Some 64km east of Caiguna on the Eyre Highway is Cocklebiddy where I am reckoning Mark had his morning coffee! If you follow the link, it leads to some interesting information about the area. Remember when you learned about those Australian sheep stations which were as big as Europe....... well, this is where they are! According to the info I have just read ....Cocklebiddy lies on the southern edge of Western Australia's truly vast sheep grazing belt. Within the area are several large scale sheep grazing operations, some larger than a number of European countries. One such station is Arubiddy which spans an area over 3200 square kilometres. With limited rainfall sparse stocking rates of about 8 to 10 sheep per square kilometre are the norm. And here, after a lot of searching, is Arubiddy itself..Learning about sheep stations in Australia when I was at school was definitely not what ignited my passion for Geography. However, I am thinking how much more interesting sheep stations could be these days with access to a real one like this, courtesy of Google Earth.
Sheep stations apart, Cocklebiddy's other claim to fame are the vast limestone caverns which underlie the area. 90m below the Nullarbor saline lakes occupy endless cave systems ....In 1983 a French caving expedition created caving history by exploring Cocklebiddy Cave to an unprecedented distance of 6.4 kilometres. This record was later broken in 1995 by an Australian named Christopher Brown - bettering the 1983 record by a mere 20 metres. Cocklebiddy cave system is unique in that the cave system extensively penetrates an aquifer that lies 90 metres below the Nullarbor Plain. Within Cocklebiddy cave are a number of vast limestone caverns, rockfalls and saline subterranean lakes that extend for several hundred metres. Amazing to think that all that water lies beneath the Nullarbor!
And finally, yesterday we did the 90 mile straight in a 2CV. Today, here is the view from a road train crossing the Nullarbor.....
No comments:
Post a Comment