Off to See the Wizard - Great Australian Bight to Penong

Fortunately, the worst of the wind of the previous night had passed by the morning, so we continued on our way.  It was, however, still quite breezy and a bit wet.  Once again, we felt for those charity cyclists.  It would not be fun at all.

The landscape continued to change, now with low heath-like plants.

There have always been several look out points where you can see the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. There was one we wished to visit, as it has the best view, but we couldn’t find it.  We then learnt that several of those sites have been closed, as the erosion of the cliffs have made them unsafe.  We did find one that we could access. 

How moody does that look.  It reminds me a bit of when we visited the Cliffs of Mohr in Ireland in similar weather. Pop over to my blog post to see what this area of the Great Australia Bight was like when we visited in 2010.

Look at us.  Who’d have thought that only recently we were wearing summer clothes and feeling hot.  One lady was complaining about the weather looking like it did, but having seen it in sunny conditions, we enjoyed seeing the contrast.  It makes perfect sense, as so much of our winter weather systems come from this direction.  Indeed, this weather system travelled through to eastern NSW, delivering a lot of rain and more minor flooding.

Of course, I found some more wildflowers, and different ones to what we had previously seen.

Back on the road, we encountered more unusual items on trucks.

Mr Whippy anyone?

We were starting to get less and less trees.

Finally, we reached the Nullarbor Plain.  People generally refer to travelling across the Eyre Highway, between Norseman in the west and Ceduna in the east, as ‘crossing the Nullarbor” but in fact, on the road, you only travel for a very short while across the very bottom tip of the Nullarbor Plain.  Most of it is further north.  You travel across more of it on the train. The majority of the highway is not across the actual plain at all, but is still a very remote part of the country.

We called in at The Nullarbor Roadhouse for fuel - $2.99 per litre.  The dearest we had encountered for some time, but they can get away with it out there, as just about everyone has to call in. The whale sculpture has been there for years.

We treated ourselves to a burger for lunch.  It was huge, so we didn’t need much dinner. As the roadhouses are the only places where you can buy a meal, they are generally very good.

Don’t you love their sense of humour.

The old original roadhouse building is still standing, which is nice.

We made one more detour off the highway, to the Head of the Bight, somewhere we hadn’t visited before. It is mainly known for whale watching.  The Southern Right Whales come to this area to calve and breed.  We were late in the season to see a whale, but apparently they were still being seen.  Well, not when we were there. They must have been avoiding the terrible weather too.  Oh well, I do hope to see a whale close up one day.  Still something to look forward to in the future.

It was still a nice look out point.

Back on the road, we continued on our way, leaving the Nullarbor Plain behind us and now seeing lots of trees.  Yet another change in the landscape.

Eventually, we started to see signs of inhabitation and rural grazing properties.

Windmills became common, as ground water is the main water source in the area.

Finally, we reached the little township of Penang, which is known for its windmills at the eastern entrance to town.  This would be our destination for the night, after another rather long day on the road.  We have stayed here before and knew that the caravan park is fairly well protected from the weather, so it would be a nice change from the previous windy night, as yes, it was still rather breezy.

As we drove to the caravan park we noticed a large grouping of windmills, which we didn’t think we had seen before.  As it turns out, we hadn’t seen them before, as the Penong Windmill Museum was only opened in 2016 and we were last over here in 2010.  It was created in response to the interest in the windmills on the eastern entrance to town, that are actually working windmills in paddocks.  A lot of tourists were parking to take photos and the locals were worried there would be an accident one day, so created this museum where you can get a proper look at some interesting windmills.

After setting up camp, we came over for a better look, as I said before, we like windmills.

Their main draw card, which can also be seen from quite a distance, is the “Comet 35 Foot “B” Pattern”.  It is the largest Comet windmill in Australia.  

It has an interesting history.

There were story boards about its restoration.  Mick was amused by the Health and Safety, compared to what hoops he often has to jump through to work at heights.

At the other end of the scale, there was an example of the smallest of the Comet windmills, being the “Comet 6 Foot C Pattern”, made between 1925 and 1963.

There were some windmills like you would commonly see, although there weren’t many Southern Cross brand, which together with Comet, are the main brands you see around home.  This “Southern Cross RH Pattern 25 Foot” was originally used at a well on the Nullarbor Plain from 1956. It is one of their larger models.

There were some really unusual windmills.  This one had wooden slat and is an “Adelaide Challenge No 84” brand from the USA.  Rather than having a tail that can be put our of gear to turn off the windmill, this one had wooden slats.

 In this position, the windmill is turned off.  To make it work the slats are turned out, so that they look like a regular windmill.  Quite ingenious.  

We are always on the look out for a windmill like we had when we lived out of town.  It was also a Challenge brand.  It looked like a regular windmill, except it had two tails.  We’ve never seen another like it.  I’m sure it would be welcomed in one of these windmill museums.

This is another timber slatted windmill, this time a “William Riddle 8 Foot”.

I think this “Osbourne Windmill” was the oldest, dating back to the late 1800s. It is unusual in that it has as small tank at the top. When the main water tank that the windmill was filling was full, water would be diverted to the little tank, which was fitted with a float, that would turn the windmill off.  Rather ingenious.

There was even a home made windmill from the 1930s.  That would be in the time of the Great Depression, when money for a new windmill would be hard to come up with.  I’m sure it did the job.

Quite a lot of windmills in the area are mounted on home made trolleys to move them between various ground water tanks and there was one on display.

We really enjoyed our wander around reading about them all.  What we did notice was that most are “on loan” to the museum, which we think is rather smart, if ever their is any contention as to the ownership of items.

There was one water pump that wasn’t wind powered.  It is a “Swing Pump”.

You act like a big kid and have a nice big swing and water is pumped.  Yes, Mick is just a big kid.  Look at at the grin on his face.

There wa a really interesting shelter with information.  The walls are constructed from a 5000 gallon Squatters water tank and the roof structure is a 17 foot Southern Cross windmill fan.  How appropriate.  The committee responsible for the creation of this museum have really put some thought into it and executed the construction so well. They should be congratulated.

We wandered over to the little pub late in the afternoon and it was dark when we walked back to the caravan park. We were so glad we did, as we discovered that the windmills are lit up at night.  Don’t they look beautiful.

The highlight of the day was of course the windmills.