The aim of this website is to provide an insight into the Nullarbor Plain and the road crossing for the potential traveller who envisages embarking on this epic road journey across Australia.

AUSTRALIA'S GREAT ROAD JOURNEY - History

The Nullarbor Plain is a vast limestone plateau covering some 250,000 square kilometres - stretching from Yalata in South Australia to Balladonia in Western Australia, some 700kms long and 400kms wide.  The Eyre Highway traverses its southern boundary and ends abruptly with breathtaking views of the Bunda Cliffs on the Great Australian Bight.

Explorer, Edward John Eyre made the first east-west overland crossing in 1841 from Fowlers Bay in South Australia to Albany in Western Australia.  This remarkable and historic feat took 5 months.  The actual expanse of the Nullarbor Plain was not discovered until 1857 and then subsequently named by South Australian Surveyor, Edmund Delisser in 1865.  Nullarbor comes from the latin "nullus arbor" meaning "NO TREE".  The aboriginal word for the area is "Oondiri" meaning THE WATERLESS, with an average yearly rainfall of only 20cm (approximately 6 - 8 inches).

Most of the treeless expanse of the Nullarbor Plain lies north of the Eyre Highway.  In 1912 construction of the Transcontinental Railway Line commenced which would link the east with the west.  It took 5 years to complete this epic engineering achievement across some of the harshest and desolate country in the world.  It is regarded as one of the last great engineering feats of the early twentieth century accomplished almost entirely by pick and shovel, carthorse and camel with a minimum of mechanical assistance.  Today 130 freight trains cross the nullarbor plain on the Transcontinental Railway Line.

Approximately 100kms north of the Eyre Highway is the Transcontinental Railway Line, it is worth the drive to experience this part of Australia and the 'real' Nullarbor Plain, away from the coastal fringe.  The best way to get there is to take the 'Cook' turnoff, this is approximately 43kms west of Nullarbor Roadhouse.  This is also the best road (dry weather 4WD only), although unsuitable for towing a caravan or for motor homes.  Cook is still operational with a handful of permanent residents to cater for the train crews and train refuelling requirements.  The Indian Pacific train stops at Cook 4 times a week on its east-west and vice-versa crossings.

The Nullarbor Plain is believed to have been created 25 millions years ago when it lifted out of the sea.  Lime secreting marine skeletons and shells littered the sea floor and these deposits, with sediments of sand, created the limestone which underlies the entire plain to a depth of between 15 to 61 metres.

Over millions of years, rainwater has soaked through the porous limestone and dissolved the rock, forming a labyrinth of underground chamber and channels, caves and depressions.  This amazing formation is known as a karst system, of which the Nullarbor Plain is the largest in the world.  Many of the caves of the Nullarbor are internationally renown, noted for their sheer size and impressiveness of their chambers; their clear lakes; their delicate salt decorations (rare elsewhere in the world) and their rare cave-adapted invertebrate fauna.

Cocklebiddy Cave holds the world record for the longest underwater cave dive.  Other caves like Thylacine Cave hold great significance for the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) fossil that was discovered in 1968.  Koonalda Cave is an important archaeological site, as more than 20,000 years ago, Aboriginals laboured by the glow of firesticks to mine flint for precision stone tools which were exchanged for native tobacco and other goods at Ooldea Soak, over 200kms to the north-east.

Crossing the Nullarbor is truly one of the world's great road journeys.  The key is to take your time, there is plenty to see and it is not so "Nullarboring".  Try and get off the bitumen, away from the noise of the trucks and cars, head north and visit the 'true' Nullarbor where you can hear yourself breathe, feel the wind in the saltbush, view the wedgetail eagles flying high on the thermals and not see a single tree!!  The best experience is to lie under the carpet of stars on a clear moonless night, simply magnificent and a truly humbling experience.  If you head north for approximately 20kms on the 'Cook' road, you meet the old gravel highway, travel down this and really feel the solitude and isolation of the Nullarbor Plain.  Visit Kanalda Station, which was once a busy refuelling station before the new highway was constructed further south.  View the history in all the old cars and the house built out of railway sleepers.