The Crossing 30k east of Nullarbor Roadhouse to 25k west of Nundroo Roadhouse
Pretty And Very Hilly
The morning after the actual treeless plain, South Australia gave me trees, hills, cold air, friendly horns, and a hard 56 km push as the Adelaide maths started getting real.
The day after I crossed the actual treeless plain, the trees came back.
That felt almost funny.
For weeks the Nullarbor had been this idea in my head: flat, empty, treeless, endless. Then I finally crossed the literal treeless bit in one day, and the next morning South Australia handed me a freezing sunrise, plenty of trees, and enough hills to make the point very clearly that the country had not finished asking questions.
Day 43 began from the previous night’s stop, about 30 kilometres east of Nullarbor Roadhouse. The target was not Nundroo Roadhouse yet. That was still too far. The practical finish was another roadside point, roughly 25 kilometres west of Nundroo, which would leave the roadhouse within reach the next day.
It was an early start and it was properly cold.
The first photos from the morning are all dark blue and orange: horizon light, black tree shapes, a thin ribbon of bitumen, and the sort of cold that makes every layer feel justified. I was aiming for another day over 50 kilometres, because the crossing had reached the stage where ordinary long days were no longer enough.
The maths had started to bite.
Somewhere around this stretch we had realised there were more kilometres left to Adelaide than the original plan had allowed. Early in the crossing, there had been a tendency to stop once the GPS watch had clocked the planned distance. That sounded sensible until we understood that watch distance could include little non-route extras: walking back to the campervan, photo detours, all the small practical movements that were real effort but did not move the Perth-to-Brisbane line forward.
By then we had shifted to the marked finish point and the campervan odometer logic. Start where I stopped. Measure the actual progress. Keep the crossing honest.
Then there was the bigger planning problem: Google Maps had quietly put a ferry across Spencer Gulf into the route to Adelaide.
That raised a very simple question. If I took a ferry, could I honestly say I had crossed the whole way on foot?
Ols was clear about it. A ferry would take away the on-foot part. I was tired, worried about time, and desperate to stay on schedule, but he was right. I was grateful for that then, and I am more grateful now. We would go the longer way around.
The funny part is that the passenger ferry apparently was not even running anyway.
So Day 43 was not just another 50-plus kilometre day. It sat inside that shift from the neat plan to the honest one. Adelaide still had a fixed date attached to it. We were organising to do parkrun there. The whole journey had a time limit. If the route had more distance in it, I had to absorb that through my legs.
No wonder the daily distances were starting to stretch.
The day still had its ordinary HAA strangeness around the edges.
Ben was out on the gravel verge doing 5 x 1 kilometre intervals as part of his half marathon training program, because apparently being support crew on the Nullarbor was not enough exercise by itself. Meanwhile, there is a photo of Ols sitting in the sun beside the campervan, which looked a little more relaxed than what I was doing at the time.
That contrast made me laugh.
I was out there sweating, hurting, and trying to squeeze every last drop out of a tired mind and body. Support crew life had its own pressures, absolutely, but that particular photo did not exactly scream hardship.
There was kindness too.
One guy stopped to ask if I wanted water. Another did a U-turn to ask if I wanted a lift. There were waves, horn beeps, and air horn blasts from cars, vans, utes, and trucks. Out there, every little sign of recognition helped. It reminded me that I was visible, that people had seen what I was trying to do, and that I was not just a tired person moving slowly beside the Eyre Highway.
South Australia was beautiful that day.
It was also very hilly.
After the treeless plain, the return of trees and rises changed the rhythm completely. The highway climbed and dipped through low scrub and mallee, and the views kept opening out in ways that were pretty and slightly rude at the same time. Pretty, because the light and the shapes were lovely. Rude, because every hill asked for more from legs that were already doing enough.
By the end, the numbers were good. Another 56 kilometres went onto the crossing, bringing the accumulated total to 1854.4 kilometres. Nundroo was still not reached, but it was close enough to make the next morning feel clear.
I finished tired but happy.
That phrase says a lot about the Nullarbor stretch. Tired was almost guaranteed. Happy was not guaranteed, but it kept arriving anyway.
Images From The Day
