Tasmania Trip

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I love my BMW 1100 s sports tourer.  It is a limited edition 2001 model.

On 14 December, 2001, we set off for a trip to Tasmania and back.  'We' meaning Melon and I.   Melon is my son who was then 14.  His real name is Dylan but when he was a baby he had a head like a melon so now he is just 'Melon' or simply 'The Head'.

On day 1 we rode to Esperance, a distance of 800 kilometres or so.  We did not take any pictures.   On the following day we rode to Norseman which is generally considered to be one end of the Nullarbor Plain.   The Nullarbor Plain is actually a treeless plain wholly within South Australia and only 80 kms or so wide.   However, when one talks of the 'Nullarbor' one usually means the stretch of road between Ceduna in the East and Norseman in the West, a stretch of about 1,200 kilometres.   The WA/SA border is about 700 km from Norseman and 500 km from Ceduna.

The Nullarbor is almost dead flat and very straight.  Between about one hour before dusk and one hour after dawn, kangaroos render the road practically uninhabitable for motor cycles.  Unless you have a death wish, the only sensible place to be is one of the roadhouse motels or camped out in a swag.  Roadhouse motels, like fuel, are horrendously expensive out there.  Night two 15/16 Dec was spent in a motel half way down the escarpment leading into the 'basin'.

The basin is at the bottom of the escarpment.  There are two roadhouses in the basin.  One of them is Mundrabilla which was made famous back in the late '80s but the Knowles family who claimed their car was picked up by a UFO.  We stopped at the Mundrabilla Roadhouse and my first pictures for the trip were of a bug.

   I have no idea what these bugs are.  If you are an entomologist, I invite you to send me an email and let me know.

I prevailed upon Melon to take a pic of me with the horse.

From Mundrabilla we carried on and eventually crossed the border into South Australia.  The coast on the Western side of the Head of the Bight consists of impressive cliffs 300+ feet high.  East of the Border Village there are a number of lookouts to the south of the highway which lead to the cliffs. 

On one of them (I cannot remember which one) this view of the cliffs can be seen.

That evening, 16 December, we reached Ceduna and the following few days we spent there.  Ceduna is just under 2,000 km from Perth.

Ceduna is a town of about 4,000 people of who about 25% are Aboriginal.  I think it is the most racially polarised town that I have known.  Nevertheless, the coastline around Ceduna would surely be a contender for the most beautiful in the world.  Ceduna is an agricultural centre and supports a fishing industry (mainly sharks, scalefish and squid).

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Page 2 - Ceduna
Page 3 - Mexico & Hobart
Page 4 - Bruny Island
Page 5 - Queenstown
Page 6 - Strahan
Page 7 - Stanley