The Eyre Highway west of Ceduna: a lap of the Far West Coast worth the fuel

Somewhere around Penong, the wheat paddocks give up and the mallee scrub takes over, and that's the point I reckon the Far West Coast actually starts. I've towed the 21-footer through here four times now, twice heading for the Nullarbor crossing proper and twice just to poke around the coast for a couple of weeks before turning back. The second version is the better trip, and almost nobody does it.

Most caravanners treat the stretch from Ceduna to the WA border as a corridor. Fill the tank, check the fridge magnets are latched, put the head down and knock over 480-odd kilometres of the Eyre Highway to Border Village in a day, maybe two. Fair enough if you're time-poor or you've done it before and just want to get to the other side. But if you've got ten days to spare, this run has some of the best coastal camping in South Australia, and almost all of it sits within a 40-kilometre detour off the bitumen.

Why the Far West Coast gets skipped

The honest answer is geography. Ceduna sits at the western edge of Eyre Peninsula proper, and by the time most tourers reach it they've already done the Streaky Bay Foreshore Tourist Park a hundred kays back, ticked off the peninsula, and mentally shifted into "crossing mode" for the Nullarbor. I get it. I've done the same thing myself, treating the Eyre Highway as a means to an end rather than a destination.

That's a mistake, in my view. The coastline between Ceduna and the border has cliffs, whale-watching platforms, and free camps that rival anything on the Eyre Peninsula loop, but it gets a fraction of the traffic because it looks, on the map, like empty country you drive through rather than country you stop in.

Ceduna to the Head of Bight

Ceduna itself is worth a night, mostly for fuel, water and a decent supermarket restock before the services thin out. From there the highway runs through Penong, home of the windmill museum if you want a stretch-the-legs stop, then out to the coast proper.

The detour I always make is down to Point Sinclair and Cactus Beach, about 21 kilometres off the highway on a mostly-graded gravel road. It's a working surf break with a rough camping area behind the dunes, no facilities to speak of, so this is bring-your-own-everything territory. I wouldn't take a van in wet weather; the last few kilometres turn to gluey clay and I've seen a rig bogged to the axles after rain. Check the forecast before you commit.

Further west, the Nullarbor Roadhouse marks the edge of the treeless plain in the popular imagination, but the real drawcard is the Head of Bight whale-watching platform, roughly 12 kilometres south of the highway on a sealed access road. Southern right whales calve here from around June through October, and the platform is run under a permit system through the local Aboriginal community and SA's Far West Coast Marine Park management arrangements. There's an entry fee, it's cash-or-card at the gate last I checked, and it's worth every dollar if you time it right. I've stood on that platform in August and counted eleven whales without moving my feet.

The cliffs nobody mentions

What surprises most first-timers is the scale of the Bunda Cliffs, which run for close to 100 kilometres along this stretch. They're higher and more dramatic than most people expect from a highway they've mentally filed as "flat and boring." There are several unmarked pull-offs along the highway shoulder near the Head of Bight turn-off where you can walk to the cliff edge. No fences, no barriers, so keep the kids and the dog on a short leash, literally. The drop is sheer and the edge crumbles.

I'll admit I underestimated this section on my first crossing back in 2018. I'd budgeted it as a driving day and ended up parked on the verge for two hours just watching the light change on the water. That's the trap with the Nullarbor: everyone plans for the distance and nobody plans for the stops.

Camping options that don't cost a caravan park fee

This is where the Far West Coast earns its keep for anyone counting the annual touring budget, and I know a few of you are because I get the emails. There's a string of free and low-cost camps along this run: the Nullarbor Roadhouse has powered and unpowered sites if you want amenities, but there are also several informal camps off side tracks closer to the cliffs where you can pull up for the night with nothing but your own water and a fire pit someone else has already built.

The usual rules apply and they're worth repeating because this is fire-sensitive mallee and coastal scrub country. Total fire ban conditions get enforced hard out here, and there's next to no phone signal to check them once you're off the highway, so get your fire danger rating before you leave Ceduna or Nundroo. If you're new to reading a free camp before you commit, that's a skill worth having sorted before you're standing on a gravel pad at dusk trying to work out if it's safe to stay.

Tow-ball weight matters more than usual on this run too. The gravel access roads down to the coast have enough corrugation to shake a poorly loaded van into a sway event, and I'd rather you sorted your tow-ball weight properly before you leave than find out the hard way on the Sinclair road with a semi coming the other way.

Fuel, water and the maths that actually matters

Distances get real out here. From Ceduna to Border Village is roughly 480 kilometres with only a handful of fuel stops in between — Penong, Nundroo, Nullarbor Roadhouse, and Yalata if it's operating. Diesel prices climb the further west you go, and I've paid a genuine 40-50 cents a litre more at Nullarbor Roadhouse than I did filling up in Ceduna. Top up before you leave town and don't run the tank down chasing a cheaper fill that might not exist.

Water is the other one people get wrong. Some of the free camps have no water at all, and even the roadhouses can have bore water that's fine for washing but not great for drinking. I carry 160 litres in the van tanks plus jerry cans, and on a slow ten-day lap of this stretch with two people and a dog, that's comfortable without needing a top-up until Eucla on the WA side.

Worth linking into the bigger trip

If you're doing this as a standalone out-and-back from Ceduna, ten days is comfortable without rushing. If you're linking it into a longer crossing, it slots naturally into the Red Centre Way for anyone coming down from the Territory, or as the final leg before or after a proper lap of the Big Lap of Australia. Either way, I'd argue this stretch deserves the same reputation as the Oodnadatta Track for scenery-per-kilometre, even though it's sealed the whole way and needs no special vehicle prep.

The mistake I keep seeing, and one I made myself years back, is treating a sealed highway as automatically low-value touring. Corrugations and low range aren't the only measure of a good trip. Sometimes it's just whales off a cliff platform and a free camp with no one else on it for three days running.

When to go

June to October gets you the whale season at Head of Bight, and the daytime temperatures on the Far West Coast are mild rather than the furnace conditions you'll cop in summer. December through February this coast turns brutal, exposed and shadeless, and I wouldn't tow through it without very good reason. Shoulder season, April-May or September-October, splits the difference nicely with fewer grey nomads and still-comfortable weather.

Check current road conditions and any fire restrictions with the SA Department for Infrastructure and Transport before you commit to gravel side roads, and confirm Head of Bight platform access and fees directly, since permit arrangements can shift with the local land management agreement.

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