2015/10 Australia trip - Eucla |
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We were soon back on the highway heading for Eucla in Western Australia. Diesel cost us $1.80 a litre, the most expensive of the trip. There was an equally expensive food shop attached, but it was on the wrong side of the quarantine station, a hundred yards away. Progress through the station was slow as the officers were searching fridges and cupboards for forbidden items: fruits, veggies, and honey.
We’d also crossed into the Western Australia time zone, which I expected to be a 1½ hour change backwards, but it was actually 2½, as the state doesn’t follow Daylight Savings. Just for confusion, the 200 or so people in the Eucla area have proclaimed their own unofficial Central Western Time, which splits the difference, ¾ hour behind 
South Australia. It’s understandable as they are nearly 1000 miles east of the politicians who make the laws in Perth.
Eucla’s slightly more than a roadhouse as there is also a motel set back from the road. Behind the motel, a side road drops down onto the Roe Plains, a sandy area which stretches to the west between the Nullarbor and the coast. There were trees and more plants there, as well as sand dunes, and we saw a few emus and kangaroos.
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Eucla (2.16) |
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The road leads to the ruins of the telegraph sta
tion, built there in 1877 to link Perth with Adelaide. A plague of rabbits ate the stabilizing vegetation on the sand dunes and since then the dunes have moved to cover the original Eucla town site and they’ve partly buried the station.