Day 136 06/08/2011 Caiguna – Nullabor National Park (back into South Australia)

Day 136 06/08/2011 Caiguna – Nullabor National Park (back into South Australia)

We travelled across the Western Australia / South Australia border today and straight into Nullabor NP.  Our first lookout gave us an idea of the beauty that we could expect over the next few hundred kilometres.  The first lookout was breathe taking and so began the beauty of the drive across the Nullabor.

We explained to the kids that Nullabor means “treeless plain” or “nullus arbor” so of course they took great delight in pointing out trees!!  I must express some surprise at how heavy the vegetation was, I expected the Nullabor to be a desert!! Sand, sand and more sand but I was vastly mistaken, the Nullabor is a shrub covered plain but flat, as flat as far as the eye can see it was flat. Given I had no idea what to expect I was even further surprised to learn that the Nullabor, once part of the ocean floor, it is now the world’s biggest, flattest piece of limestone, covering an area approximately 200, 000 kilometres and up to 300 metres thick.

All the lookouts gave a great opportunity to really appreciate the coastline of the Great Australian Bight, where the cliffs of the Nullabor meet the Southern Ocean. 

We kept our eyes peeled for whales, but unfortunately we did not spot any.

We enjoyed a leisurely night camped in the Nullabor NP.