Saturday 13 September (SA)
Nullarbor to Fowlers Bay

accommodation: there is a caravan park at Fowlers Bay (08 8625 6143). Fowlers Bay kiosk sells fishing bait, gas, ice, phone cards, camera film and a range of groceries. The nearest petrol outlet is at Nundroo. Adjoining the caravan park is a public phone, undercover picnic facilities and public toilets.

Directions for the day:
We are still in scenic lookout country. Just east of the Nullarbor roadhouse we enter Yalata Aboriginal Land. Also, 14km east of Nullarbor we should take the diversion to the Head of the Bight - this involves a side-track (dirt road) of 11km, to see the spectacular cliffs.

We pass Yalata Roadhouse on the highway (Yalata itself is off the highway.) At Nundroo we are across the Nullarbor Plain. Just past Nundroo we turn south-east onto a dirt road and head for Fowlers Bay.
Some history
We are passing through lots of history today.

The town of Fowlers Bay was originally surveyed as the town of Yalata in March 1890. It was changed to Fowlers Bay in 1940. The bay was named Fowlers Bay by Matthew Flinders on 28 January 1802, after his lieutenant, R N Fowler who later became Admiral Fowler.

By the 1840s Fowlers Bay had become well known to French and American whaling ships. The old whaling station is still there, and whale bones can be found around the area. In the summer of 1840-41, Edward John Eyre set up a depot in the Fowler's Bay sand hills. This was a prelude to Eyre's epic crossing of the Australian continent. The jetty was built in 1896 and it was extended in the years 1907, 1914 and 1945. Its present length is 360m, and a great place to try for squid and fish.

Fowler's Bay Run was a 5,000 square ha sheep station taken up in 1858 - a sheep run that extended from the Nullarbor to Point Brown, near Streaky Bay. The Run had a head station, Yalata (Yalata homestead), and was divided into outstations: Colons, Penong, Charm, Pt Brown and minor outstations: Bookabie, Cundilippy, Nundroo, Pintumba and Pedinga. 122,318 sheep were shorn at Yalata and Penong.
The Homestead was established in 1880 in its present position 12 Ions west of Fowlers Bay on the road to Coorabie. In 1922 the homestead was rebuilt and it was described as having extensive outbuildings, storerooms, shearing sheds and shearing quarters. The house was a gracious and substantial building remembered for parties and throngs of visitors, for the dinners and balls, the glassed-in fernery, beautiful drapes and carpeting, silver and china ware, vast rooms with high ceilings and huge fireplaces. There were tiled passages, halls and skylighted courtyards and great stone tanks at the rear. Yalata Homestead was demolished in the 1950s after being abandoned for more than 20 years. The owners of this private property kindly allow access to visitors to view the rains. Please leave gates as you find them.

Note: there are no facilities at Coorabie.

For a time wool was the chief export from Port Fowler. Later developments included Fowlers Bay being employed as a major repeater station for the Transcontinental Telegraph Line linking Eastern and Western Australia.

Between June and October of each year, up to 100 Southern Right Whales frequent this area of the South Australian coastline to breed and give birth to whale calves. The breeding ground is now part of the Great Australian Bight Marine Park. From the main viewing platform at the Head of the Bight, Southern Right Whales can be observed at close quarters displaying a variety of behaviours, including tail slapping, breaching, blowholing and rolling belly up. Whale calves can be seen with their mothers lolling about or cruising beneath the 65 metre high Bunda Cliffs.

Nundroo is the eastern boundary of the Nullarbor Plain.

Things to see

• The Head of the Bight turn off is 12km east of the Nullarbor Roadhouse, then we travel 15km on a sealed road to the ocean. The whale-watching area is on Yalata Aboriginal Land. We can buy a permit from the roadhouse or from the White Well Ranger Station near the viewing platform at a cost of $7.70 per adult - concessional rates are $5 - and we will receive a brochure describing the world of the Southern Right Whale. At the viewing platform there is a water tank, picnic area and toilets.
• A number of aviation companies at Nullarbor Roadhouse offer flights at $85 for 20 minutes.
• Ruins of Fowlers Bay Run Homestead - 12km west on the road to Coorabie.
• The Coorabie War Memorial, built by Walter Fox in 1950, is situated at the junction of four roads in the heart of Coorabie.