{"id":10052,"date":"2016-12-01T22:09:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T11:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/?p=10052"},"modified":"2016-12-02T08:22:01","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T21:22:01","slug":"tasmanian-and-west-australian-drive-across-the-nullarbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexwisephotography.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/01\/tasmanian-and-west-australian-drive-across-the-nullarbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasmanian and West Australian\u00a0drive Across the Nullarbor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Team<\/a>
Team photo before leaving Melbourne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What do you do when a friend who is moving back to Perth asks you if you want to roadtrip it back with him and take photos? Say yes of course.<\/p>\n

This is a long winded blog post about my drive from Melbourne to Perth with Jon Sander<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Meeting People Through Photography<\/h3>\n
\"From<\/a>
From a past trip down the Great Ocean Road<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What draws me into landscape photography is the solitary moments where it is just you, nature and for the most part, silence. Photography for me has never been about taking photos to share on social media but the journey in getting there. Those long trips listening to music, the silence and the time to think. It takes away the pressure of taking ‘nice photos’ and shifts the focus to enjoying the surroundings. With this in mind, when the golden light hit, I’m not madly scrambling around with my stop watch counting down until the light disappears but just taking it in and enjoying it. <\/p>\n

As much as I enjoy the quiet times of shooting solo, I also enjoy getting out there with others because really, who enjoys the solo long walk back to your car or tent in dark? Not this guy…<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From a past trip photographing Tasmania during Dark Mofo<\/a> 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Through photography I’ve been fortunate to meet people from all walks of life who I’ve learnt from, exchanged laughs with and who I now call good friends. One of those people is Jon Sander<\/a> who like me, moved from Perth and set up a base in Melbourne many moons ago. The great thing about meeting people who aren’t born and bred in Melbourne is that they don’t take Melbourne for granted. They come to Melbourne craving what their home can’t provide. For me coming from Tasmania, it wasn’t the nature calling but Melbourne had me hooked with its concrete jungle and constant flurry of people and traffic. Shooting with Jon over the years has been fun as we’ve viewed Melbourne through a different lens (terrible pun) and tried to avoid shooting just the popular locations.<\/p>\n

Planning a trip from Melbourne to Perth<\/h3>\n

Jon had flagged for a while that he was looking to move back to Perth towards the end of 2016 so we were keen to have one epic shoot before he moved back. So why not a roadtrip from Melbourne to Perth? With both having limited time to plan, we decided to take a gamble and base our itinerary on what looked good on Google Earth. We didn’t venture on Instagram, 500px or other social media’s to source the popular places to visit along the Nullabor. Why? Becuase, when going somewhere new, it’s nice to go in with a fresh set of eyes. If it looked good on Google Earth, we were going there. Was every spot we chose picture perfect for photos? I’ll let you be the judge. Was it a great adventure? Yes!<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Melbourne to Perth Itinerary<\/h4>\n

Having shot a lot of Victoria, we umm’d and ahh’d whether to make a stop by the Great Ocean Road or the Grampians on the way out of Victoria. Knowing that both can be done on a weekend trip we opted to make a crossing straight into South Australia and visit some less travelled<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our ‘little trip’ from Melbourne to Perth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking to spend more time in South Australia, our itinerary wasn’t set in stone with the idea being that we could change locations if they didn’t quite work out (or alternatively if we wanted to spend longer somewhere).<\/p>\n

Eventually our final itinerary looked like this with some epic days of driving where locations didn’t work quite well. Eucla to Alexander Bay was a last minute decision which meant we arrived around 12am in the morning. But where we did do a lot of driving, it also created some fat where we could enjoy relaxing days at Sceale Bay and Alexander Bay. <\/p>\n

Day 1 –<\/strong> Melbourne to Victor Harbour, SA (8hr – 746km)<\/p>\n

Day 2 – <\/strong>Victor Harbour, SA to Flinders Ranges, SA (6.5hr – 547km)<\/p>\n

Day 3 – <\/strong>Flinders Ranges, SA to Pimba, SA (4hr – 343km)<\/p>\n

Day 4 – <\/strong>Pimba, SA to Sceale Bay, SA (6hr – 588km)<\/p>\n

Day 5 – <\/strong>Sceale Bay <\/p>\n

Day 6 – <\/strong>Sceale Bay, SA to Eucla, WA (6.5hr – 629km)<\/p>\n

Day 7 –<\/strong> Eucla, WA to Alexander Bay WA (10hr – 1,000km)<\/p>\n

Day 8 – <\/strong>Alexander Bay, WA<\/p>\n

Day 9 – <\/strong>Alexander Bay, WA to Perth (8.3hr – 805km)<\/p>\n

It’s funny, when I was telling people about the trip, most looked at me and told me how terribly boring it would be. Not at all. In fact, I would probably do it again but first I need to convince the other half on the idea of buying a camper van \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The ever spacious Hotel Wise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If we were to do the trip again, I would add another day or two to the trip and spend some more time in Sceale Bay and Alexander Bay. We didn’t build enough fat in on the last day so it was a bit of a mad scramble to shoot the sunrise at 5am and make it to the airport before my 5pm flight. Luckily Western Australians haven’t jumped on the bandwagon for daylight savings which meant we were up and out of Alexander Bay by 7.<\/p>\n

What to take?<\/h4>\n

Planning for a drive like this obviously depends on person to person and how they are planning to tackle it, especially when it comes to everyday comforts.<\/p>\n

For us, we had no qualms with camping for nearly all of the trip, which meant we had to pack more food, cooking equipment, warm clothes and enough batteries to power a small town, but in a way this worked in our favour as we were equipped to go further off the beaten track. For some locations like the salt flats out from Pimba, SA or Alexander Bay, WA, accommodation was non existent.  If we had been staying in accommodation we probably wouldn’t have ventured as far. <\/p>\n

We took standard items like tents, a table, cooker, etc but there are some things that we would have been lost without:<\/p>\n