Koonalda Homestead: A Warm Embrace

From the Eyre Highway, we turned off inland to Koonalda Road where we circled the classic, red dirt of Clay Dam Cave.

Rumbling up the dusty, stony road in blistering 39°C temperatures, we crossed the Old Eyre Highway to reach Koonalda Homestead.

Built from sleepers from the old railway and scavenged stone blocks from Eucla's Old Telegraph Station, this was a sheep station and service station for the Old Road from 1935-1988 when the owners gave up. The dingos did for the sheep and the road did for the valiant travellers in their cars. SA Parks now curates the heritage site.

The skeletal petrol pump stands guard at the entrance. This must have been a welcome break on an un-airconditioned trek, slogging across the Nullarbor.

Some never made it any further. Rusting car wrecks, long since plundered for spares or souvenirs, surround the homestead with their crumpled, gaping boots or bonnets swinging in the warm breeze. Once gleaming, prized possessions, many that were proudly wheeled off Aussie assembly lines, here they are at the end of the line at the edge of the Bush, gathered in a resting heap.

I even spotted a venerable Morris Minor 1000, the model that launched me on the course of my first driving licence with just a minor mishap reversing into a telegraph pole while practising.

Just up the road in a clump of trees, the shearing shed is silent, cool, creaking, with shafts of light creeping between the cracks. Outside, neat use of sleepers and wooden fencing kept the sheep ready for shearing.

Precious water came from 7 kms away from the lake inside the impressive Koonalda Cave with fruit trees planted on the cave floor growing luxuriously in this arid expanse.

We walked up the track to the Blowhole to listen to the sound of the Nullarbor exhaling from deep within its cool whooshes of air.

Koonalda has its own way to embrace you warmly.

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Koonalda Homestead, Koonalda Cave, Caves, Shearing Shed, Nullarbor, South Australia