Day 8 - Penong to Cliff Camp 2 (Great Australian Bight) - Tuesday 16th May 2017

After retrieving our lantern we set off this morning and called in at the service station in Penong first thing. Here I managed to partially deflate one of our front tyres courtesy of a faulty air hose at the service station. Fortunately there is a mechanic in this very small town and we managed to find his workshop down a couple of dirt roads. He kindly re-inflated the tyre with his compressor which was capable of 80 psi and we were on our way again. Sue took the wheel for the first time this trip driving some 150 km on a fairly straight bu also fairly narrow section of highway with the occasional large truck coming in the opposite direction - I suspect she was more nervous than she appeared but she handled it extremely well. Our first stop was at the Head of the Bight lookout, some distance off the highway and as the name suggests, right on the Bight. In season (which was just starting apparently) one can see many whales resting here, many coming here to give birth to their young. They take up residency here for anything up to five months from June to October each year. As luck would have it being the very start of the season we didn't get to see any - apparently there were quite a few in the days preceding our visit. Nevertheless the views of the Bight and the cliffs were superb and we were glad we'd made the detour. We gave away some vegetables and a jar of honey to the lady running the Head of Bight Visitor Center as even honey is not allowed across the border into WA. On the way back to the highway we stopped at Whitewell Tank, a flat gravel area that many campers use as a free overnight stop. We decided against staying as it is very exposed to the strong winds coming off the Bight but we did stay long enough to have lunch here. After lunch we drove on to Cliff Camp 2, a little way short of the border. We were lucky enough to see a dingo cross the road on the way. We were the only ones at Cliff Camp 2 for the night and this was a spectacular location perched as it is on the cliffs overlooking the Bight. For safety's sake we parked a little way back from the edge but we still had fantastic views. It was so windy that we didn't venture outside all that often other than to take photographs  and the initial setup. Sue spent much of the evening once again turning raw vegetables into something that would pass muster at the border checkpoint - in this  case a vegetable stir-fry, as well as a tasty coleslaw from the remaining cabbage and ginger.