Norseman is the end of the line, or the start of it, depending on which way you are going. It sits at the western end of the Eyre Highway across the Nullarbor, a gold town in the dry woodlands of Western Australia, and for anyone arriving from Eucla it is where the long emptiness finally breaks into trees and a proper main street. The name comes from a horse: the prospector Laurie Sinclair's horse, Norseman, supposedly scratched up a gold nugget in 1894 and the rush that followed made a town. The town has since honoured the animal with a statue and has a row of camel sculptures made from scrap on the main street, which is the sort of civic humour you get after a thousand kilometres of straight road.
The ride in is long and mostly dead straight. Between Caiguna and Balladonia is a stretch of about ninety miles with no bend at all, one of the longest straight sections of road in Australia, and it will test concentration more than skill. The advice from locals is simple: take breaks, drink water, avoid riding at dawn and dusk when kangaroos, emus and wedge-tailed eagles feeding on roadkill are most active, and watch for road trains, which are enormous and not in a mood to move over. Crosswinds can be fierce, and the temperature swings between baking afternoons and cold desert nights.
Landscape-wise, the Nullarbor's name comes from the Latin for no trees, and the treeless limestone plain gives way somewhere before Norseman to salmon gum and mallee woodland, with salt lakes shimmering to the south. Skylab famously dropped debris around Balladonia in 1979, and you will see a mention of it in the roadhouse there.
Practical matters are straightforward in this country but unforgiving if ignored. Fuel is sold at roadhouses spaced a couple of hundred kilometres apart and also in Norseman, which has the full range of services, so fill whenever you can and carry reserve if your tank is small. Accommodation in town is basic and fills up with grey nomads in the cooler months, so book ahead in winter. Behind the town, the Mount Norseman lookout shows the lakes and mine workings spread out below, a good place for sunset.