Travellers recall Nullarbor crossings before and after Eyre Highway was sealed

Fifty years ago, crossing the Nullarbor was not simply a matter of filling the tank, pointing the car east or west and settling in for a long drive.

Cars broke down. Tyres blew. Corrugations shook travellers for hours.

Heavy rain could turn the road into mud, and sometimes the smoothest route was not the highway at all, but the firebreak running beside it.

This was life on the Eyre Highway, a more than 1,600-kilometre stretch of road connecting Norseman in Western Australia to Port Augusta in South Australia.

Efforts to seal the route began in the 1960s, with the West Australian section finished first and work continuing across South Australia into the 1970s.

The last unsealed section of the highway was finished in the spring of 1976.

Half a century on and the crossing remains one of Australia’s best-known road trips, taking travellers through remote outback country and past the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.

The highway includes the 146-kilometre “90 Mile Straight”, Australia’s longest straight stretch of road.

Earlier this month, people with strong connections to the highway gathered at the Nullarbor Roadhouse to mark the 50-year milestone.

A road transformed

Among those who have watched the road change is Lance Sturtzel, from the Eyre Highway and Beyond group, who first crossed the Nullarbor in June 1964 while driving to Perth on his honeymoon.

By the time he reached Port Augusta, heavy rain had fallen and travellers coming from the opposite direction warned him not to continue.

He went anyway.

“I had a Volkswagen then, which were renowned for being OK in wet weather and we got through OK,” he said. 

The trip took about three to three-and-a-half days.

“There was a lot of water on the road which was supposed to be the road,” he said.

Mr Sturtzel has since crossed the Nullarbor close to 100 times, but said the experience bears little resemblance to his first journeys.

“You might see 20 to 30 people in a whole day back then. Now, you see 20 to 30 people in 20 minutes,” he said.

“It’s a whole different ball game now.”

For Mr Sturtzel, the modern journey may be faster, but it has lost some of the character of the old road.

“It’s a very fast highway now,” he said.

“It wasn’t fast in the old days.”

From endurance test to interstate link

For former regional engineer Peter Ryan, who helped oversee construction of the South Australian section, the difference was immediate.

“When I first got involved, in about 1973 or 1974, it would take all day to drive from Ceduna to Eucla,” he said.

“By the time you got there, you had ruin two tyres or have two flats, and you felt completely worn out.”

By the time the work was finished, the same journey could be completed far more easily.

“When we finished, you could drive from Ceduna to Eucla and back in one day … no drama,” he said.

Mr Ryan said the new road changed more than travel times.

Freight could move more reliably between states, tourism increased and additional roadside facilities developed along a route that remains extremely remote.

Today, the Eyre Highway also forms part of a major interstate freight network used by heavy vehicles travelling between South Australia and Western Australia.

Life along the highway

For people living along the highway, the dirt road created different challenges.

Katherine O’Dea grew up with close family connections to Eucla and Border Village, just inside South Australia.

Before the road was sealed, she said the constant damage to vehicles created enough work to support two mechanics in Border Village.

The poor road conditions also affected where aircraft could safely land.

Today, designated sections of the highway can be closed and used as emergency landing strips by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Back then, Ms O’Dea said short strips near the highway were used because the road itself was often too rough.

“We had to use them because the Eyre Highway just had so many potholes with all the traffic going along it,” she said.

But for Ms O’Dea the Nullarbor was never simply about the challenge of getting across it.

She still returns to Eucla and describes the landscape as somewhere she feels at peace.

“Especially at night-time, just driving, looking at the stars, also the animals and the different types of seasons and the topography of the land,” she said.

“It’s just so amazing.”

Crossing the old Nullarbor

For families moving across Australia before the highway was sealed, the drive could become an expedition in itself. 

Gerard Cameron was one of 10 children when his family left a farm near Mount Gambier in the final days of 1966 to start a new life in Western Australia.

The family travelled in convoy with a ute, Chevrolet Bel Air, and a truck loaded with their furniture and farming equipment.

Mr Cameron remembers the crossing taking about two weeks.

Fifty years after the final dirt section disappeared, the Eyre Highway has become a safer and more reliable interstate route.

But for many travellers, crossing the Nullarbor remains something more than simply getting from one state to another.