Eyre Peninsula

Well, inspired by Foo, I've decided to start this post with a video. Not one that has anything to do with the current post but one that just makes me laugh.... (Hopefully it works)

Yes, my husband makes me laugh!!!

This post is about our trip around the Eyre Peninsula - a truly beautiful place.

After passing through Port Augusta to fuel up, we drove to and then past Whyella (didn't look particularly interesting / attractive) and on to Cowell (which did). Cowell is a lovely wee town with a great vibe. We stopped off for some fresh oysters - $10 for a doz and freshly shucked right in front of us. These have to be the best oysters I have ever tasted in my life! We called in for a quick beer at the local hotel...

Then we drove out to Point Gibbon, not far from Cowell. We found a spot right by the beach all to ourselves which was just beautiful and a great place to have dinner...

and answer the call of nature..

We had a great sleep, lulled by the sound of waves and cool sea breeze.

In the morning we drove back to Cowell and cooked up some eggs to have wih our left over Kangaroo sausages to make Kanga Banga Sangas. We went in to the info centre / cafe and bought our first coffees of the trip. Yummy! We went for a walk on the jetty and had a yarn with some old folks who were crab fishing. We met a lot of lovely people in Cowell.

Cowell Jetty

We drove out to Shultz's Quandong Farm which we had seen advertised (Quandong are a fruit). We were met by a sweet old lady who showed us around her garden, aviary and house. We also tried some of her Quandong jam. Dave and I both felt like we were visiting our Nana and just wanted to give her a hug when we left!

Drove out to Lucky Bay where the ferry comes in from Wallaroo on the Yorke Peninsula and went for a walk along the beach. A cool little area with a row of old beach shacks and not much else.

We rove back to our spot at Point Gibbon for another night. We went fishing and Dave was very proud to catch his first fish of our trip! What a ripper!

We relaxed on the beach with a bottle of Coopers Pale between us and a hearty dinner of Baked Beans.... this is the life!!

..and were treated to a beautiful sunset (notice the Space Pig?!)..

The next morning Dave awoke early to go fishing again. He manged to catch a slightly bigger fish this time - a mullet.

We took it down to some caravans at the other end of the beach and a nice man showed us how to fillet it properly as neither Dave nor I had ever learnt to do it (Dad's job!)

We drove on to Port Neill and on the way were were excited to hit 222,222km (and 6236km on this journey)

We stopped at Port Neill and found a BBQ to cook up the fish with some fried potatoes - Awesome!!!

We saw a wedding taking place at the foreshore and felt sorry for them as it was blowing an absolute gale - much worse than at our wedding!

We drove on to Tumby Bay which is supposed to be superb but it was just too windy to enjoy so we drove on to Port Lincoln which is right down the bottom of Eyre Peninsula and was much more sheltered. We headed to the jetty to do some fishing using pilchards as bait. Caught HEAPS of baby salmon but nothing big enough. We also saw two huge sea lions swimming below waiting for people to throw their undersized fish back and getting a big feed of us, the lazy buggers!

We drove out to the marina where we had dinner and stopped for the night. In the morning we headed to the Maritime Museum and watched a re-enactment of the first landing which was quite entertaining.

We drove to the Old Mill which we climbed up and got a good view over Port Lincoln.

Port Lincoln

Very Artistic Guys!

We drove out to Coffin Bay where we found some clean drinkng water and SHOWERS. They were cold showers but since it was a nice day that didn't bother us too much. We went to the market there and bought a doz farm fresh eggs for $3 - bargain!

We drove back to Port Lincoln and Dave went fishing again - catching about 6 small salmon - just legal size (21cm) which we cooked up on the BBQ for dinner. We've been very impressed with the BBQs we've found around the place - often free but sometimes costing 20c for about 15mins. They're usually always very tidy, with seats etc - and usually maintained by the Lions or similar group.

Back to the Marina for the night (we're getting good at finding free spots!)

The next morning marked 4 weeks since we'd left Sydney. We drove to the Lincoln National Park which cost $7.50 to enter. We walked up to the Stamford Hill Lookout which was a hill the explorer Flinders climbed in search of fresh water. We then drove to a nearby beach which was covered in thousands of tiny seashells which looked like teeth or stick on fingernails! It was a very tranquil and calm spot to just sit for a while.

We saw a group of baby emus which were very cute..

We then drove on to Cape Donnington and stopped for lunch at September Beach. The lady at the info centre had recommended this spot and it was wonderful - being a weekday there was not another soul there and it was a great spot for a skinny dip!!!

We left the park and drove down to Fishery Bay where we stopped to watch a couple of surfers, before setting up camp for the night.

The next day we drove on to Elliston. We drove around the sculptures on the cliff...

It was raining all day so we were pretty car bound, but ended up heading to Lock Wells Beach after speaking to a couple we met at the jetty in Elliston who said it was a beautiful spot and a great place to catch salmon. Well they weren't wrong, the view was spectacular and a wonderful place to cook up dinner with a view...

and an incredible sunset over dinner...

In the morning Dave woke up early to go fishing. He waited for another car to arrive so he could head down to the beach (all 286 steps down!) with someone else. Funnily enough it was the couple we met yesterday who turned up first and Dave went down to fish with them. It was very foggy going down the steps...

Check them out from the bottom!!! Note the platform up the top to the right - that was where we had breakfast - what a view!!

Well, Dave's rod wasn't cut out for surf fishing - it wasn't long enough to get out far enough but Mark caught a couple of big salmon and filleted them for us which was very kind of him. We ended up eating them for lunch and they were pretty tasty!

We left about midday. On our drive we saw heaps of lizards - can anyone tell us what type they are?

On the way out we drove around the sculpures again in search of the giant thongs we had missed the day before. It was a completely different day this time - bright and sunny...

Same pic, different day!

Bingo - Big Thongs!

We then drove on to the Talia Caves...

"The Woolshed"

Monument to a nun that drowned

"The Tub"

We stopped at Venus Bay and saw some pelicans.

We drove out to Baird Bay which has been widely publicised as the place to go to swim with the sea lions but there wasn't much to see (this is for you Jamie!)

However we did find a hubcap to replace the one we lost up near Coober Pedy (must be karma!)

We had a drive around some lovely bays and ended up at Streaky Bay which is a lovely town. In the morning we went down to the foreshore and cooked up a feast of scrambled eggs on toast.

Streaky Bay Jetty

We went to the Council Building and got the key to fill up our big water container from their rainwater tanks. This is the best, freshest water we've tasted in ages!! Much better than the chlorinated stuff we've had of late from all the towns with water shortages. Thank you Streaky Bay!

We drove out to Cape Bauer. We stopped at the Whistling Rocks Blowhole and saw some men fishing off the rocks...

Yes, those are people!!

From there we drove on to Ceduna which is where I am writing from. We are staying in a Big4 Camp which means power, washing and SHOWERS!!!

From here we are making the trip across the mighty Nullabor which we plan to do over a couple of days. Tomorrow or the morning after we should cross over the border into Western Australia. There is a border checkpoint and you are not allowed to take any fruit or veges over the border in case of fruit flies or other pests. But...shock horror... you are not allowed to take over HONEY either - something to do with spores. We have about 1/3 of a jar of Clems honey left and we are devastated that we have to bin it before we go (or else gorge ourselves on sugar!). Dave did mention possibly stashing it in his clothes.. Does it sound to anyone else like we're trying to smuggle drugs across the border, not honey?

Hope you're enjoying the blog, til next time all