Checked the forecast for our travels to the border today and it was to be clear sailing with light winds and sunshine. How wrong that was. The clear skies was right, it was just the winds were closer to 30 kph than light and they moved from a cross wind to a head wind for all of the day.
Fuel economy went out the window. I had been achieving around 20 litres/100 km but today that shot up to 27 litres/100 km. And with increasing fuel prices the closer we got to the border and further from civilisation, I did not need that.
Knowing that fuel price was going to skyrocket to $1.67 at the border and then drop to $1.48 over the border, continual calculations were made to ensure that there would be enough fuel to at least Eucla if not Mundrabilla.
After filling at $1.179 in Ceduna, we topped up at Penong ($1.199) and Nundroo ($1.209) which should be enough to get through to Mundrabilla. We bypassed fuel at Nullabor ($1.619) and Border Village ($1.67) making it into Mundrabilla with 17 litres to spare.
Some of the highlights today included the impressive display of windmills over the ages at Penong and the breathtaking views from the cliff tops of the Great Australian Bight.
Border Control heading into Western Australia was interesting with all those fruit and vegetables that Jenny had bought a day ago were taken to be destroyed. Seemingly WA does not like any produce from any other State. What a great way to sell your home grown produce. We asked if they supply a local restaurant at the Border but the reply was that it is all destroyed – what a waste.
The highlight of Eucla is the Old Telegraph Station and having last seen it when I was a way lot younger, when it was covered with sand, you would have suspected for it to have disappeared by now but it seems to be the same. Do they have a crew that keeps digging it out – I wonder.
It was coming on dusk and the wind had abated so it was an uneventful last 70 kilometres to Mundrabilla where we filled up with fuel and booked into the caravan park.
It wasn’t long when our van must have just been enough to trip the circuit breakers for the power supply at our end of the park. After all they were plugging in 2 vans into a 10 amp socket. To solve issues, we moved our van to the last power box available and then down came the rain.
Met up with some Victorian Geocachers we had been trailing for a couple of days – Maccamob, Alansee and Micaparamedic before going to sleep with the gentle sound of rainfall on the roof.
