Nullarbor nostalgia: Travellers recall life on the Eyre Highway before it 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. The journey was an adventure that required endurance, resilience, and a healthy dose of luck.

Cars broke down, tyres blew, and 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.

Lance Sturtzel, from the Eyre Highway and Beyond group, 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.

"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. "It was more like the Eyre River than the Eyre Highway."

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."

Former regional engineer Peter Ryan, who helped oversee construction of the South Australian section, remembered the difference the sealed road made. "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 ruined two tyres or have two flats, and you felt completely worn-out," he said.

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.

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 remained extremely remote.

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.

"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."

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.