Nullarbor Plain Eyre Highway

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Ceduna

   Ceduna is the last proper town before the long emptiness. It sits on the western side of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, facing Murat Bay, and for most people it is the place where the Nullarbor Plain crossing begins: more than a thousand kilometres of the Eyre Highway to Norseman in Western Australia, with roadhouses spaced out like stepping stones. The town itself is small, with around two thousand people, but it has the sort of weathered, practical atmosphere of a place that serves travellers and fishermen.

   Read the complete Ceduna write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Ceduna is where the day begins. Next is Penong.

2. 2. Penong

   Windmills, of all things, are what Penong is known for. This tiny settlement on the Eyre Highway, a couple of hundred people on the western edge of South Australia's Eyre Peninsula, pumps its water from underground using wind, and old farm windmills stand in rows along the roadside and in a small museum at the edge of town. In a place where the horizon is a straight line and the sky fills most of the view, they make a strangely graceful sight.

   Read the complete Penong write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Penong comes up about 152 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nullarbor Roadhouse.

3. 3. Nullarbor Roadhouse

   The Nullarbor Roadhouse stands in one of the emptiest stretches of the Eyre Highway, the sealed road that connects South Australia with Western Australia across the flat limestone plain. The name comes from the Latin for no trees, and the description is mostly accurate: the land is low, pale and covered in saltbush and bluebush, with a horizon so far away that it feels like the sea. The roadhouse is a small island of services in all that space, with fuel, food, accommodation and a campground, and it is a place where truckers and travellers meet and compare notes.

   Read the complete Nullarbor Roadhouse write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 622 km into the recorded legs you reach Nullarbor Roadhouse. Next is Eucla.

4. 4. 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, about halfway. Next is Madura.

5. 5. 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 sits at 2075 km, late in the day. Next is Norseman.

6. 6. 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 2594 km.