Log One Hundred and Forty Six – South of the Tropics and Winter

14 August 2026

It is with sadness that I must declare we have left the tropics. We drove south past the Tropic of Capricorn and hence back to winter. Crossing out of the tropics marks our inevitable return home. That said we still have many days of driving ahead of us.

After the whale sharks of Exmouth we enjoyed another snorkelling dive on the coral of Ningaloo Reef. We swam with green turtles and all sorts of coral and fish and saw humpback whales breaching.

Our time at Coral Bay was punctuated by two days of rain. This seemed to be a message that it was time to leave. After Coral Bay it was lots of driving across vast areas of emptiness with the occasional road house.

We drove south through some wet weather which meant lots of mud. Now it’s not so much about dust but mud on the van and the car particularly after 10kms of unsealed road to your camp site.

We enjoyed a free camp by the wharves of Port Hedland. Shunting trains in the middle of the night all added to the experience. They must have chosen to load the ships when they knew we were attempting to sleep.

As we moved south dry savannah became cultivated agricultural land. Green fields were a shock to the system. It’s been two months since we have seen green fields of wheat and golden canola. And there is traffic and cars and people!

We cut across the wheat belt of WA to reach Kalgoorlie. This would be our staging point before the trek across the Nullarbor Plain. I took the opportunity to visit the Super Pit to see what has changed in the two years since we were last here. Where the lookout over the pit was previously located is now part of the pit and the pit continues to grow. There must be money to be made in digging out the gold.

While looking down into the pit I counted 14 large mine haul trucks. Each one costs about $4mil and their 6 tyres cost about $350k. Let’s say $4.35mil by 14 and that was just what I could see. Oh and the trucks are retired after 10 years of service.

From Kalgoorlie we headed across the Nullarbor. It took four days to cross. Out here a full tank of fuel is good to the next roadhouse. You never drive past a fuel stop and they seem to be separated by about a full tank. A free camp above the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight is a great place to camp but don’t expect any facilities out here. A UHF radio is also a must so you can be warned about the 8 metre wide load coming towards you.

We have about a week to go of driving through South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Hopefully we can time our traverse to miss any weather extremes but once you start you are committed regardless of conditions.

More to come…