The Crossing the Nullarbor is a 7-day, 1,200 km drive from Ceduna to Norseman by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated easy. Best in Autumn (Mar-May) or Spring (Sep-Nov). Budget from about A$1,000 per person, plus roughly A$288 in fuel.
Some road trips are about the destinations. The Nullarbor is about the space between them. This is one of the great journeys on earth - a seven-day campervan crossing of a treeless limestone plain so vast it has its own curve of horizon, where the road runs arrow-straight for days and the sky does almost all of the scenery. The name comes from the Latin nullus arbor, “no tree”, but the plain is far from empty: saltbush and bluebush roll to every edge, wedge-tailed eagles wheel overhead, and kangaroos, emus and dingoes drift across a landscape stripped back to its essentials. Crossing it in a campervan is a genuine Australian rite of passage.
The scale is the point. Between Ceduna and Norseman you’ll drive the country’s longest straight road, stand atop 90-metre cliffs where the continent falls sheer into the Southern Ocean, and go hours without passing another soul. It rewires your sense of distance.
Out here the roadhouses aren’t stops on the journey - they are the journey. Fuel, a feed, a shower and a yarn, then back out into a horizon that never seems to arrive.
Why cross the Nullarbor?
Because nowhere else in Australia gives you emptiness on this scale, or coastline this dramatic to frame it. The Great Australian Bight is the headline act: the Bunda Cliffs run unbroken for more than a hundred kilometres, and from June to October southern right whales gather beneath the Head of Bight lookouts to calve, close enough to hear them breathe. The Head of Bight sits on Yalata and Mirning country, and the viewing area is managed with the Traditional Owners - take the time to read their story of this coast.
For campervan travellers the Nullarbor is pure freedom. There are no crowds, no traffic, no need to rush - just you, a full tank, a long straight road, and one of the last true wilderness drives left in the world.
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Day by day
1,200 km total · about 13 hours behind the wheel across 7 days.
- 1
Ceduna to Nullarbor Roadhouse
290 km · 3hFuel up and stock the fridge in Ceduna, the last real town before the plain swallows the highway whole. West of Nundroo the trees thin, then vanish, and the road runs dead straight into a horizon of saltbush and sky. The day's reward is the Head of Bight, where the continent simply stops - 90-metre cliffs dropping into the Southern Ocean, and in season, southern right whales rolling in the swell below the viewing platforms.
Highlights Head of Bight · Bunda Cliffs viewpoints · Whale watching (June-Oct)
Stay Nullarbor Roadhouse · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 2
Nullarbor Roadhouse to Border Village
185 km · 2hA short, spectacular leg where the Eyre Highway hugs the coast and the Bunda Cliffs unspool for more than a hundred kilometres to the south. Pull off at the signposted lookouts and stand at the raw edge of the continent, wind in your face, nothing but ocean between you and Antarctica. Roll into Border Village by mid-afternoon and pose beside Rooey II, the giant fibreglass kangaroo guarding the state line.
Highlights Bunda Cliffs · Great Australian Bight lookouts · Rooey II the giant kangaroo
Stay Border Village Roadhouse · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 3
Border Village to Madura
185 km · 2hCross into Western Australia - clear the quarantine checkpoint, then wind your watch back 45 minutes into the quirky Central Western time zone. Detour to Eucla to walk the old telegraph station, half-drowned in white sand dunes migrating slowly toward the sea. The day ends with a plunge down the Madura Pass, the escarpment falling away to reveal the vast green sweep of the Roe Plains below.
Highlights Eucla Telegraph Station · Madura Pass lookout · Roe Plains
Stay Madura Pass Motel & Roadhouse · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 4
Madura to Caiguna
150 km · 1.5hToday you drive Australia's longest straight road: the 90 Mile Straight, 146.6 kilometres without so much as a bend. The steering wheel barely moves, the mirages shimmer, and the sheer scale of the place settles into your bones. It is hypnotic, faintly surreal, and unlike any driving you'll do anywhere else. Pull into the tiny Caiguna Roadhouse at the far end, the straight finally behind you.
Highlights 90 Mile Straight · Caiguna Blowhole
Stay Caiguna Roadhouse · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 5
Caiguna to Balladonia
180 km · 2hBreak up the drive with a round on the Nullarbor Links, the world's longest golf course, whose eighteen holes are strung across 1,365 kilometres of highway between Ceduna and Kalgoorlie. Then it's on to Balladonia, forever famous as the patch of scrub where chunks of NASA's Skylab space station rained down in 1979. The roadhouse's small museum tells the whole gloriously strange story.
Highlights Nullarbor Links golf · Balladonia Skylab museum
Stay Balladonia Hotel Motel · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 6
Balladonia to Norseman
190 km · 2hThe final crossing leg, and the landscape finally softens. The endless saltbush gives way to the salmon gums and gimlet woodlands of the Fraser Range, and for the first time in days there are trees casting real shade over the road. Arrive in Norseman - the first true town in Western Australia - and feel the quiet satisfaction of having driven clean across the Nullarbor.
Highlights Fraser Range woodlands · Norseman goldfields
Stay Norseman Gateway Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 7
Explore Norseman & Surrounds
30 km · 0.5hEase into a slower day after the long crossing. Wander Norseman's gold-rush heritage - the town takes its name from a prospector's horse that pawed up a nugget - then climb Beacon Hill for a sweeping view over the goldfields and the plain you've just conquered. From here the road forks: north to Kalgoorlie, south to the white beaches of Esperance, or west to Perth.
Highlights Beacon Hill lookout · Norseman gold-rush heritage · Corrugated camel sculptures