Day 114 Ceduna

Today we were on the road to complete our journey across the Nullarbor Plains to Ceduna in South Australia.

As we were driving we called into all the lookouts on the Bunda Cliffs that stretch unbroken for 209km from the Wilson’s Bluff on the WA border to Head of the Bight and plummet 120mtr into the Southern Ocean. There are three viewpoints with breathtaking views of the ocean and cliff faces which are quite mesmerising. Geologically the cliffs are made of Cenozoic age fossiliferous limestone, part of the Eucla Basin geologic formation. They are the eastern portion of the Great Southern Scarp, an 820-kilometre-long formation which extends across the Eucla Basin. The cliffs are subjected to high-energy waves from the Southern Ocean, and are receding northwards.









Continuing along the road we came across many emergency air strips on the road.







For dedicated, close-up viewing experience of the nursery waters where mothers and calves congregate is at the Head of Bight site. Southern Right Whales visit the Head of Bight each year to give birth, mate and socialise. They arrive in May and depart around October. They spend the rest of the time travelling to or feeding well offshore in the Southern Ocean. In June and July most of the whales you will see are adults. You may be lucky enough to observe these 70 tonne mammals mating. By late August you can commonly see the mothers swimming along the cliffs with their young calves at their side. At this time there are often 70 or more whales in the area visible from the platform. By the time the whales leave in October the calves have grown and have become strong enough to join their mothers on the long migration south.

We only saw two whales today on our visit.









We stopped at Yalata for lunch. The modern history of the Yalata Aboriginal Community is deeply tied to a dark chapter in mid-century defense testing. During the 1920s and 30s, many Anangu (Spinifex people of the Great Victoria Desert) had migrated toward the Trans-Australian Railway line, settling around the Ooldea Mission near a permanent natural water soak. In 1952, the British and Australian governments chose the nearby Maralinga and Emu Field desert regions for nuclear weapons testing. The Ooldea Mission was closed, and the Anangu people were forcefully relocated south to the old Yalata pastoral lands. Many families suffered severe health problems from radiation exposure due to the atomic blasts.






We took the turnoff to Lake MacDonnell one of the country's most intensely pink lakes, owing to its high salt concentration. The lake gives the impression of a salmon pink lake on clear days. One side of the causeway is Pink Lake, the other side is Green Lake and further down over the small bridge is the Blue Lake. It is the site of a former salt mine, now the largest gypsum mine in Australia on the largest gypsum deposit in the southern hemisphere. Salt is still mined but as a secondary product. Gypsum is mined using bulldozers and excavators. It is stockpiled for several years to allow salt to leach out from natural rainfall. It is then loaded onto trains using front-end loaders.









Opened in 2016, the Penong Windmill Museum is a showcase of old, new, small and big Windmills, including “Bruce” the biggest Windmill in Australia. A tribute to farmers whirling workhorses that have nowadays been mostly replaced by solar panels, the outdoor museum at the side of Highway 1 features a unique collection of around 20 donated and restored windmills collected from as far away as Marla, the Riverland and Alice Springs.