Given that it rained most of the night, we were not expecting much of travelling today. We awoke to more drizzle, low cloud on the hills and a lot cooler than yesterday. This wasn’t to last though, with the cloud lifting to sunshine and no wind a couple of hours into the day.
Not a lot to see on this part of the trip but the wildlife started to show and we are not just talking the dead roo roadkill that littered the highway. This provided a rich food source for the crows and Wedge Tailed Eagles which were plentiful. There were even a few live roos that played chicken with road trains in front of us.
At one point there was a flock of camels (flock doesn’t sound right but caravan or train don’t sound right either). They hung around to get their photos taken and we were on our way again.
Just after Caiguna, it was time to engage cruise control and kick back for 90 miles or 146.6 kilometres as this section of the Eyre Highway is Australia’s longest straight section of road. The end of the section is near Balladonia and apart for a few stops for geocaches and the camels, all went uneventful.
One of the geocaches was an earthcache (GC2NNJ6 – Caiguna Blowhole) which is a virtual cache that relates to geology. This blowhole is an air blowhole rather than the water ones that are normally found near the coast. Instead of water, air is expelled and as I was carrying a portable weather station (doesn’t everyone), the measured air speed from the blowhole was 10 kph. Very interesting.
At one point, a road train overtook us and struck up a conversation to where we were headed and suggested that instead of Norseman as todays final destination, he suggested Fraser Range Station. It was 100 km short of Norseman and we were headed into dusk so Fraser Range Station it was for the night. Look forward to seeing it in daylight as many friends have raved about this spot.
