and I had lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing. Having the sun with some warmth on us all day
certainly helped to make both of us feel a little better. I went for a little bit of a walk behind the
park but the bush tracks were all blocked by fallen trees. Meanwhile a perky visitor managed to con some
of Kitty’s food out of me and posed for photographs in return. Not much of a sunset to speak of, but in all
the camp was really nice and peaceful although we passed on the showers despite
not having water available at the sites.
No comments:
Post a Comment