Perth - Hobart roadtrip Jan 2012 (Lots of pictures!)

[biggbird]

So I've finally gotten around to editing some of the photos from the roadtrip which my partner and I made in January of this year... Which means I'm going to make you fine walking folk suffer them! Mostly because I'm avoiding study I should be doing, but also because I'm bored and haven't anything better to do. What a promising introduction!

So the basic premise of this trip was to move my partner from her then home in Perth, WA back to little old Hobart town, on account of she missed me terribly and couldn't possibly live without me (also known as she got a job here).

With neither of us ever having done a great deal of long distance driving, certainly not of the order that was required, we approached the trip with more than a little trepidation. We had allowed ourselves roughly 7-8 days to make it from Perth to Melbourne, where we were due to catch the boat. The plan was to head down through the south of WA, Albany, Esperance etc, and then swing back up through Norseman and across the Nullarbor, and more or less make it up from there.

Anyway, this is boring if I'm just talking all the time, so I'll shutup and put some photos up for a bit instead


D1-7 by bigggbird, on Flickr

So apparently the Indian and Southern Oceans meet out there. Somewhere.

D1-P4 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D1-10 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D2-P12 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D2-5 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D2-11 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D2-16 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D2-18 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Ok, so they were from days 1 and 2, which saw us still in WA. Day 1 had us travelling to Albany via Cape Leeuwin and Margaret River. Cape Leeuwin was great, we could see where (apparently) the Indian and Southern Oceans meet, which is kinda cool, even if I couldn't actually see anything (could you tell?). We weren't 100% impressed with Albany, but we arrived late, nobody around... So probably not the best time to judge! Day 2 saw us leaving our roadside campsite (trucks roaring past overnight and all...) and heading for Esperance, which we both thoroughly enjoyed! We both decided that we'll move there someday, which is a big step for me, considering my aversion to the heat! Lucky there are plenty of beaches to cool off at

Might as well break this up into a few posts to make it more readable I guess.

[biggbird]

Ok, so day 3... We started out from Norseman, where we'd found ourselves a lovely campsite on top of the hill above town, which we were fortunate enough to share with a lovely German backpacker. Hi Martin! Today was to be the big day, across the dreaded Nullarbor... Which really wasn't so bad after all. As a matter of fact, we both thoroughly enjoyed it! 146.6km of dead straight road might seem boring, but somehow we made it entertaining for ourselves, along with the rest of the crossing too. This was probably our longest day of driving, if memory serves. Though I didn't get a photo of it, we were (sorta) happy to see we hadn't been mislead on how ridiculous the price of petrol was out there. $2 a litre is not something either of us want to get used to!


D3-P1 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Pretty sure this was in the middle of the straight!

D3-P3 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Madura pass was great, looking over the plains really made you feel as though you were overlooking the African Serengeti

D3-P2 by bigggbird, on Flickr

There were a few interesting sights around...

D3-10 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Eventually ended up staying at a roadside campsite a little way past Eucla

D3-12 by bigggbird, on Flickr

[biggbird]

So, day 4... Eucla -> somewhere on the Eyre Peninsula. We had been told before the trip not to bother with the Eyre Peninsula, as someone had heard from a friend that it wasn't worth it... Boy am I glad we disregarded that advice! We both loved it, and would happily return there to do some more exploring, I'm sure.

The start of our day saw us still crossing the Bight, whose cliffs we were much more impressed with than those of the Great Ocean Road

D4-P1 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D4-3 by bigggbird, on Flickr

We happened across an abandoned farm/shearing shed on the way too, which we decided to have a poke around in (I like abandoned things... Strange, I know).

D4-6 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D4-5 by bigggbird, on Flickr

We eventually arrived on the Peninsula, which again had lovely cliffs and beautiful sea views.

D4-17 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D4-22 by bigggbird, on Flickr

[biggbird]

Day 5 saw us vacating our campsite on the Peninsula, and eventually making it all the way to Adelaide, if memory serves! Perhaps this was our longest day... This is the trouble with not editing them for so long I guess, you forget so much

Roadside camping once again. No, we didn't get abducted, nor murdered, nor accosted nor anything else, despite how many people told us we shouldn't camp by the side of the road

D5-1 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Hitting the open road again... We got a lovely sky on this day!

D5-P1 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D5-24 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Along the way we visited some of the sights of the Peninsula, including Murphy's Haystacks:

D5-2 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D5-4 by bigggbird, on Flickr

And Mt Wudinna, which is apparently the second biggest rock in Australia, after that other orange one. We of course decided to climb it

D5-18 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D5-19 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Other interesting sights of the day included a giant galah

D5-22 by bigggbird, on Flickr

And some apparently very dangerous beaches

D5-10 by bigggbird, on Flickr

[biggbird]

Day 6 (almost over, I promise!) was Adelaide -> Mt Gambier and the most populated we had had for some days now! We started out having a bit of a wander about Adelaide, and had planned to visit the zoo to see the pandas... Until we saw the price! So we just occupied ourselves in the botanical gardens instead


D6-1 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D6-7 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D6-12 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D6-14 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Can't quite remember exactly where this was, but there were a heap of old trucks, and they were very cool!

D6-17 by bigggbird, on Flickr


D6-18 by bigggbird, on Flickr

We also visited some place which is special for some bird species to breed at some time of the year... Probably should have read the signs better eh.

D6-P1 by bigggbird, on Flickr

And apparently Australia has giant lobsters as well as galahs!

D6-20 by bigggbird, on Flickr

Well, day 7 would be next, except that I haven't actually finished the photos yet, so you'll all have to wait. With baited breath, I'm sure.

But if you do, for whatever reason, want to see more of the photos, feel free to click through to my flickr!

Thanks for looking

[Nick S]

That's an incredible coastline.. Thanks for posting

[biggbird]

Thanks Nick! It certainly was an incredible coastline, and one well worth visiting for anybody considering the trip. Definitely highly recommended from both of us.