Streaky Bay to Panong and a bit further

Twenty to eight was the eyes open mark today after a long night of Peter being as sick as rabid dog and G trying her darndest to find a way to rid her life of rabid dogs.

Th weather was streaky as it appears to always be in Streaky Bay. One-minute lovely warmth filled sunshine, the next, Artic winds accompanied by pelting rain and misery. Off we headed about that o’clock towards Ceduna. The countryside was green, the sheep fat and the progress on par.

We dropped in to Perlubi Bay. It tried to live up to its incredible reputation for stunning beaches and quaint village feel but failed spectacularly. Reality was a small gathering of houses, with cranky locals (well they didn’t wave back did they) and scrubby beaches Qld would call Bribie Island.

Ceduna came into site. We all needed fuel so started on the lookout for a service station selling at a reasonable price. There were four such outlets. We noted three we completely unmanned, unwomaned, and unpersoned. We had to wonder what sort of town we had come to when even the servos aren’t game to open and say gidday.

Into town we went in search of cake. G found it in a bakery that had good reviews. Reality hit us in that the cake was awful. The quiche Lorraine and coffee were next level though. Served by fantastic staff, who only spilt one coffee, the service and food were all one could ask for in a town with no servos game to open!

We had a bit of a wander around, picked up some groceries at the very well stocked Foodland, dropped into the information centre for some local knowledge then wandered some more. We noticed that a long-abandoned car dealer still had a sign for GM being the long since buried original Holden business in Australia. General Motors Holden it appears is still part of our history even if it is in a town where its servos aren’t game to open.

Soon Trever and Sue headed west towards Cactus Beach where it was planned the evening would be spent. Peter and G lodged themselves on the foreshore as Peter endured yet another 90-minute mind drain doing human behaviour study online. The phone message from one of his fellow students depicting him holding a pair of scissors to his eye, said it all.

About 4pm we hit the road headed for Cactus Beach. We received a message from Sue to say Cactus Beach had lived up to its name and they were continuing on to a camp spot another 25 ks or so west. We plugged on limited to 80km/h, not by Puma’s immense power, but rather the longest roadworks we had ever seen.

We were blessed to see Koalas, Snakes and Windmills on this section. The windmills were part of the town of Panong’s tourist attraction leaving Ceduna and all it offered for dead. At about duskish we saw the camp spot a bit later than anticipated, however managed to exist stage right into the parking area in fourth gear at about 60km/h before finding a great camp just in front of Trever and Sue.

Wine, Milo and good company ensued as we discussed a revised trip plan that would see us having more time around the Great Central Road over the next couple of weeks as opposed to visiting the Margaret River area.

We look forward to tomorrow entering the Nullarbor proper.