Travelling to Perth

One of the regular road trips I do is travelling to Perth.
I was born in the Perth area and moved to Melbourne soon after. I’ve lived in the Melbourne area most of my life, though I have spent many years working in the country (usually just Monday to Friday, because of family commitments). Consequently I have family and emotional commitments in both Perth and Melbourne and travel between the two. Currently my sister lives in Adelaide, so I generally call in there on my way over.
I did the trip for a few years over the new year period with my parents, but now usually do it alone. Sometimes I carry a friend for part of the way and very occasionally I will pick someone up and give them a lift for a distance.
In the last five or so years I have driven over regularly (in preference to flying) and so have developed a “system”.

It takes seven and a half hours driving from home to my sister’s home in Adelaide. This is sitting on the speed limit, using the cruise control in DOUG to make sure I don’t consistently speed (I can’t afford the fines and couldn’t bear the loss of licence). However, it takes around eight and a half hours, as I stop in Beaufort, Kaniva for some lunch and Coonalpyn when I travel the Western Highway (Route 8). I arrive in Adelaide eight hours after leaving home (because of the half-hour time difference).
Now I spend a day or so there, more to do things around her place than to rest. After all, for me, Melbourne to Adelaide is just a reasonably short cruise.
I leave Adelaide usually just after 7:30. I fill up with petrol on my way out and then drive north on the Port Wakefield Road (Route 1). I’m in Port Augusta around 11 and call in to have an early lunch. This is one of the two food stops I normally make. After this I have to stop in Kimba, a pleasant settlement roughly half-way across Australia. A unique feature is that from the turn-off from the Whyalla-Port Lincoln Road onto the Eyre Highway, the character of driving changes, as it becomes usual to wave to other drivers – which can be a full wave, a hand movement from the wheel or occasionally just a finger (but not the middle one!). Then it is a straight run to Ceduna with a stop along the way if needed.
At Ceduna I fill up at Coles Express (Shell) for the last discount fill until Perth. If I feel hungry, I’ll have an ice cream and get another 2 cents per litre off. By the way, there is no Coles store in Ceduna!
From Ceduna it is a quiet run through two small towns and past an aboriginal community until I reach the Nullabor Plain. Here there is little vegetation other than grasses and shrubs and it remains the same until near the border. The cliffs provide spectacular views to the south, and whales can be seen at the Head of the Bight (although I rarely call in unless showing such views off to visitors) and from the lookouts, between May and October. At the border there is a quarantine station, so it becomes a mandatory stop. As I don’t carry fresh food or fruit, it’s a formality but it does break the journey.
During most of the year, the time then goes back an hour and a half. During summer, as Western Australia does not have Daylight Saving, time goes back two and a half hours (not a hundred years as for Queensland). This allows me to travel to Mundrabilla and fill up with petrol at a price considerably less than at the other settlements. Eucla now has a similar price, so during the majority of the year I fill up there as Mundrabilla would be closed by the time I arrive, but I prefer to use Mundrabilla if I can as it set the lower price first.
Depending on the season, it becomes dark before the border or after Mundrabilla. Between the border and Balladonia is a popular area for kangaroos. They are protected south of the highway but not north of the highway – but the best grazing is north of the highway. Depending on the time of year, there can be a few kangaroos (in which case I cruise through the night and pull over when I’m tired), many kangaroos (in which case I drive slowly – about 80 km.hr – with as much light in front of me as possible or then can be huge numbers. In that case I pull over and sleep until just before dawn, when I start again slowly until I can see the kangaroos have gone back to resting. The definition of few is only one or two per ten or so kilometres. Many is a few each kilometre. Huge numbers mean they may be shoulder to shoulder, a few deep, for hundreds of kilometres. The most I have seen on one trip would be in the region of a few hundred thousand. Travelling in the daylight means there are only a few, if any, visible, but the road can be littered with carcasses from the evening before. Even dead on the road they are a hazard, as their hip-bones can be high and hard enough to damage engine and gearbox sumps and stop the car there and then. Alive, they can simply dent panels or cause fan, radiator or engine damage (so again, you won’t be going anywhere) or they can be hit on the hop and come through the windscreen (very serious or fatal when the large hind claws scratch at your abdomen). Simply put, they are best avoided. That’s why there is a large bar on the front of my car.
Other hazards include wombats (often fatal, as they cause a car to lift on one side, roll onto its roof, skid and catch fire), camels (which are the right height for the body to go straight through the windscreen and there isn’t enough room in a car cabin for tat and people – and people lose), cattle (very dangerous to hit at any time) and emus. So it is not a simple drive, nor one for the faint-hearted. Even so, most people drive over and back with nary a worry.
Irrespective of the above and the time, I end up in Norseman for breakfast. This is not much more than an hour after driving straight for 146·6 km (90 miles) – the road has no bends at all, but the terrain is undulating so you rarely get to see a whole lot of road in front of you.
From Norseman the route turns right (north) for an hour and a half to reach Coolgardie. This imposing town now has very few inhabitants, but has many very large stone and brick buildings, reminders of its gold-mining background. It has two important connections for me – an aunt was born here in the early 1900s and an ex-student of mine and her husband run the camel farm just outside town (on the Perth side). Depending upon conditions, time and prices, I may top up at Norseman or at the new discount outlet in Coolgardie, but I would usually stop at Coolgardie anyway.
After this, I stop in Southern Cross for a comfort break before settling in for the final few hours into Perth. With recent roadworks, there are good dual-lane carriageways from The Lakes into the Perth metropolitan area. It comes as a shock after so much driving with so few cars to hit the Great Eastern Highway and Roe Highway intersection and have to wait for a few cycles of the traffic lights to go onto the Roe Highway. Then it is a good run (or not, if I arrive in peak hour) around to the Reid Highway. The travel time since Adelaide has been about 26 hours. Within a few minutes I am at my aunt’s nursing home, which I enter surreptitiously with my passcard and then greet her – and she knows that she will be out at least every second day, and usually every day, until I leave.
I depart and go around to a friend’s place (my father had her father as his first employer when he arrived from England in 1922) and stay there until I leave – between eight to sixteen days later.
On the way back, I leave about 7:30 a.m. and top up with fuel in Midland (my birthplace). I stop in Meckering, top up with fuel at Boddalin (cheapest fuel until Adelaide) and then pause again in Southern Cross for refreshment. Then I’ll top up at Coolgardie and Norseman, and then traverse the Eyre Highway in reverse. It would be rare for me to get to Mundrabilla before it closes, so I’ll often pull over and sleep until dawn and arrive as it opens in the morning. Otherwise, if I’m in a hurry, I’ll put some petrol in at the Border Village (at up to 20 cents per litre more than Eucla or Mundrabilla, but it’s open all the time).
Then it’s straight through to Ceduna and the quarantine check there. A slow fill-up and perhaps something to eat and then I’m off, with a comfort stop in Kimba and Port Augusta (for food) and I’ll be back in Adelaide somewhere between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. This time it’s to sleep in a bed. The next day may be just unwinding or perhaps doing odd jobs, but certainly passing news of Western Australia and Perth friends occupies a lot of time. Depending on my timetable, the following (or next) day I travel home, leaving Adelaide around 7:45 a.m. and filling up with petrol, stopping at Coonalpyn, Kaniva, Horsham and Beaufort on the way home before arriving about 5 p.m.
All up, the total travel is around 67 hours and 6600 km. Average speeds are around 90 Melbourne-Adelaide, 100 Adelaide-Ceduna, 106 Ceduna-Norseman and 100 Norseman to the outskirts of Perth. Fuel use is around 60 litres to Adelaide, 70 to Ceduna, 55 to Mundrabilla, 55 to Norseman and just under 70 to Perth. I love and enjoy the drive and see new things each time. Occasionally I will take a passenger for part of the journey and rarely one for the whole journey (but only one way). Apart from late-night radio which I listen to from Perth, Adelaide or Melbourne (depending on the time of night), I generally listen to music or audiobooks, on the iPods through the car radio.
I’ve had some interesting experiences, including having to destroy an injured joey, putting petrol into cars which have run out (I carry spare fuel, water and food), carrying messages for broken-down vehicles and carrying drivers to/from vehicles to get spare parts.