Canning Stock Route 2004

We  left  Broken  Hill  reasonably  early  after "Rooster" Jones  woke  us up half  an hour early, having forgotten to change the time on his watch, as Broken Hill works on South Australian time. We headed out of town on the Barrier Highway and crossed into South Australia at Cockburn and later had morning tea at Yunta. We noticed that many outback places now have internet access available for travellers. We saw some emus, eagles, corellas etc. The countryside started to green up around Peterborough and the ranges near Wilmington were lush and green.  Lunch was the next stop at Port Augusta and then along the Eyre Highway to visit the Big Galah and Ma Galah and Pa Galah at Kimba. Travelling on, our destination for the night was Ceduna. After arriving there we did a walking tour of the jetty where a man caught a squid. We then continued with a walking tour of the town. We had a pre-cooked tea and washed up in the camp kitchen. These are good facilities to use when available. The Shower and toilet cubicle doors were painted like beach huts in bright colours. The decorative frieze along the tiled walls featured shells, dolphins, starfish, coral etc. We have now started into sheep, wheat and mallee country. 

Monday 16^th August.

Today we continued heading west along the Eyre Highway. It started out a bit foggy and then there was some patchy rain. There was a most beautiful double rainbow. We are now on the Nullarbor Plain. Morning tea was at Yalata where there were many interesting aboriginal paintings and artefacts for sale. It was then bright and sunny but showers returned later. The highway passes quite close to the coast along here, so we went out to have a look at the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. The gale force winds were coming straight off the Southern Ocean and the polar ice cap (as usual).  We stopped at Eucla and the Old Telegraph Station, which is more derelict now and mostly covered with sand this time. We gathered some firewood for tonight’s campfire and Joy collected some kangaroo skeleton parts for her grandson Josh. We had a bush camp with a lovely campfire. The Joneses tried baking bread/scones but only managed to produce a black rock cake. There were very friendly parent birds with young who all decided fruitcake was most acceptable. It was a beautiful quiet night with very little passing traffic.

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