Bunda cliffs, Great Australian Bight
We’re camped tonight on the edge of the Great Australian Bight. About 200 metres in front of us is a high limestone cliff undercut and crumbling into the ocean 50 to 70 metres or more below. There are a lot of warning signs not to get too close to the edge for the limestone isn’t very stable, and if it broke off it would be almost impossible to get back up.
Road sign, Nullarbor Plain
We’re now travelling through the Nullarbor Plain (“no trees” for those of you whose Latin is rusty). It’s a large flat limestone rock that extends for several hundred kilometres. There are very few trees, though probably more than on the southern Saskatchewan prairie. The country is very open and deserted. Other than the few roadhouses selling fuel, there is little out here. We paid $1.94 per litre for diesel today. I think that’s the most I’ve ever paid for fuel. The road signs warn of camels, kangaroos and wombats, but we saw absolutely nothing.
While the plain is barren of trees, there is a lot of saltbrush, other short vegetation and flowers. The underlying limestone rock of the plain is just below what little soil there is, so the rockiness doesn’t allow much large vegetation to grow. We were surprised that the dry ground is littered with thousands of small snail shells. Oh yes, there are flies, hundreds of them! We walked to the edge of the ocean cliffs, and around the plain for a couple of kilometres, and we were covered with small black flies when we got back. They don’t seem to bite, but they crawl into your eyes and nose.
It was warm this morning, but as we drove to the west it gradually started to get cloudy and cooler. A couple of times today we drove through misting rain, but it never lasted more than perhaps five minutes. Tonight is a very comfortable temperature in our motorhome, and there is a breeze off the ocean. That means we can stay indoors which is really nice as the flies outside would be terrible.