CEDUNA TO PORT AUGUSTA

I've been incredibly tardy in keeping up with the blog, but there is so much to see and take in. We are now in Sydney and on the home run, but I will fill you in later. Just imagine that we are still in April.


After 3 fantastic days at Fowlers Bay, it is time to move on. We only have about 150kms to get to Ceduna and nothing much in between.

The first little town we come across is Penong .... a very small settlement located on the Western edge of South Australia's grain growing belt and only 75kms west of Ceduna. Scattered around Penong are dozens of windmills that pump water from a water basin which actually has a name ... the anjootaby (sp?) water basin. The water is supplemented by rain water but there's not much of that here so water is also carted by truck from the Todd River pipeline 15 kilometres away.



South of Penong are massive deposits of salt and gypsum in Lake McDonnell. Each year hundreds of thousands tonnes of salt are harvested from this lake and exported to the east. Lake McDonnell's gypsum deposits are the largest in the Southern Hemisphere! I stupidly didn't take a photo here, just video. Sometimes I forget because I get so rapt in everything!

After the Lake, we kept driving to Point Sinclair - according to the map it was a secluded beach with a jetty which was used by cray fishermen in the early 1900's. When we got there, there were lots of cars and people in the shelter and lots of kids - what was going on? Well, as it turned out, there was a Christening celebration and we were invited to join the group. Such great people .... all from properties around Penong.
However, there was a sad aspect to the celebration - now, pay attention. When the father of the child being Christened was a boy, his younger brother was taken by a Great White Shark off the jetty at Point Sinclair. He was swimming off the jetty out to a cray boat and was grabbed by the leg. The cray fishermen tried to pull him on to the boat, but the shark attacked and took his right leg. The boy, who was only 11, tried to swim back to the jetty, but he was attacked again and again. His Mum and Dad, and his older brother, pulled him onto the jetty, and a fishermen put the child in his car to drive him to Ceduna Hospital, about 80 kms away. Of course, he didn't make it from loss of blood, and his right leg had been taken up to his groin. There is a memorial for him at the jetty at Point Sinclair, and his brother, now in his late 30's, remembers his younger brother by having his son Christened there and all the family there to celebrate. He was also married at Point Sinclair. There had never been a shark attack before and there has never been since. The Shire, after many petitions of local farmers, has since built a swimming enclosure for the locals ... locals being the farming community from hundreds of kms away!



Cactus Beach is located 21 kilometres south of Penong and surfers from around the world frequent the area to surf 1 right hand and 2 left hand breaks. My photo doesn't really do this justice but at least I remembered to take a photo!


In Penong, the old Community Hall (1800's) has been bought by a guy who is a passionate surfer, and he makes surfboards here. He has a very profitable business because of the surfers who come to Cactus Beach. (I'm sure the pub does alright out of them as well - nothing else here!)

In the early 1900's, before the Depression, there were lots of wheat properties here and the children would have to travel by horse and cart to schools situated on the properties. As time went by, the children were sent to boarding schools and all these tiny schools were abandoned. We drove along lots of dirt roads following signs to these schools but there's nothing left; another bit of our history gone ... what a shame.



10-16 February
Ceduna
This is where travellers from the west go through Quarantine into Sth Australia. The WA Quarantine Station is right on the border - don't know why the SA side is so far over the SA side. Anyway, we got rid of everything before we left WA so wasn't a problem.

Ceduna is the start of the Eyre Peninsular. When you look at a map of South Australia, there are 2 "legs" .... the first one is the Eyre Peninsular and the second is Yorke Peninsular.

Arrived at the Foreshore Caravan Park which was really nice but packed in with less than 2 metres between caravans. The park was full of fishermen/women and boats. We were the odd ones out as (a) we didn't have a boat (b) we didn't have a crab net (c) we didn't have 15 fishing rods leaning up against our caravan! They also farm oysters here at a small settlement called Denial Bay (named by Matthew Flinders).


The first thing we had to attend to was our starter motor on the Jeep. All fixed in 1 day. (Don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I reckon we've rebuilt the car since leaving Coolangatta on this trip!)


The beach at Ceduna is just rocks and mud and the town itself is tiny with just an IGA, a butcher (actually a great butcher - he gave me a pen!), a chemist, a couple of cafes, and an old fashioned country style department store which had everything one could possibly want.
There is a hotel which has just had millions spent on it .... it is really modern and we had a lovely dinner with Mary and Michael to say farewell to Ceduna.


Pay day for the indigenous proved to be a bit much so we didn't venture too far for a few days.



On the road again: We head south down the western side of Eyre Peninsular - Smoky Bay, Streaky Bay, Venus Bay ..... then our destination, Elliston.



Smoky Bay is a beautiful tiny village .... nothing there but a caravan park and general store. A really lovely caravan park, but we were moving on.



We stopped for lunch at Streaky Bay .... a bigger town than Smoky, with pubs, supermarket, shops, and the biggest attraction, an exact replica of a Great White Shark caught in the bay.





According to marine biologists, the bite on the side of the shark, believed to be female, is a "love bite" inflicted during mating. Nice one!



About 50kms before Elliston, Ken found his town!







16-18 February
Elliston



Pretty spot AND GREEN GRASS!! Mary and I took off our sandals and ran through it. Mary even rolled in it! The caravan park is really nice - old but very clean and beautiful gardens.


We were across the road from the Southern Ocean and lovely beaches .... not beautiful like Albany and Esperence and Bremer Bay, but great long beaches just made for walking on. It was blowing a strong south-easterly though, so it wasn't very pleasant for walking or swimming (can't wait to get away from all this wind ... it really gets to you!).



There are plenty of scenic drives to accommodate our time. There were a couple of yachts sheltering in Anxious Bay - named by Matthew Flinders - to get away from the SE'ster.



One of the cliff drives has sculptures all the way along it. I made the comment, "they won't last long in this wind!!".





On the road again ...



18-25 February
Coffin Bay

On the Flinders Highway about 70kms north of Coffin Bay you pass a quaint little cottage set on the banks of a lake that was built in 1851. Nearby the local sheep rummage through the pastures over stony country bounded by dry limestone walls that stand as proof of the hardship of the early pioneers.



Lake Hamilton was named after George Hamilton, the Commissioner of Police in South Australia back in 1839 when Edward John Eyre first set off north to explore what is now Eyre Peninsula.


When he arrived here he described this country as a "succession of low grassy hills, but dreadfully stony", but the pioneers moved in anyway and established huge sheep properties and homesteads. It must have been so isolated, not to mention freezing cold in winter and so hot in summer.


In the very early days a handful of sheep stations stretched from Mount Dutton Bay all the way west beyond Fowler's Bay to the edge of the Nullabor Cliffs at the Head of the Great Australian Bight. That's about 400kms and all along the way, were these eating houses. Coaches took passengers and the mail up and down the West Coast, hence the Cobb & Co.

The Lake Hamilton Eating House is the last one of its type still standing.




Coffin Bay (including the Coffin Bay National Park, Wangary, Farm Beach and Gallipoli Beach) is a beautiful holiday place well know for it's oysters. Ken dined on them for breakfast, lunch and dinner ($5.00 a dozen - unshucked). I don't like them (unless they're covered in melted cheese!)


The Coffin Bay National Park is magnificent, and the beaches, my gosh - words or photos aren't sufficient to describe. Michael and Ken wanted to try their luck for salmon at Gunyai Beach. Mary and I wandered along the sand for hours ... lots of dolphins and sea birds - no shells.


The surrounding area is spectacularly beautiful and some of the out-of-the-way places like Gallipoli Beach, Farm Beach and the Coffin Bay Peninsula are genuinely fascinating. Gallipoli Beach is where the movie, Gallipoli, was filmed.



Coffin Bay was named by Matthew Flinders after his friend, Isaac Coffin. Flinders passed the area in 1802 although he never actually entered Coffin Bay. He wasn't the first European to visit this lonely and isolated coastline. French explorers sighted the coast but, like Flinders, didn't land because of the rugged coastline.




A small town was established in the 1840's which was called Oyster Town because of the oysters that grew on the floor of the Bay. Vast supplies of oysters were sent to Adelaide and as a result, the oysters were depleted and the town was abandoned. In the early 20th century, oysters began to be farmed and hence the Coffin Bay oyster became a restaurant "must have".



While here, we caught up with a good mate of Ken's, Malcolm Schluter. Ken and Malcolm were room mates when in the SA Police Recruits. "Spike" (as Ken was nicknamed) and "Schluter" as Malcolm was called, were part of Course 4 at Fort Largs Police Academy, and they all still keep in touch.



Malcolm now runs Nyroca Scout Camp at Warangary about 20kms from Coffin Bay, with his beautiful dog, Daisy.





His most current projects on the property is (a) building a wilderness chapel and (b) a house to live in.

The Chapel has been consecrated by a visiting Priest and weddings can be held there together with an occasional churce service. It is really beautiful. The house is coming along beautifully and he is building it out of bits and pieces from old demolitions. He has found lots of bricks from an old BHP site, and all the bricks are stamped BHP ... he plans to use these as a feature wall around the old fireplace in his lounge room. The timber window frames are all from a 19th century farm house.



I didn't get a photo of Daisy - she is such a funny thing. Malcolm has lots of visitors to his property who take photos of Daisy-the-dog and she has become camera shy - well, not quite. The flash of the camera scares her and, as so many people take her photo, she runs and hides whenever she sees a camera, day or night.


Malcolm has lots of chooks (fresh eggs) and bee hives (fresh honey) and he and Daisy live a perfect life out in the bush. In the main building which houses a huge kitchen, dormitory for kids, and a huge family room, all the walls have photos of him with the Governor General - past and present, Prime Ministers, and other dignitaries. He has been presented with the Order of Australia for his tireless work for charity and various organisations, particularly with kids. He retired about 6 years ago after a career with the SA Police Force, which ended with being the Chief Inspector at Port Lincoln.

We did a bit of fishing at Coffin Bay - King George Whiting is plentiful (well, for some, but not us).






25 February - 1 March
Port Lincoln

It's only 50kms to Port Lincoln so we're there to set up nice and early. As usual, the wind is gale force and really makes for an unpleasant day.



Port Lincoln is the birth place of Makybe Diva ... the horse that won 3 Melbourne Cup's straight a few years back. Her owner is Tony Saric, a millionaire in his own right due to his tuna farm interests.
In fact, his tuna factory is adorned in Makybe's colours, paintings and other paraphanalia. There is also a statue of Makybe Diva on the foreshore .... I took a photo, but the sun was beind it and it is too dark.



There are beautiful walks around Port Lincoln and at the marina, you can see the huge tuna and prawning fleets.
It is said that Port Lincoln as the most millionaires per head of population compared to anywhere else in Australia. Offshore you can see the huge tuna farms like ovals in the ocean. They are all full of tuna ready for export. They can bring $8000.00 per fish! If there is just one tiny mark on it, the Japanese won't buy it.


Sleaford Bay, in the Port Lincoln National Park, would be beautiful if it wasn't so windy.
There are lots of beautiful beaches to wander along but the wind drove me back to the car each time a photo was taken. The wind got stronger and stronger while we were in Port Lincoln with gale force warnings of 35-40 knots, so, after 5 days, we decide to move on. Pity, because we would have liked to have gone out to a tuna farm but all the tours were called off for safety reasons.







In fact, while we were out at Sleaford Bay, Michael got a call from the caravan park to say that a branch had fallen from a tree onto his car and there was some damage. Before we left Port Lincoln, Michael got a quote for the damage - $990. He was not impressed as the caravan park refused any responsibility because it was an "act of God". The manager promised to send the quote off to the insurance company, but said that he didn't like his chances.


Our neighbours in the caravan park at Port Lincoln, were 3 Korean backpackers. They had a tent and an old station wagon that they bought in Adelaide for $500. When I went camping as a young person, all we took for luxury was a gas lantern and a gas stove, apart from the obvious tent and beds. Times have changed. These 3 had mobile phones and computers. They were next to us in a powered site so that they could keep their phones and computers charged. Each night you could see them through the tent's wall each on their computers. I had to take a photo of their ingenuity to keep everything running!





1-2 March
Cowell


On the way to Port Augusta, we wanted to stay at Arno Bay ... another tiny camping ground on the Spencer Gulf. It was full! There are so many people travelling around Australia. We are now getting into the cooler months, so people are heading to Port Augusta for the turn north along the Stuart Highway to Darwin for the winter months.

As we couldn't get into Arno Bay, we kept driving to Cowell .... got the last 2 sites (Mary and Michael still with us). Pretty spot but windy, windy, windy. I'm ready for home!!


Cowell was settled in 1853 and is on the shores of Franklin Harbour. It is famous for oysters and a fish called "finfish". Crabbing is also popular in the shallows. The harbour was named after an explorer who was originally a midshipman on - yes, you guessed it, Matthew Flinders' Investigator. He was also to become a Governor of Tasmania in later life. Cowell boasts one of the largest jade deposits in the world and May Gibbs, the author of the children's books Gumnuts, spent part of her life here.

Jade was discovered in the nearby Minbrie Ranges in 1965 and Cowell Jade is recognised as the oldest and one of the largest deposits in the world.

Pretty amazing the people you meet. Ken was walking back to our caravan when he noticed a fellow he thought was an old friend from the "old" days in the Federal Police. The fellow turned and shock, shock, he also recognised Ken from the "old" days. How's that for a million to one chance! "Brownie" and his wife have been travelling Australia for 12 years and they intend to keep going ... they love it. How is it that you are in the middle of nowhere, and you run into someone that you haven't seen for 15 years!

We had just one night at Cowell then on to Port Augusta, via Whyalla.


2-9 April
Port Augusta


Port Augusta is a lovely town. It is located 68 kilometres northeast of Iron Knob and 300 kilometres north of Adelaide. In 1802, Matthew Flinders first explored Spencer Gulf as far north as he could go and camped on the banks of what is now Port Augusta.

We visited the actual site which is now in the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens and it was just a magnificent view as we stood on the side of a cliff looking down into the still water of the Spencer Gulf where Flinders would have rowed with his team but we were lucky to watch several dolphins silently making there way along the waterway looking for fish.





With no fresh water in the Port Augusta area Flinders and his party left to complete his circumnavigation of Australia.

By 1852 South Australian settlers had arrived in Port Augusta and the town soon became a thriving commercial centre and port, serving the pastoralists from the hinterlands to the north. Wool was the main export and sailing clippers moored out in the Gulf until it were their turn to load up and the massive wharves of Port Augusta and then shipped to the English wool mills in Britain. There were some fabulous old photos of hundreds of these sailing ships sitting out in the Gulf.

By the 1870s wheat had overtaken wool as Port Augusta's chief export and with the arrival of the Overland Telegraph line, it was finally linked with the eastern states.

Now-a-days, Port Augusta is a major service centre for the huge road trains carrying freight across Australia, both from east to west and south to north. The Ghan rail service as well as the Indian Pacific stop here in-transit to/from Perth and to/from Adelaide from Darwin.







The "port" of Augusta is now closed and is just used for leisure, but it is so very pretty.







As said earlier, Port Augusta is a lovely town, but it also has problems with the indigenous. There are 3 caravan parks and they are surrounded by high security fences.
Our caravan park was on the foreshore of the Spencer Gulf and one day, we saw a 4-wheel drive tear past the caravan park outside the cyclone fence along the sand of the gulf with a police car behind it (not 4-wheel drive, I might add!). This was a bit of excitement for us as we had "5-sies" with Mary and Michael while sitting in our camp chairs with cheese and crackers. From what we could see, the occupants were only young and aboriginal. Within an hour, a 4-wheel drive tow truck travelled along the same sandy path and returned with the original 4-wheel drive car all smashed up on it's trailer with the police car behind it. We were told that the occupants had tried to jetison the car over a creek, slammed into the side of the creek then jumped out and ran. The car had been stolen. Mary and I went for a walk the next morning and came across bits of the car where it had slammed head first into the banks of the creek.

We have met some interesting people travelling around Australia. We've met old couples, young couples with young children being home schooled, single (or widowed) women and various clubs. At Port Augusta, we met a group of "Retro" caravanners - they were beautifully renovated inside.


The Flinders Ranges loom in the east of Port Augusta and make spectacular scenery when the sun sets .... the sun shines on the massive rock escarpment - beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.


There are towns in the Flinders Rangers like Quorn, Bruce and Hamilton, the latter 2 now being ghost towns. Quorn won't be far behind, although it was interesting to learn that many old Australian movies have been filmed in the surrounding country. These towns have no young people left to keep them alive - all they have is tourism, which Rotary and Lions Clubs are doing their best to keep things going.


















About 25kms south of Port Augusta is the old Baxter Detention Centre. It was used to house illegal immigrants ... now called asylum seekers. The centre was closed because of humanitarian reasons about 8 years ago and is now used by the BRAVO Army Security Unit. As we (me actually) has a huge interest in such things, off we went to take a look.





On the way we discovered a really old cemetery which I later found out was only recently discovered by history students from Adelaide University. Fascinating stuff!
The graves were buried under sand blown in from the desert over many years. I would have loved to have joined the students to help in the study of these pioneers.

The Port Augusta Town Hall is a beautiful building, but unfortunately has been boarded up and stripped bare inside because of asbestos. The old seating from the original theatre can be viewed in the Information Centre Theatrette (if you ask nicely at the counter) Developers have their eye on the Town Hall, but it is Heritage listed. I expect if I ever get back there, it will be demolished. Another tiny bit of what history we have will be gone.








You would think that I would have this Blog business down-pat by now, but I still can't manage to put the photos in just the right place. Sorry about that - I hope you can work it out.

So, it's now off to the Yorke Peninsular, in particular Moonta Bay - cornish pasties!

xo