Bunda Cliffs and Whales

It was cloudy all day so the Bunda Cliffs lacked the red colour shown in many photos. The wind was blowing fiercely across the cliffs while we were watching the whales and that made taking photos very difficult. There was one episode of two whales together with their tails out of the water, a few blows and one breaching whale. They were clearly visible just below the boardwalk constructed specifically for viewing the whales when they calve which is from August to September. There were three other cliff lookouts on the route west but no whales at those locations.

The Nullarbor is a treeless plain and the name derives from nullus arbor. There is no permanent water course anywhere.

We saw two wedge tail eagles feasting on roadkill. The road surface continued to be of excellent quality and there are a few straight sections marked as emergency landing zones for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

We stopped for a late lunch at Border Village on the SA side of the border, or perhaps it was morning tea based on WA time. We had missed critical information about produce cannot be taken into WA and had to surrender all of our fresh fruit, vegetables and even our honey. We knew about not taking fruit into SA but did not appreciate WA has strict quarantine regulations. The officer who inspected our Jeep and caravan knew we had dogs as Coco barked at him. He asked if we had any other pets and I told him about the cats. He asked again if we had any other animals because if we had birds they would not have been allowed to cross the border. If we had known we could not take the fruit and vegetables we could have cooked some of them, eaten others and given away the rest to east bound travellers. Instead it was all binned at the checkpoint except the one banana I ate while the van was being checked.

Our overnight stop is a free campsite just by the highway at Mandura Lookout. The lookout is over the plains and in today's cloudy conditions it was not particularly engaging. The trucks will be climbing up the hill during the night passing about 50m from where we are parked. We would have been better off stopping at the last free campsite as it had toilets and was a lot cleaner than this location, and was further away from the highway. Without electricity we don't have heating so will have an early night to stay warm in bed.

Tomorrow we will head for Norseman which will be the first proper town since Squeaky Bay.