Our campsite 100km from Thredbo only 200 metres above sea level.  Good morning

8 o'clock in the morning

Murray 1 Power Station - Khancoban

Murray 1 Power Station is the second largest power station in the Snowy Mountains Scheme.  There are 10 turbines at Murray 1 each capable of producing enough electricity to supply 95,000 houses. The pressure pipelines, which divert water to the power station, are 1560 metres long and up to 4.19 metres in diameter.  They can carry a total of 243,500 litres of water per second.

It was completed in 1974 with a construction period of 25 years, the Snowy Mountains Scheme is officially recognised as one of the seven civil engineering wonders of the modern world.

Murray 1 and the pressure pipelines

Turbines

We crossed some more Borders

 The Tropic of Capricorn is an imaginary line
of latitude going around the Earth at 23.5 degrees
south of the equator. 

Matthew was in South Australia, Andrew was in
Western Australia and William wanted to be in both states

Head of the Bight.  This is in South Australia, it is a great spot to view the Southern Right Whale.  The day we were there they counted 82 whales.  Between June and October each year the Southern Right Whales come into here to breed and give birth to the whale calves and stay for the 5 months.  From the viewing platform we got spectacular views of the coastline and were able to watch the whales display a variety of behaviours such as tail slapping, breaching, spy hopping and rolling belly up.  We were close enough to the whales as we could also hear them blowing through there blow hole.

Tail Slapping

Rolling Belly Up
 

Spy Hopping - they do this to look around

A Baby Albino Whale



Baby albino whale swam over the mother whale
and the mother whale lifted the baby out of the water

Breaching

We couldn't camp any closer to the edge of Australia then the Great Australian Bight.  We found a great spot and set up camp about 80 metres from the edge of the bight.

We crossed the South Australian Border

Matthew wanted to be in South Australia, Andrew was in Western Australia
and William Was in both states.

We celebrated Shane's 43rd Birthday on the Nullabor.  Celebrated it with a great fire and a yummy cake.