Southern Right Whales and More on the Nullarbor

 Friday 31 July 2026 - 178641

There was frost on the car this morning after a very cold night. It was 1 degree Celsius on waking this morning – glad I bought those slippers. We had a later start this morning as the sun gets up so late this far south in winter.  We prepared a curry to cook in the thermal cooker as we travelled today. We did our gym routines followed by a billy bath and leisurely breakfast. We left camp at 9:45am.

Today was the beginning of our touristing, rather than just covering distance.

Stop 1 Bookabie School Ruins – there are ruins of schools all through here, most having closed in the 1950’s.

Stop 2 Fowlers Bay – mounds of seaweed on the beach, a long jetty and amazing sand dunes. As we drove out across the claypan, our car reported that we were below sea level.

Fowlers Bay Conservation Park

Stop 3 Yalata for a lunch break – nice big shelter with tables.

Stop 4 Head of Bight – I had high expectation as I had heard this was special, it did not disappoint! There were so many whales and in so close to the cliffs. I had thought I may need my binoculars, but we were able to watch about 10 whales at a time without any assistance. We saw about 20 different whales in the hour we watched, including one particularly active calf. The view of the Bunda Cliffs was also quite impressive.

Head of Bight

Stop 5 Nullarbor Roadhouse and Murrawijinie Caves – the three caves were all different and all spectacular in their own way. The road had puddles on it, not something I was expecting to see on the Nullarbor Plains; it would have been a quagmire in the wet.

Nullarbor Roadhouse  Murrawijinie Cave

  

We have camped for the night at the 164K Peg Area Rest Area, approximately 20km west of Nullarbor.

Whale Watching, Gin and Candy (Bundaberg Trip)

 

1 October 2020 – 295 565 – Whale Watching, Gin and Candy

The plan for this morning was Drew and Hayden would have a sleep in while I went for a run.  On stepping out the door I discovered that our shoe tub and a lot of our clean washing was missing.  So everybody got up and looked around the surrounding area – the shoe tub and one pair of shoes was found, but that was all.  I spent the next hour or so on the phone to the police and insurance company (no luck) and completing the police link form with all the missing items.  Based on what is missing it appears the culprits were specifically after running shoes and apparel – unfortunately my orthotics were in my runners also.

When we had just boarded the boat to go whale watching I had a phone call back from the police who were planning to fingerprint someone else’s fishing rod that had been dropped as the miscreants left the caravan park.

The whales were a long way out to sea, but we could see several groups between us and the horizon.  The group we were watching was a mother and calf with one escort.  They were quite curious and came close to the boat several times.  We saw the calf breach twice – very special.  The group went under the boat several times.  They are truly grand, majestic creatures.  On the way back we also saw a pair in the distance repeatedly fin slapping – apparently these guys wanted an audience.

 https://ladymusgraveexperience.com.au/whale-watching/

When we were almost back to port the boat made a strange sound.  Not long after the Captain announced we had lost one of the four engines.  He had several attempts to berth unsuccessfully before moving to the fuel jetty to allow everyone to safely disembark.

On our return to Burnett Heads we drove back to the caravan park to put out the recovered items for the police to check as requested.  Then off to buy Hayden some shoes, as all he has left is a pair of thongs.

Kalki Moon Gin Distillery was our next stop, where I chose the Chocolate Hazelnut and Vanilla Liqueur. https://kalkimoon.com/ Jake’s Candy Shop provided some great reminiscing of childhood favourites and some difficult purchasing decisions – one of everything is not an option. https://jakescandy.com.au/