We could be heroes, and more stories from the Nullarbor
Letters From the Road #59 - Perlubie Beach
G’day!
Welcome to Letters From the Road, the story of the road trip around Australia that I took with my wife Katie and boys Henry and Oscar back in 2019.
This is letter number 59. As always, thank you for reading.
I am telling this story in weekly-ish installments, and I feature the journal entries I wrote during the trip. The journal entries are word-for-word, and you’ll see them highlighted in the Letter.
If you missed any letters and would like to catch up, you can find the other 58 letters here, watching the tide come in.
Let’s get to it!
Luke
Today is the day that the world ended, twice.
The first time was just after 9 am, and the four of us stood together, peering into the void.
The second time was around 2 o’clock in the morning, and Katie and I ran crazily around the beach in our underwears. The boys, they slept through it.
As you may have guessed, the world didn’t really end in either case. Out on the Nullarbor, though, you never know what’s going to happen.
I expected a quiet day, most of it to be spent grinding out as many kilometres as we could and seeing how far we could push into South Australia. And things started out as expected.
The highway turnoff where we camped for the night was lovely and peaceful, so we slept well and were up and on the road early. It was just 8 am when we found ourselves in the little town of Eucla. With population 37, Eucla is the largest stopping point along the Nullarbor and the last town in Western Australia.
Eucla is mainly a roadhouse with a squalid looking motel, though there is one point of interest. If you’re so inclined, you can sit in a boat that is beached in some sand across the bitumen from the petrol bowsers, and take your picture in front of a giant whale. It's apparently a nod to Eucla’s past as a whaling port. We were inclined, but did not dally further.
Ten minutes later, we crossed the border into South Australia and stopped at a roadhouse called Border Village. Despite the bland name, it’s a much more interesting stop than Eucla.
You can play a round of golf, though there’s only one hole so you could probably squeeze it in while your family is in the roadhouse using the toilets and looking at bumper stickers and snow globes. To be fair, there’s actually a full 18 holes that make up the course called the Nullarbor Links, however there are 1,365 kilometres (848 miles) between Hole #1 in Ceduna, South Australia and #18 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. So you’ll not be sneaking in a round after work.
They call it the “World’s Longest Golf Course”, a claim which is allegedly confirmed in the Guinness Book of World Records. A search on the Guinness website for ‘longest golf course’ turned up 1,800 results, and while I was enjoying learning about the world's longest golf cart (9.64 meters), the fastest golf cart (191.12 km/hour), and the most golf tees placed in someone’s beard (607, held by an American named Joel who also holds the world record for most toothpicks placed in ones beard), I eventually gave up lest I would never be able to finish your letter. Though I might return to this research later.
The par 3, 160 metre hole #6 is called the “Border Kangaroo”, in honour of the Big Kangaroo that sits a short walk from the tee box. Or it could be because you may come across a kangaroo - or an emu, or an eastern brown snake, or a scorpion - when looking for that ball you sliced into the rough.
The Big Kangaroo, 8 metres tall and holding out a can of Vegemite in one hand like an offering, will let you stand inside its pouch and have your picture taken.
That, I think, is a nice touch.
And in between the kangaroo and hole number 6 is one of those large directional signs with arrows pointing in all directions. You know the ones, with an arrow that points helpfully in the direction of Moscow, and states that it is only 15,613 kilometres away, another toward Cape Town, and others to all the Australian capitals. Learning that you are 1,252 kilometres west of Adelaide, and 1,440 kilometres east of Perth did paint a stark picture of how much in the middle of nowhere that we were, and how far we had yet to go.
So we got back in the car and drove on.
The landscape between the Border Village and Ceduna, the town generally referred to as the eastern end of the Nullarbor, is empty. There are a few scattered roadhouses, sure, but that 500 kilometres of road is as stark and lonely as any.
It’s hard to imagine, but that lonely stretch of land over which we had been driving for two days is essentially one enormous singular piece of rock. Many millions of years ago it was the bottom of a shallow sea. Now, it is a single giant piece of limestone, unmolested by the usual geological processes like plate tectonics that push the land together into mountains, or down into the ocean again.
It is the largest such exposure of a single piece of limestone bedrock in the world, nearly the size of the U.K. And it is porous so that any rainfall drains underground, resulting in no surface water or rivers and few distinguishing features, all which gives it the grim feel that no doubt encourages the kangaroos and camels to fling themselves into traffic.
Where the plain of the Nullarbor meets the ocean, however, is something special.
Not long after leaving Border Village I turned down a signposted side road and drove south. We parked in a nearly empty carpark and then walked down a gravel path until we could go no further.
There the land ends in a precipitous drop of 60 meters (200 feet) into the impossibly blue waters of the Great Australian Bight* below.
The Bight is essentially a large bay spanning hundreds of kilometres on either side of the Western Australia and South Australia borders and that is distinguished by the majestic cliffs where we were standing. There is a short stone wall protecting you and any lemmings in the area from the actual cliff edge, and signs advising that the cliff edge is unstable.
The wall is easily hoppable, though, if you decided you wanted to get down on your belly, slide right up to the edge of the cliff, and peer over at the foaming sea crashing against the rock, something I did until realising I was setting a terrible example for the boys. And that hanging over the edge, giving me an excellent view of a scattering of rocks that were likely once a part of the ledge over which I was now dangling, was fairly terrifying.
You didn’t really need the thrill of the edge, however, to get the thrill of the Bight itself, the sheer scalloped cliffs that run off into the distance and disappear into a salty haze. We all stood for a long spell, staring quietly out at the awesomeness of it all, until at some point Henry proclaimed, “It’s like the end of the world!”
The way the land dropped away, with nothing visible off into the distance except for more and more blue, it certainly felt that way.
*I used to think that this was called the Great Australian ‘Bite’, because it looks like something actually took a large bite out of a significant section of coastline. It has even got a scalloped look like teeth marks.
Unfortunately not, though this does mean that I can save the ‘bite’ version of the name in the case that I ever open a diner that serves all day breakfast and includes Vegemite toast with every plate.
29 December 2019 - Perlubie Beach
After passing into S.A., we eventually stopped in Ceduna, which I think is considered the end of the Nullarbor. It was 4 o’clock and after getting some diesel we decided to drive another 89 km east before stopping at a farm stay or something.
As we left Ceduna, the temperature rose. 42, 43, 44, 45 (113F). The sun blazed and stole the colour from the landscape. Were we really going to be setting up camp in this oven? I thought. Crazy. Miserable.
So I convinced Katie that we should cut south to find a camp spot closer to the coast. She was skeptical we’d find anything. I was worried too, and now our arrival was extended further so that we would be getting in at 6pm or later, not what I wanted. And then when the beachfront spots were full, which they would be because it’s summer, we’d be fucked and unhappy and this caused me much anxiety during the drive.
Then finally we arrived at Perlubie Beach only to find plenty of easily accessible beach camping spots available. There’s very little breeze right now, zero to be exact, but it’s almost pleasant sitting here on the beach and not in the tent. The water is extremely calm too, just lapping, gurgling like a little garden fountain.
We set up camp right on the sand, between some wooden lean-to structures and the placid water. As far as I could tell, we were above the high tide line.
After setting up our tent, Katie and I agreed that considering the long day and the heat that we should drive to one of the nearby towns and find a cozy pub for dinner, one with copious amounts of air conditioning and cold beer.
On a street facing the water in the nearby town of Streaky Bay we found the Streaky Bay Hotel Motel which, despite the confusing name, looked promising. That is, until we went inside and found it to be absolutely heaving with people. The whole town must have had the same idea that we did.
I stood in a queue for many long minutes before placing our order with a flustered looking woman. It probably didn’t help her demeanour that it was warm. On a good day the air conditioning of the Hotel Motel may have kept things comfortable, but it seemed to be struggling with the heat outside and the mass of bodies inside. I slunk damply across the dining room only to have my mood raised a bit when I found that Katie had somehow procured a table amongst the throngs - she’s good at such things.
Katie then proceeded to offer two spots at our table to a couple who were unable to find someplace of their own to sit. Katie’s also good at being friendly to strangers, something I try to discourage because I’m not usually fond of these people. Who knows how much they may want to ramble on about the wattage of the solar panel setup on their RV, or the cricket?
That’s how we met Bruno and Murial.
They sat with us because the place was so damn full. They then wanted to talk, which is the last thing I wanted to do tonight. Just one of those nights where I wanted to sit back and relax. I didn’t care about them coming from Switzerland, or where they’d been, or how they got their giant 6-person camper stuck in the sand, or where they were going. There’s two of them - what the hell are they doing with a 6-person camper anyways?
But they were very nice and we were at the same table, making it hard to ignore them completely. And the fact that all our food, except Murial’s because she ordered two entrees, took 1-½ hours to receive, made it impossible not to say something.
Eventually I found the woman who took my order and complained about how long everything was taking. To my surprise they ended up giving me a full refund, in cash no less.
Night was falling as we got back to camp. The temperature had cooled a little bit, but not enough to make sleeping in the tent an enticing idea, so I sat for a while.
I’ve been sitting here looking at the stars, which like last night are out in force because there’s no moon and we’re really out here, and watching a lightning storm across the water to the west.
It’s extraordinary, the white and orange flashing that seldom stops, along with bright spikes of lightning that are driven into the ground like tent pegs. It’s quite a backdrop for the serene beach.
The chance of rain for tonight is only 20%, but I think we’ll see something before the night is through. I best get some sleep now, thinking I may have to wake up later to batten down the hatches.
I lay down in the tent uncovered and unclothed save for my underwear. Sleep did not come easy, which can be expected when your damp body is sticking to the sheets. I tried to stay as still as possible and as far away from the heat of Katie’s body as I could, but even with every window and flap and vent open, the heavy canvas tent struggled like the Hotel Motel to let any whisper of cool air inside.
Eventually, I dozed off into a fitful, semi-sleep, like I imagine you would while spending the night in jail and expecting that at any moment someone’s going to shank you or steal the bologna sandwich you were given for dinner.
Minutes later, or what seemed like minutes, I awoke to the slap-slap-slapping sound of the tent wildly flapping around and being battered by the wind. Our bed sat atop the camper trailer, and I could feel the trailer wobble beneath my body as the wind blew. And there was another sound, the crashing of waves.
Katie woke up as well. She may have thrown around a shower of curses, she may have just nodded to me to confirm that it was go time, but in any case we both bolted outside like firemen (firepeople?) to a fire, trying not to trample on the boys who were sleeping on the ground on the floor of the tent.
The storm that we had been watching earlier, which seemed impossibly far out to sea, had somehow found us. Luckily the wild lightning had stopped. But the wind was howling such that the guy wires of our tent were failing, and the side of the tent facing the wind was being blown such that we could see the silhouette of Henry’s body inside, the side of the tent blown over him like a blanket.
The storm hadn’t brought any rain, however it had brought water - the ocean had been whipped up into a froth like a yard dog when the postman arrives. It seemed that the tide was coming up as well, and the waves were only a few metres from our tent.
Katie and I yelled at each other over the din, while running around in the sand trying to shore up guy wires and keep the tent from blowing over. I wondered what we looked like, scrambling about the beach, scantily clothed and wrestling with the guy lines in a wicked game of tug-o-war, and then trying in vain to bury the ends in the soft sand.
Eventually, somehow, we stabilized things. With nothing more we could do, Katie and I climbed back into the tent. Through the tempest and the tent nearly smothering him, Henry slept on. But Oscar stirred, brushing some sand from himself that had blown into the tent through the mesh door.
“You guys are heroes,” he mumbled, before falling back asleep.
Katie and I lay back down, and even though the wind did bring some relief from the heat, we still weren’t able to sleep. High tide wasn’t for another 45 minutes, so we’d soon know whether or not we were heroes, or whether we would have more work to do in our underwear.
And so we lay there, waiting.