Stage 3 - The Nullarbor - 17 to 24 June 2023

Travelwise can organise your flights from any state to join this tour

Perth - Coolgardie - Cocklebiddy - Nullarbor - Kimba - Broken Hill - Cobar - Dubbo (Sydney Flight) - Newcastle Forster - Taree - Port Macquarie

Day 01

07.00am – Breakfast Provided

08.30am – Depart Crown Plaza, Perth WA

08.50am – Arrive Perth Airport (stage 2 guests Qantas flight)

09.00am – Depart Perth Airport

11.30am – Arrive Kellerberrin Roadhouse (lunch at own leisure)

Kellerberrin is a town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, 205 kilometres east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. The town serves as a stop on the Prospector and MerredinLink rural train services. It is also located on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail.

12.00pm – Depart Kellerberrin

04.00pm – Arrive Coolgardie Motel  (Ben Prior Park across the road)

Coolgardie is a small town in Western Australia, 558 kilometres east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of approximately 850 people. Although Coolgardie is now known to most Western Australians as a tourist town and a mining ghost town, it was once the third largest town in Western Australia.

Ben Prior Park is a free open-air museum named from its founder Mr Benjamin Austin Prior. Ben came to Coolgardie with his wife and five children in 1932, liked what he saw and two years later set up his garage (next to the park).

The park contains statues built by Ben himself, along with the wagons that bought the Sisters of Mercy Nurses to Coolgardie during the Typhoid epidemic situated among the many items relating to the gold mining history of the town and many of the pieces Ben found out bush while prospecting.

07.00pm – Dinner Provided

Day 02

07.00am – Breakfast Provided

08.00am – Depart Coolgardie

10.00am - Arrive Norseman Visitor Centre & Horse Sculpture

Norseman is the southern gateway to Western Australia. It marks the end of the epic Eyre Highway that spans 1,675 kilometres across the Nullarbor Plain - the largest limestone karst landscape on Earth. It invites you to explore the world's biggest temperate woodland, witness spring wildflower displays and practice your swing on the longest golf course on the planet - Nullarbor Links.

The town takes its name from a horse. Legend has it that Laurie Sinclair's horse 'Norseman' scraped the ground with his hoof and unearthed the first gold nugget in 1894. His find also led to the discovery of one of the richest quartz reefs ever mined in Australia.

11.00am - Depart Norseman

01.00pm – Arrive Balladonia Museum (lunch own leisure)

The stretch from Balladonia to Caiguna (146.6 km) is one of the longest stretches of straight road anywhere in the world. It is known as the "90 Miles Straight”.

Within the Balladonia Hotel Motel Complex is our cultural Heritage Museum. We’ve spent years collecting interesting artifacts and curating a range of informative displays that give visitors an understanding of the local area and our history. You can easily spend an hour or two rifling through the various exhibits. Learning fun facts about this part of Australia.

The museum covers a range of interesting subjects including:

·      Aboriginal heritage

·      European exploration and settlement

·      the history of the Royal Flying Doctor Service

·      construction of the Eyre Highway

·      artifacts from settler's life

·      information about local flora and fauna

The main focus of our museum though, is on the fiery re-entry of NASA’s Skylab space station in 1979 (which incidentally coincided with Balladonia’s centenary of settlement). Our collection includes documents from NASA, a recreation of events, photos and related ephemera. We even have a life-sized replica of some of the debris sitting on top of our roof.

02.00pm – Depart Balladonia

04.45pm – Arrive Wedgetail Inn Hotel, Cocklebiddy

Cocklebiddy is a roadhouse with accommodation, a caravan park, a restaurant and service station serving the needs of travellers crossing the Nullarbor Plain. It has very little rainfall and no reliable sources of water. Consequently, although it has huge underground lakes, it relies on saline waters and a desalination plant. The main attractions in the area are the Eyre Bird Observatory, which offers regular

courses on birdwatching and is run by Birdlife Australia, and the Cocklebiddy Caves which are considered the longest caves on the planet.

07.00pm - Dinner Provided

Day 03

07.00am – Breakfast Provided

08.00am – Depart Cocklebiddy

11.00pm – Arrive Eucla Hotel (lunch at own leisure)

The old Telegraph Station at Eucla is one of the iconic and lonely images of the Nullarbor. It is now nothing more than a few old stone walls slowly disappearing under huge white sand dunes on the edge of the Great Australian Bight. A reminder of the isolated nature of this harsh environment and the way nature will always win against humans. Today, apart from the Telegraph Station and the ruins of the old jetty, Eucla is nothing more than a tiny settlement with a service station, a hotel-motel, a caravan park, a golf course, some government agencies and a police station.

11.45pm - Depart Eucla

Put you clocks forward 2.5 hours

03.15pm – Arrive Great Australian Bight Lookout - Scenic Lookout No 2

The Great Australian Bight is the stunning, natural open bay stretching across the southern coast of Australia, south of the Nullarbor Plain. This special coastal area in Australia is a completely unique environment, home to a variety of marine species and endangered mammals. It is a key player in the country’s commercial fishing industry with some of the highest quality seafood in the country.

The Bight is generally considered to be part of the Indian Ocean, or sometimes referred to as the Great Southern Ocean, with no landmass to the south until you reach the ice caps of Antarctica.

04.00pm – Depart Lookout

05.15pm - Arrive Nullarbor Roadhouse, Nullarbor

In 2016 the Nullarbor Roadhouse decided to celebrate the history of the Nullarbor through murals, by accomplished mural artist Pam Armstrong, in addition to a scale model of the old “station/garage” which was created by Marty Powell. The artwork pieces on site also provide shaded rest areas in our caravan park using materials on site.

07.00pm - Dinner Provided

Day 04

07.00am - Breakfast Provided

08.00am - Depart Nullarbor

08.20am - Arrive Head of the Bight Visitor Centre & Boardwalk

The Great Australian Bight Marine Park on the Nullarbor Plain is the largest whale nursery in Australia. It's a long drive from pretty much everywhere, but it's definitely worth it! You'll be amazed at the sight – whales with their babies - sometimes numbering in the dozens!

At the Head of The Bight Interpretive Centre, there's heaps of parking for your car, caravan or motor home. You'll have access to toilets (wheelchair friendly) and an undercover picnic area while inside there's a cafe, things to buy including locally made arts and crafts as well as a huge quantity of information on whales and their annual migration. The entrance to the boardwalk and viewing platforms starts here.

The Head of the Bight viewing area is part of the Great Australian Bight Marine Park. The park protects the endangered whales, Australian sea lions and many other species unique to the Bight. The Marine Park is internationally recognised as being significant to the Southern Right Whales, which are listed as Vulnerable due to being almost hunted to extinction. Since 1937 they have become a protected species by all countries with known breeding populations (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay).

09.30am - Depart Head of the Bight

12.00pm – Arrive Penong Windmill Museum (lunch at own leisure)

A showcase of old, new, small and big Windmills. Including "Bruce" the biggest Windmill in Australia (As seen on Sunrise and Today Tonight)

The township of Penong is a small wheatbelt settlement on the western edge of South Australia's wheatbelt which is characterised by dozens of windmills which pump the local water supply from a large underground basin, the Anjutabie water Basin. The town and the surrounding district is so dry that the underground water is supplemented by rain water and water which is carted by truck from a reticulated water supply connected to the Tod River pipeline some 15 kilometres east of Penong.

01.00pm – Depart Penong

05.00pm – Arrive Kimba Gateway Motel, Kimba

Kimba townsfolk are acutely aware that tourists, having somewhere they want to get to, tend to drive through the town without stopping. As a result, they have managed to create a number of "tourist attractions" - a Big Galah, a sculpture of Edward John Eyre and Wylie, an impressive mural on the local wheat silos - all designed to encourage travellers to stop ... and hopefully to spend some money in the town. Apart from its tourist attraction Kimba is a typical wheatbelt town, with a railway and huge wheat silos, designed primarily to service the surrounding grain and sheep properties. The average annual rainfall in Kimba is only 339 mm.

07.00pm - Dinner Provided

Day 05

07.00am – Breakfast Provided

08.00am – Depart Kimba

10.00am – Arrive Wadlata Outback Centre, Port Augusta

Port Augusta, a City of approximately 14,000 people, is home to the Wadlata Outback Centre, a major tourism attraction and an accredited Visitor Information Centre for the City, the Flinders Ranges and Outback of South Australia. This award winning, popular attraction welcomes tens of thousands of visitors per year.

A self-guided tour through Wadlata's, "Tunnel of Time", is the must before or after visiting the Flinders Ranges & Outback as it will give you a better understanding of how it evolved and make you want to get out there and enjoy it yourself.

You will be transported back to where the dinosaurs roamed the land, be introduced to the people who first owned, explored and settled the land and those who still live there today.

11.30am – Depart Port Augusta

01.00pm – Arrive Peterborough (lunch at own leisure)

02.00pm – Depart Peterborough

Put your clocks forward 30 minutes

06.00pm - Arrive Ibis Styles, Broken Hill

Broken Hill, or 'The Silver City' as it is sometimes called, is a city forged out of a hill that was almost pure silver, lead and zinc. It is a mining town on the edge of the desert at the central-western edge of New South Wales which is worth visiting because both the city and the surrounding area have so many attractions that it would be easy to spend a week exploring the area and not exhaust the unique mixture of ancient Aboriginal culture, vast desert vistas, famous movie locations, mining experiences, contemporary art galleries and desert sculpture parks while learning about one of the most unionised towns in the world.
Perhaps the most memorable feature of Broken Hill is that it is only a few minutes from the desert no matter which direction you travel. It is a city surrounded by red soils, grey scrub, impossible flatness and intensely blue skies that make the world seem larger and more dramatic.
To add to the experience, many of the streets are named after metals, minerals and compounds, or after mine managers, leading citizens and civic leaders. The town is now the centre of the 16-million hectare West Darling pastoral industry and the city is literally an oasis in the desert which can get blisteringly hot in summer and drop below freezing at night time in the winter months.

07.00pm - Dinner Provided

Day 6

07.00am - Breakfast Provided

08.00am - Depart Ibis Styles

08.30am – Arrive Living Desert Sculptures

On April 1, 1993, artists from around the world began work on 12 sandstone sculptures in the middle of the desert outside Broken Hill. Giant sandstone blocks weighing more than 50 tonnes had been shipped in from the Wilcannia region for the sculpture symposium, organised by artist Lawrence Beck.

Six weeks later, the artists unveiled their creations, and today, this is one of the most photographed sites in the Australian outback.

The sculptures can be found on Sundown Hill, in the Living Desert Reserve, a 15-minute drive north of the city. It’s a magical spot with sweeping views of the outback landscape and can be accessed by road or a 900m walking trail from the Living Desert Picnic Area.

The inspiring works are worth experiencing at all different times of the day for their changing moods. Sunset, however, is hard to beat.

09.30am – Depart Desert Sculptures

11.30am - Rest Stop

12.00pm - Depart Rest Stop

01.30am – Arrive Emmdale Roadhouse (lunch at own leisure)

02.30pm – Depart Emmdale

03.45pm – Arrive Fort Bourke Hill Lookout, Cobar

Just minutes from town. Take a sealed road up to Fort Bourke Lookout and view Cobar and its surroundings. See the open pit and entrance to the underground mine from a well-constructed viewing platform.

The rich Cobar mineral belt is clearly visible in a straight line from North to South (line up the headframes). Cobar's water comes from Burrendong Dam 400 kilometres away and is pumped from Nyngan via a 135-kilometre pipeline into storage tanks on top of Fort Bourke hill.

Fort Bourke Hill stands to the east of the Cobar township and rising to 300 metres above sea level, it offers the visitor a wonderful vista of the Cobar landscape.

04.15pm - Depart Lookout

04.30pm - Arrive Cobar Central Motor Inn, Cobar

07.00pm – Dinner Provided

Day 7

07.00am – Breakfast Provided

08.00am – Depart Cobar

11.30am – Arrive Dubbo Regional Airport (lunch at own leisure)

12.15pm – Depart Dubbo Regional Airport

03.30pm – Arrive Two Rivers Wines Cellar Door (tasting provided)

04.30pm - Depart Two Rivers Wines

04.30pm - Arrive Grapevine Motel, Denman

07.00pm - Dinner Provided

Day 8

07.00am - Breakfast Provided

08.00am - Depart Denman

09.45am - Arrive Heatherbrae Pies (rest stop)

11.15am - Arrive Forster

11.40am - Arrive Boomerang Beach