by: Jeremy Hart Out in 'no tree' land Travelling types Life on the road

By late afternoon the roadhouse was buzzing and most of the 30 rooms were booked for the night. The bar was full and food, as fresh only as the last weekly delivery, filled the air as far as my prefab bedroom with appetising smells. Nullarbor, on the eastern edge of the plain from which it gets its name, is a settlement of a few houses and, of course, a roadhouse. It is fitting that it should be on the part of the road where trees are most scarce. Deep in South Australia, 12 hours from Adelaide, it is more than a fuel and food stop. And my last stop before Adelaide.

Iain Greenwood, a naturalist, uses the Nullarbor Motel as a pick-up point for whale-watching trips to the nearby Great Australian Bight. Unfortunately, on the one day I was at Nullarbor, Greenwood had an argument with the Aboriginal landowners on whose land is the prime whale watching site.

Robbed of the rare opportunity to watch whales just 20ft from shore, Greenwood opted for a drive north across the plain to a series of caves littered with staggering examples of aboriginal art. There, away from the rumble of the road, Greenwood put the feeling of the real Nullarbor into perspective.

"The magic of the Nullarbor is its sheer simplicity. There is nothing to interrupt the eye," he said. "It is like standing in outer space".