Saturday 7th February 2015 – Peg 81 – Eyre Highway SA

Fine, sunny, clouds – cooling breezes.
Camp Peg 81 -   it is 81 kms from the WA border.
We slept in this morning and took our time packing up.  We had just finished packing and were in the car about to start the engine and we spotted a truck and caravan coming in by our camp.  We could not believe our eyes.  Putty and Judy – friends of our friends.  We knew that they were on the road, but the last we heard was that they were in Kalgoolie.  We did a short drive yesterday and picked this camp because there was tree cover and right away from the highway.  We drove as far in from the road we could and were tucked up behind.










They were picking this camp for the exact same reasons we did.  We will catch up again with them along further.  We are still shaking our heads in disbelief that we came across each other. 
We didn’t drive far until we reached the first lookout on the way west and our last on the way east.  Really stunning views of the cliffs along the Great Australian Bight.





I spotted this guy with a couple of dingoes, so went and said Hi and had a little pat.  They are his pet  dogs, both are pure dingo, he had them DNA tested.  The darker one is the male and came from a wildlife sanctuary.  The dog will have a better life with him than being in an enclosure all the time.







At this stage we were not covering much distance at all.  We had a late morning tea here and drove along a further 20 or so kilometres and decided to try our hand at finding another cave listed on our map.

It was hard to find the little track going off the highway and we missed it, did a turn around and headed back.


  It is named as a cave, but has a sink hole marker on the map.








As you can see, it is pretty big.  We decided to go down into it and then have a late lunch.



I took this photo on our way out.  Glen is down there.
 


On the way out, about half way to the top.



These are Bush Raisins – bush tucker.  They look and taste like grapes.  You can only eat a few or you get mouth rash.  There were plants everywhere with lots of fruit on them.

 








The view from the cave entrance.  It was so cool down there, just like being in air conditioning.




 
There was a couple of small entrances leading deep into the cave. We didn’t take a torch and probably not smart to start wandering around in unmarked caves.

   










Something is having a feast down there.  There were lots of scats of a predator and hundreds of little bones scattered everywhere.  I wondered if they were bat bones.  As whatever is catching them has a huge opportunity as the exit is quite small and the bats could be grabbed as they exit.  It probably is a feral cat, but then the scats were not buried, so it must be something else.



About three quarters up one of the walls, I saw a stick birds nest, another predator with a great view of the bunnies.










This track heads out to the cliffs and then along, we decided to go out for a look and if the track was any good, would follow it for a way and then head back to the Eyre Highway.




Lots of dirt under these feet :)



More great views of the bight.

Yes, that’s right, we are camping here.  Lots of flat ground and a million dollar view – all free
We are not really that close to the cliff edge.




Some of the cliff edges are only overhangs and some have a massive slope of earth out from them.  So it is wise to choose carefully where you walk around here and stay back from the edge.  We have a substantial amount of earth protruding from the edge near us.

We only managed about 60 kms today, but it was a fairly exciting day full of surprises.