Predictably, I am still typing this offline. I’m going to enjoy having broadband when we eventually settle, I tell you!

Norseman, as I mentioned earlier was our last stop before we hit the Eyre Highway. In fact, our stop in Norseman was far shorter than we anticipated. There was nothing to do there other than stock up on food, drink and petroleum and then follow the sign that ran, "Adelaide - 1986km". This is pretty much what we did, K taking on the first leg of the long, long road.

Setting off, as we did, at lunchtime limited the distance that we could cover in a day. Driving after twilight is not recommended as that’s when the marsupials tend to go off in search of food and they don’t learn their Green Cross Code at school. The sides of the Highway 1 are littered with kangaroo cadavers. I can only imagine how the cars looked after their impact. The birds, though, seem to do quite well out of this long stretch of road: it has a plentiful supply of fresh food for them!

Driving across the Nullarbor was actually nowhere near as daunting as I imagined it might be. It may have been more daunting if I were to cycle across like one Swiss nutter (I assume he was Swiss – not because all of the Swiss people I have met are nutters but because he was flying the Swiss flag from his bicycle.) who we passed along the way. You do have to keep your eyes and ears open all the time, though, particularly when a roadsign (and what looks like a zebra crossing) announces that you are actually driving along an emergency runway for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The other advantage to watching what’s going on around you (in addition to the long road ahead) is that you get to see (live) dingos, gallahs and kangaroos.

Cocklebiddy was our retreat for the night. This came at the end of a ninety-mile stretch of road without a single bend! Their budget room was the price of a bottle of white wine cheaper than their standard motel room. We took the budget room and the bottle of Chardonnay went down very nicely with dinner, thankyouverymuch. Actually dinner was very nice indeed, it was the first meal that we’ve had out recently that came with boiled potatoes. It seems that most places expect that if you are driving then you must want ‘…and chips’. The room was functional, with tasteful wooden veneer. The towels that were provided looked as if they were new when the motel was built, but still, I can’t imagine anyone spending more than 12 hours in Cocklebiddy (apart from the staff). I was amazed that for somewhere so remote the night was so loud and so bright. The diesel generator behind the motel and the constant flood-lighting prevented me from getting too much sleep and soon after sunrise I was ready to hit the road. Of course sunrise arrives in Cocklebiddy three-quarters of an hour earlier than in the rest of Western Australia as they are in their own bizarre timezone: Central Western Time.

Today we drove and we drove. Stopping just for fuel and to change drivers. We caught two pictures of Big Things (a kangaroo and a whale) sadly, we were going too quickly to catch a photo of The Big Boomerang (we shall have to go back sometime!). We also stopped to take our first views of The Great Australian Bight as we reached it. On average we switched drivers about every 200km, which works really well. The time in the passenger seat is far more relaxed than normal as very little navigation is needed on such a long highway, just right for dozing sufficiently to get a crick in your neck!

The last hour or so on the highway was hard work. The temperature soared as the clouds that protected us for most of the journey disappeared. While The Beast is equipped with air conditioning, I was conscious of the position of the needle on the temperature gauge on the dashboard and aimed to give the engine the best chance of keeping cool. Thankfully, the fruit fly checkpoint wasn’t far away at this point and having assured the nice man that we were not bring any of that nasty Western fruit into his fruit-fly-free state, we stopped in Ceduna for the evening.

Pinky’s Point provided a scenic venue for a picnic while we decided where to stop for the night. We chose a caravan park very close to the centre of town and also to the beach. Conveniently they have a vacancy for the evening and we’re currently enjoying sitting in our air-conditioned cabin.

Just one final point before I head off to prepare a nice cool salad for tea: when the sign at the state border tells you to wind your watch forward by 45 minutes, check first to see if the state you are entering has Daylight Savings Time, this will prevent any embarrassment as you try to enter a shop as it’s closing and declaring that it doesn’t shut for another hour. We are now, incidentally 10.5 hours ahead of British Summer Time (in case you were thinking of calling)!