Esparance: It’s supposed to have a beautiful harbor in a friendly town.

“For most of the twentieth century the area around Esperance was regarded as too infertile for intense agriculture. It wasn't until 1949 that the Esperance Downs Research Station discovered that the local soil only needed additional trace elements to make it fertile. This simple discovery turned the area into a successful producer of wheat, sheep and cattle.
“The success of this venture is vividly expressed in the fact that in 1954 there were 36 farmers on about 8 000 hectares and by the mid 1980s there were 600 farmers utilising over 400 000 hectares. It was a good combination of Australian technology and American capital.” walkabout.com.au

Norseman: “There were no other bicycles – and not much traffic at all – on the scorching morning when I rolled into town. It was already well over 100F, with not a patch of shade to be seen. The glary streets of Norseman – a last chance water hole for anyone heading east across the Nullarbor – were dozing in the heat.” Smith

The Nullarbor: “Endlessly, monotonously, we vacuumed up ties as we progressed, but however much we pressed onward the vanishing point stayed always in the same place. You couldn’t look at it – well, I couldn’t look at it – without getting a headache.
‘How far is it to the next curve?’ I asked.
‘Three hundred and sixty kilometers,’ Willis answered.
‘Don’t you go crazy out here?’” Bryson (he was on a train)

Ceduna: “The first town of any significance after the Nullarbor Plain, Ceduna is a welcome break. … On the shores of Murat Bay this town of 3,500 looks out to St. Peters Island, the location where, the locals will tell you, Jonathon Swift had Gulliver meeting the tiny Lilliput people on his travels.” Salter