Well, here I am. It’s been a few days, but I’m back!

The low rolling grumble of distant thunder beat our alarm clock to the punch this morning, waking us up in just enough time to shake the cobwebs from our brains before a window rattling thunder clap unleashed its ear splitting sonic boom directly above us. Almost as quick as the bolt of lightening that caused the explosion, Bethany jumped the length of the van from her bed on the couch, to land somewhere between mine and Becs heads, a position in which she doggedly remained until the light and sound show faded into the distance. Not a fan of loud noises is our poor Bethany, while Alvin on the other hand couldn’t care less. He might have looked up to see what all the fuss was about, but quickly drooped his head and went back to sleep without moving.

Thankfully, by the time our actual alarm sounded for a second (or was it a third?) time, the thunderous tempest had dissipated, leaving only a light smattering of large rain drops falling in its wake. Just heavy enough to be annoying as I ran about outside packing away our sodden gear, ready for the last leg of our Nullarbor Trek.

Interestingly, as we slowly ground our way across the soft sandy campground to leave, we found that we weren’t to retain our crown for being the last remaining campers this morning. A motorhome was still parked up, looking for all the world like it was going to be staying put for the entire day, so I don’t think we had much of a chance of outstaying them anyway.

Onto the Eyre Highway again today, we had no plans to stop on what would be a relatively short hop into Ceduna. There was a museum and craft store in a little town just outside of Ceduna that sounded interesting, but as we drew closer, we found it to be closed anyway. With that, we motored on, concluding our trek across the wide open plains of the Nullarbor essentially at the gateway to Ceduna. It was here that we had to stop at the South Australian quarantine checkpoint, where we had to hand over any fruit and vegetables that we were carrying.

Thankfully, Bec had helpfully bundled all of our contraband into a plastic bag, so that it was just a simple matter of passing the bounty out of the window to the stern looking inspector. He was impressed with our preparedness, but was still compelled to check the fridge in the caravan. No worries, I jumped down from my pew in ‘The Beast’, unsnigging the caravan door and throwing open the fridge for inspection. My jaw dropped and I am sure I blushed to a bright hue of red, as cobs of corn, tomatoes and a bundle of carrots pretty much rolled out of the door. Flabbergasted, I might have mentioned something about it being the last time I trusted the missus to do anything, as I cleared out the newly discovered loot and handed it over for disposal. Thankfully, nothing more was said, and we were finally allowed entry into Ceduna.

It turns out that the caravan park we have booked into is on the other side of town, a few kilometres from the town centre, which suits us perfectly. It’s close enough to town to be able to drive in for everything that we need, but far enough out that we shouldn’t be bothered by the undesirable element of the local population. Not to mention that we can walk over a giant sand dune at the rear of the park, to an almost private beach for taking the dogs for a walk. Only a small park, we thought it was almost empty when we first checked in, but driving past the office block at the front, the van sites spread out amongst a bush land like setting, almost all of them hosting a van. The bush setting means that the sites are oddly shaped, but we found that ours was more than ample in size to accept our van and ‘The Beast’ while still allowing us to roll out the awning to give us a little extra protection from the weather. It is yet to be decided if we will need that protection from the sun or the rain yet though.

The beach behind the caravan park.

With ‘The Beast’ finally unshackled from the heft of the van and everything else set up just the way we like it, we took off into town for a look around at what there is to do to keep us busy for the next few days that we are planning on spending here. Our first stop was at the information centre where we were attended to by a fantastic lady who was a font of knowledge on what to do about the area. This is the kind of service I want when I come to these places, as we were handed a town map covered in handwritten hieroglyphic scribbles pointing us in the right direction for a myriad of activities that ought to substantially fill in our time here. We were also able to purchase a certificate proclaiming our successful crossing of the Nullarbor, dutifully signed and dated to prove the feat.

We’ve done it. We’ve crossed the Nullarbor and we have the certificate to prove it!

With armfuls of brochures, we took a quick walk along the length of the main street, finding little of interest, but enough to sustain a town the size of Ceduna. It was only at the grocery store that we spent any span of time, as we burdened the trolley with a load of fruit and vegetables to replace those that we had been forced to leave behind at the quarantine checkpoint earlier. The grocers around here must do a roaring trade on fresh produce, with everyone coming into town from the west, practically bereft of fruit and vegetables.

It was back to the caravan park then, via a scenic drive along the Ceduna foreshore, where bleak clouds overshadowed a cold looking beach, replete with bottle green water sloshing onto the grey sand.

As Bec lovingly prepared a rolled lamb roast for dinner, I set about rolling out the awning and tiding up some long forgotten about junk, which has been pitching about on the bedroom floor for the last few weeks. We then sat hungrily down to dinner. We should have known better, but the lamb turned out to be terrible. It looked delicious at the store, wrapped to its best advantage, but consisted mainly of thick slimy chunks of fat and next to no meat. It’s not often that I turn down food of any sort, but on this occasion, I had to be happy with the accompanying vegetables, which I must say were delicious, while the lamb went untouched.

Our dinner may not have been great, but Bethany was still eagerly awaiting her feed.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.