Eucla is a tiny settlement on the Western Australian edge of the Nullarbor, only a few minutes from the South Australian border. Most travellers meet it as fuel, food, and sleep on a very long road, but it has a stranger identity than that suggests: the old town was half-swallowed by dunes after the telegraph station closed and the sand began to move.
That buried history is the reason to stop. South of the highway, the Old Telegraph Station stands in the white sand like a desert ruin, with the Southern Ocean just beyond the dunes. Nearby paths lead to an empty Eucla Beach, while the Traveller's Cross and Eyre Memorial give a broad view from the escarpment.
Eucla is not a town to linger in for days. It works best as one of the great small pauses on the Nullarbor drive: a place where the road, the telegraph line, the sea cliffs, and the abandoned settlement all meet in one lonely, memorable corner.