After leaving Streaky Bay about 12 or so days ago we hunted out the local Foodland in Ceduna and gathered a few supplies before venturing into that great bit of road that's tattooed in to most Australians consciousness, the Nullabor.
Last time I came across this way was 28 years ago, in a rusty (I mean trusty) Datsun 120y. So it was a real pleasure to share this time with Alana in what we call our mobile holiday house or "Wheel Estate".
We took a leisurely 4 days to cross, with many highlights. After spending the first night at the Head of the Bight car park we struck out for - well we weren't too sure, just generally in a westerly direction. We had our eyes peeled constantly left looking for a vantage point over the Bunda Cliffs when we came across one of these such spots.
There was this little rest area by the road side with a little road track leading down to the bluff. We saw three vans parked near the edge and thought this is a good spot to take photos of the cliffs. As we ventured down to the cliff two of the vans began to circle back to the road, while the third van looked more settled, the obligatory two chairs and table outside the van's door indicated this.
Alana and I looked at each other and after much vacillating decided to pull up for the night, even though it was only 2.00pm.
We parked our van a respectable distance behind the caravan in front of us which was a short kick sprayed off the side of a boot away from the edge. We rationalised that if the cliff edge eroded, at least the van in front would go first.
We set up our overnight version of "camp convivial" and took a tentative walk up to the cliff edge noticing as we scanned left then right, how under cut some of the edges were. The sea below foamed and furied itself at the base of the cliffs. The blue of the ocean was endless and looking out over the southern ocean you knew the next stop was Antarctica. Just a gaze over the ocean to the edge of the world.
We walked back to our van noticing a man's head under the bonnet of his car, doing a bit of running maintenance I guess. His name was Andy and his wife Cynthia was inside the caravan keeping away from the flies. After a bit of a chat we went snap happy with the cameras and settled into late afternoon views of vastness and awesomeness washed down with two or three mid strength beers.
Alana started to prepare some vegies for dinner and I set up the portable bbq in readiness to blacken up a couple of steaks. The wind struck up a bit and I was picking up the bbq and dodging the wind all the way round the van. I first went one way, set up the bbq, a gust of wind came up, so I picked the bbq and went in the opposite direction around the van. I did this for about six times trying to stay out of the wind's way before I settled on a position I could cope with. As we were having dinner we were getting a bit concerned, wind gusts were whipping up quite a fury every now and then. We thought this sounded ominous, both of us thinking any minute now a howling south westerly would blow us over or heaven forbid over the cliff, caravan in front of us not withstanding.
It should have been an easy descion to make, but Alana won't mind me saying this, we are both basically lazy sods. The thought of packing up was doing serious battle with our thoughts on mortality. We both looked at each other and calmed down internal wise. A new gust of wind blew up and we both looked at each other again with higher raised eyebrows and slightly more pained look across our faces.
I wished the wind would go away, but thought we should stay. I say to Alana " look Love if you want to go I have no problem with that". In my mind I'm thinking 'I'm not the one over reacting' and although I reckon we should move, I didn't make the call, so if it ends up being a silly call, it wasn't mine.
We were feeding off each others anxieties when Alana comes up with a conundrum breaker.She said we should go knocking on Andy and Cynthias door as they seemed like more experienced vanners, to see what they thought. I said "what a good idea" and proceeded to stand right behind Alana as we went knocking.
They invited us in, we told them of our concerns and Cynthia says "well it seemed like a good spot earlier on, but how can you tell what the weather is going to do, mind you, in all the times we have camped on these bluffs we haven't seen it as windy as this, besides if we pack up where are we going to get cover out on this stretch of land". I thought fair enough, but at least we could be further back from the edge. Andy chips in with "your van's anchored by it's wheels on suspension, Your van has a high long profile, so it gets buffeted about more than my caravan". A gust of wind comes up and shakes the caravan just as Andy finishes his sentence.
They ask us to stay, join them in this game called rumy-cube or something sounding like that. It's a cross between gin-rumy and dominoes.We have a good time with them, finding out a little bit about each other's lives. Alana and I forget about the outside elements and were very much appreciative for the company.
Later on as we lay in bed, being buffeted about by the prevailing gusts of wind. I take Andy's musings on our vans suspension and high profile to sleep with me and drift off to sleep extra close to Alana.
We wake up to a perfectly still and sunny morning, looking at all that vastness and awesomeness.
PS the author may or may not have taken a bit of poetic licence with the above narrative.
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