Our last day at Scott and Charmaine's so we did a final shop with a visit to Spud Shed - a new discovery for us and one which would be fabulous to have in Queensland - a wealth of fruit and veggies and lots of other groceries all at amazingly cheap prices.  We then got the van all ready for take off in the morning and headed to Costco at the airport for a final cheap refuel - thanks to Scott and carried on to Clive and Jo's.  We spent a lovely afternoon with them and enjoyed Thai takeaway for tea before bidding them a sad farewell - though hopefully not for too long and headed back to Riverton and a final cuppa with Scott and Charmaine before early bed.

Next morning we were up and away by around nine and had a good drive through to Merredin our first stop.  We parked up at the free camp there beside the Railway Dam.  A nice little spot for an overnight.

On to Kalgoorlie the next day and we booked into Kalgoorlie CP which was only $20 a night for power and water - bargain!  We'd a look round town and drove out to the lookout to the Super Pit - a massive hole in the ground.  I'm still having problems with dermatitis on my hands and fingers so I'd booked an appointment with one of the doctors in town.  He's given me yet another ointment so will give that a go and hope it helps.  I wasn't feeling that great so had the rest of the afternoon back at the van.  

Onward to Norseman the next morning - and I was feeling much better.  We parked in the free RV camp in town there - a huge big paddock full of nothing.  We'd a drive around town and stopped in at the Visitors Centre for a couple of maps.  We got a pic of the camels roundabout - all directions round town are based on the camel roundabout.   Next morning we topped up fuel, water - the last till we reached the end of the Nullarbor at Ceduna and emptied the cassette.

We'd decided we'd just take it easy and cross the Nullarbor in easy stages.  Our first night was spent about 50km east of Balladonia in a free camp there.  Its been weird driving what is probably normally quite a busy road  which at the moment has hardly any vehicles other than trucks - because of course WA is currently closed to all states.  There were only two other vans in our camp that night but one arrived very late and the other arrived mid afternoon when it was very hot - 42C - and promptly put on the generator and retreated inside with the aircon on so we didn't get to chat to either of them.

Next night was Madura Lookout after a drive along the 90 mile straight.  The view from the lookout was incredible - showed the vast area of nothingness.  There was just us perched on the hilltop.  

On the road again and today we left WA and crossed into South Australia.  We didn't have any border formalities today as the border at Border Village is only for people heading west, those of us heading east don't do the border quarantine point until we get to Ceduna.  Our stop tonight was Bunda Cliffs which we'd heard about from Nudge and Carol.  It was absolutely spectacular.  It's notorious for blowing a gale there but we jagged a night with no wind and we set up on the cliff top with magnificent view of the Great Australia Bight.  There's a pile of limestone rocks and each one has a name and date on so Craig added the Peregrinating Porters to the pile.  We were able to have our first fire in a while and we sat on the clifftop with our fire watching an utterly breathtaking sunset. Doesn't get much better.  

We had a shower of rain during the night - our first rain in a long time but by the next morning there was a glorious sunrise.  We're still adjusting to the time change in SA and the fact the sunset isn't till 9pm and its dark till 7am.  Certainly makes for longer lie ins in the morning though. There was one other van on the cliffs - but they were a fair way away.

We were going to spend the next night at Nundroo but then decided to push on to Ceduna and book into the CP there as I needed to get some laundry done and figured that would be a good opportunity.  We took it as an easy drive and stopped off for morning tea at the Nullarbor Roadhouse - though not fuel - it was $2.20 a litre.  Luckily thanks again to Nudge and Carol we knew to carry on to Nundroo where it was $1.56! We stopped in Penong and made ourselves some lunch in the van - mainly because I was keen to use up as many of my salad veggies as I could before I had to hand them in at the Ceduna checkpoint.  Penang is also home to the biggest windmill in Australia and has an area like a windmill museum packed with windmills of all different shapes and sizes.

We got to Ceduna late afternoon and checked into Ceduna Foreshore CP.  What a gem this is - everything modern and well kept and spotlessly clean with such a friendly and welcoming owner - and a very reasonable $35 for power and water.  So I left Craig to set up and raced off to the laundry and got a big load of washing on.  It was drizzly rain on and off so once it was finished I popped it in the dryer and got the whole lot folded and put away.  We've been watching the BOM to see what the weather is going to do around the Strzelecki track region. Earlier in the week it was saying thunderstorms and rain north of Leigh Creek and thats the last thing we want to encounter.  So I spent the afternoon coming up with a Plan B and a route to get us back to Queensland.  It's not a big deal - would just mean we'd have to cross into NSW and come up through Broken Hill.  However by today I've found the early warning network site which gives early warning of potential heavy rain and storms.  Its showing storms and rain but much further west closer to the NT/WA border but it updates fairly regularly so will keep an eye on that.  

 Anyway back to last night and we decided to shout ourselves tea at the local bistro since I had no fruit and veg after using/dumping them. We'd a lovely meal of shared oysters - delicious! and then King George whiting and salad and chips.  We came back to the van and had the screens  half up and were lying on the bed reading.  Just after nine I decided to get ready for bed and stood up and looked out the window.  There was the most amazing night sky over the water, so needless to say I had to walk down to the foreshore and get a photo.

Today we've arrived in the little town of Wudinna and are camped at the show ground there - great facility with power and water for only $15 a night.  Tomorrow we'll head for Port Augusta and then we'll have to make a decision whether to head north to Leigh Creek and the Strz track or continue east to Broken Hill.  Watch this space.