The CrossingMadura Pass
An Unexpected View
The climb near Madura Pass hid its reward until the last moment: a huge view I hadn't expected at all. I reached Madura Roadhouse as the light disappeared.
The unexpected view near Madura is the part of Day 33 that still comes back first.
Not the distance, although 48.3 kilometres was a proper day. Not even the roadhouse, although reaching Madura mattered. The thing that stayed with me was climbing up near Madura Pass and suddenly having the country open out in front of me.
I started from Moonera Tank on the second half of the split between Cocklebiddy and Madura. The half-day rest was behind me and the roadhouse was ahead.
Madura Roadhouse was the target. Out there, a roadhouse meant a named point on the map, a place for the campervan to settle, a possible shower, a meal, a reset, and a little island of light after a lot of exposed highway.
The morning still had that winter Nullarbor feeling: big sky, low cloud, a line of highway ahead, and not much else to hide inside. The route was simple in one sense, because I was still following the Eyre Highway. The work was in doing it for hour after hour without letting the repetition flatten everything.
Ben had his own subplot going on.
He was working through a training plan for a half marathon in September, and that day’s session was supposed to be a 30-minute tempo run. I explained the idea: warm up, settle into the middle section at pace, cool down, and cover about five kilometres all up.
He listened carefully, then ignored almost all of it and ran flat out for a 5K PB.
I cannot pretend that was the textbook session, but it was very Ben, and it gave the day a bit of ridiculous energy in the middle of all that open space.
Later in the afternoon the country began to change. The long, level feeling of the highway gave way to the approach into Madura Pass, and then the view arrived all at once.
I had not known it was coming. I climbed up onto the earth wall beside the cutting and looked out over this huge sweep of land below. It felt right out of Middle Earth, the sort of place where you could imagine a vast fantasy battle forming in the distance. A few minutes earlier I had been doing the ordinary job of getting myself to the next roadhouse. Then, suddenly, I was standing above one of the most breathtaking views of the whole adventure.
I was so glad I reached it while there was still daylight.
The final kilometres carried me into Madura Roadhouse as darkness fell. I had covered 48.3 kilometres, with 1,373.1 behind me.
At the roadhouse I chatted with a couple of truck drivers who’d seen me earlier on the highway. Even when the landscape felt empty, people were noticing. Eventually I found the campervan and stopped moving.
Dinner became the second thing that stayed with me.
The restaurant was not what I expected. It had a homely, almost old-fashioned feel, with little bits and pieces on display and the tables set properly. After a long exposed day outside, that small domestic warmth landed beautifully.
The food was good too. Really good. Madura had surprised me twice.
First with the view, then with dinner.
Videos From The Day
An unexpected view at Madura Pass
The Madura Pass view that took me by surprise late on Day 33, after the long push from the Moonera Tank stretch toward Madura Roadhouse.
Open on YouTubeImages From The Day
