Crossing the Nullarbor

I was new to golf and although this ‘course’ was probably not the easiest one to learn on, I was pretty sure it was the funniest, craziest and most interesting. At the hole called The Dingo’s Den, crows swooped in and stole balls. At Eucla, I saw a sleek, dark snake disappearing into the undergrowth. When looking for lost balls, we had to be careful not to step into wombat dens.

Nullarbor Links, the longest golf course in the world, consists of 18 holes over 1,365km between Ceduna in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia – across the magnificent, incredible Nullarbor Plain. With long stretches of road between rugged holes in the middle of emptiness, it provided an itinerary to pull us across the desert. Every few hours, we stopped to play a hole, have a laugh, curse a bit, climb back into our campervan and drive on.

The road ahead was straight as an arrow. Glorious and empty and beautifully simple, the surrounding land was abstract, with a restrained palette. Silvery, mossy, earthy colours.

To truly experience this place required a commitment. No one can just see it to know it; they have to spend time in it, drive across it, wallow in the extremity of it for days on end. It’s part of the land’s character to hold travellers steady, in awe, for hours and hours, to impress them with its constancy.

We spent nights on the road at basic, gritty campervan parks, plugged into the power, along with others on the same golfing-themed journey. Having set up camp – which involved putting chairs out, extending the awning and opening a bottle of wine – someone would wander over and conversation would blossom.

At the Nullarbor camp we joined a circle of folk sharing stories of camel herds and ‘roos on the road at night. They talked about ‘doing the Nullarbor’ – crossing it once in a lifetime, or taking the trip again nostalgically. It is a big deal, even for Australians. No one does it lightly.

The sky crackled with lightning and a few heavy drops fell. We scuttled to shelter. Rain dropped sharp and loud on the roof of our campervan, our apartment on wheels, with its clever space-conscious design, a cosy bed tucked up under the roof and everything thought of. It was our oasis in the desert.

Despite being treeless and sparse, the Nullarbor has incredible variety. Every day revealed newness, shifting colours and changing patterns.

We went to a point looking out over the Great Australian Bight where right whales hung as huge and dark shapes in the turquoise water. They’re always there, clearly visible from the cliffs above. Small shadows hovered nearby and occasionally the babies would dive ahead of the V of their tails, then leap out. We saw eight or nine mother-calf pairs, but days before someone had counted over 100.

Another day, we stopped to look out over dramatic sharp cliffs falling straight into the ocean.

Having crossed the border to Western Australia, through a control point checking for insects and confiscating fruit and vegetables, we pulled into a service town bigger than other dots on the map.

Eucla sits on the top of an escarpment, poised above a stretch of flat land that fades to the ocean. We drove to the edge of it and walked to the skeletal ruins of a repeater station where messages were telegraphed up and down the coast in the 1880s – now filled nearly to the brim with sand. We took a path through the dunes to an isolated beach. Strands of sea grass lay in elegant, calligraphic scribbles; piles of driftwood cluttered the tide line; and the wreck of a pier – rough-hewn, weathered – described history in its angles stark against the blue sky. I wondered aloud about swimming and about sharks and was told it should be OK, just not to splash around too much. Maybe stay shallow. I didn’t go in.

On the South Australian side of the border, just 12km from Eucla, is Border Village. Once a year the locals and tourists walk between the two in ‘the border dash’ to raise money for the Flying Doctors. At the end of the same day an auction at the pub raises more; with hilariously raucous enthusiasm and good-natured pressure, people paid big money for all sorts. It gave us a glimpse of the social side of an outback community; friendly people with beards and beer bellies and big laughs, happy to include strangers.

This style of travelling is generally sociable. Everyone camped up for the night has in common the fact they’re out in the wild, pulling big caravans with big 4WDs, or driving old vans or flash campervans. Talk is of tail winds, where to get the cheapest fuel along the way, what’s ahead. Golf scores.

The Eucla hole, called ‘Nullarbor Nymph’, was in a flat, wide open space surrounded by wheat grass tugging in the wind. It was a treat after Border Village’s scrappy, tufty ‘Kangaroo’ hole, and provided the bonus of a snake sighting.

At Madura, we joined a hole-in-one competition on a golf hole so ragged and rocky and difficult it was hard to imagine negotiating the terrain to the fluttering flag, let alone hitting a ball amongst it. It was a good-natured event though; swings admired, efforts praised. The sponsor kept his hands in his pockets.

In the cool of early evening we settled into our campsite. Crows made cat noises in the eucalyptus-scented bush behind our van. We made a small fire and sat around it late into the star-studded night.

After a 500km haul the next day, we arrived in Norseman, a real town with several shops, a council building, rose gardens and some public art. It has a rich mining history and a community still digging for gold today, and it seemed like a raging metropolis after five days Out There.

It was also the end of the trail. We played more golf in Norseman and in Kalgoorlie the following day, but the wild part of the adventure and the tough part of the links were behind us. Play was now on real courses – green and broad and open in Norseman and, in Kalgoorlie, positively lush.

All those challenging tees too hard to poke a spike into, those fairways only called that because that was the general direction of the flag – they now seemed special for their uncompromising character. Those roadhouses selling nasty coffee and below par food seemed authentic. So Kalgoorlie, a big mining town with a massive open-cast gold mine, heritage buildings and much civilised evidence of ongoing wealth, shone confidently. We visited its impressive golf club with its 18 holes at the ends of velvety stretches of irrigated lawn, stylish water features, a function centre and a flash restaurant, and thought – this is the setting for an entirely different game.