Nullarbor Plain Eyre Highway: Eucla to Norseman

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Eucla

   Eucla is a tiny settlement on the Western Australian side of the Nullarbor, near the South Australian border, and it has a story that is out of proportion to its size. In the 1870s the telegraph line that connected Western Australia to the rest of the continent ran through here, and the Eucla Telegraph Station became an important link, with operators sending messages by Morse code to Adelaide and Perth. The old stone station building, now half buried in drifting sand dunes, is still there, and walking around it, with the wind whistling in the empty windows, is quietly moving.

   Read the complete Eucla write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Eucla is where the day begins. Next is Madura.

2. 2. Madura

   Madura stands at the foot of a wall. The Hampton escarpment, an old sea cliff that marks the edge of the Nullarbor Plain, drops here by a hundred metres or so to the Roe Plains, and the Eyre Highway tumbles down it at Madura Pass, with a lookout where you can see the land stretch away to the south, flat as a table and glittering with salt bush. It is a rare moment of relief in the long, level crossing between Eucla and Norseman.

   Read the complete Madura write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Madura comes up about 188 km into the recorded legs. Next is Norseman.

3. 3. Norseman

   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.

   Read the complete Norseman write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 710 km.