Musings on the Nullarbor

Spectacular – it is much more beautiful than I was expecting. Driving along the Nullarbor Plain with the raw cliffs of the Great Australian Bight just a few hundred metres to the left is wondrous. I think this is my favourite scenery to date and as clichéd as it sounds, it is so Australian: expansive, rugged and uniquely beautiful.

Vegetation – I have to confess that I thought we’d be driving through desert. There is a surprising amount of vegetation on the ‘treeless plain’. It’s not really until about 10kms outside the ‘town’ of Nullarbor that the trees disappear. And while there’s probably 100kms with mostly nothing, the rest is really well vegetated. The last 70kms before WA is stunning – a carpet of different shades of green shrubs spreading as far as the eye can see.

Freedom – there really is a lovely sense of freedom out here. Some of it has to do with the road itself, which just keeps going (but does have plenty of little hills and bends!), but more than that there's a sense of having space and time. Last night we pulled up at a spectacular lookout over the Great Australian Bight and just camped there, which we wouldn’t have been able to do anywhere else. Because it’s the Nullarbor you can.

Not over-run with road trains – we have a notebook page dedicated to keeping a tally each day. Day 1 was four and Day 2 was nine and not one of them tried to run us off the road!

Not boring - the drive is not boring. It's long but not without things to see and do. The kids weren't looking forward to it, but I wouldn't drive from Ceduna until they were all 'woo-hooing' with fake excitement. And they've been really great entertaining themselves, playing games and appreciating being at the bottom of Australia.

Tonight we're between Caiguna and Balladonia in WA in case you want to find us on the map. Somehow when we crossed the border we managed to gain two-and-a-half hours in our day, so we're all feeling a bit out of whack!