The $16000 Picture

Written in pen and paper, 25th February 2015

From the gravel pit where we had slept we cruised on to the Nullarbor, with a little bit of off roading. Ok, you got me, we didn't cruise - what's a Marco and Becca adventure without a moment that almost makes you want to merda?

We tried a precarious route which followed a track up to the cliff, it was going ok until we understood the severity of the steepness, and the fact that the car angle almost had it tilting. We got out and I hatched a plan with Marco to reverse the car and gently take it back down the steep incline; this required extreme concentration, intense listening and precise directions. 

I stood and directed whilst Marco eased the car back. Let's not consider the language barrier, or lack of understanding, or how poorly we'd managed to communicate directions previously, luckily we didn't have to, we managed it. No worries! 

Once the car was in a safe position I got back in and we drove on to the Nullarbor roadhouse, the easy way. 

Prior to hitting the roadhouse we stopped off at one of the look outs at the Great Australian Bight and decided it was time for a good pose or three at the beautiful cliff top.

Before we reached the lookout point there were a few warning signs, obviously due to the nature of nature... Marco caught me completely unawares, asked me to stand still whilst he took a picture, isn't he a gem, he's not wrong though, I should come with a Warning, a Morning Warning.

Ok, that's enough of those pictures... back to the journey.

Once we got to the roadhouse we got some breakfast... no, lunch... maybe it was brunch... I don't know, I still don't have a sundial. 

We spent some time trying to work out the route to take as we hadn't really planned this far ahead in the journey. We also had a theory about the burst tyre, so we got some help from the kindly mechanics to pump up the not burst burst-tyre. We were right! It seemed the low pressure had knocked it off its wheel, adding pressure popped it back on, so now we have a spare, not that we want a repeat incident!

Back on the road again with a slight feeling of extra security, slight.

Unsure of the route or the way, we headed onto a track following the memory map. Private property? No gate? Ruined building? Hmmm something wasn't adding up, but the thought was soon forgotten when we were driving so close to the cliff edge that 'tense' was an understatement for how I was feeling.

We eventually reached a building and a fence right across the track... we were on aboriginal land without a permit. Merda!

I chose to stay in the car whilst Marco, the rebel, went for a walk to see the view; carpe diem. He came back for his phone to take a picture and I refused to leave the car. Moments later a guy came and the jist of the conversation was "get the hell off" this land or pay an $8000 fine, each! We got the hell off that land, pronto! (Even though it was only $7 to enter that part of the Bight).

With a sigh of relief at not being $8000 poorer we got back on the highway.

At Penong we had a quick toilet break and checked the map; out of the aboriginal $16000 land we decided to off road again to Point Sinclair. 

On the way there we got a little lost but came across a large blow hole, Marco told me to take it easy walking over there because it went in to an abyss. I almost slipped and went down the hole but Marco thought I was kidding. He kept telling me to "pay attention" which we established he was trying to say "be careful".

The off roading to Port Sinclair wasn't quite like the off-roading we did in WA, SA seemed to be making all these paths in to real roads. It was quite a relief that we didn't have to moves any branches for a while. 

At Port Sinclair we reached 4wd only sign and Marco deflated the tyres - 100m later we reached the car park with a very unamused Italian; for the effort, had we known, we could have walked! With a brief mooch on the tiny beach and lots of pictures, we headed off-road to Ceduna, kind of; the roads were wide and used by locals who lived sparsely over the area. 

(I think it was a day of posing and seeing what pictures we could come up with.)

We hit the highway, and for a thrill, we went off road on the 4wd track to see if we could manage to avoid the quarantine check. 

A $1 bet was made and the challange accepted. We reached Ceduna, I was $1 poorer (nothing compared to $8000!) and we still had una mela, no questions asked. 

When we got there and stopped at the 'servo' (Australian for service station) for some food we looked up some caravan parks. We decided to camp in Shelley caravan park, a beautiful camp on the doorstep of the beach. It was time to sleep, tomorrow was another day.






Ok, ok, I know you've probably just thought "hang on, what about this $16000 picture?" Here you go, you can have 3 for the price of one. Limited offer.