So Different

We woke to quite a grey day. We were finally moving to the east coast. We started with a shop in Port Lincoln. Seafood, groceries and camera accessories.

We thought we would go and visit Point Boston for a final look back to Port Lincoln. Unfortunately the end bits of that peninsula are fenced off for aquaculture and it is a biosecurity zone. So we drove for nothing. Anyway shortly after, we crossed the mighty Tod River.....the only river on the Eyre Peninsula, and at 40 kilometers at least 30 kilometres longer than any other waterway. I jest of course, but the Tod and its catchment has been critical in watering the Eyre, with water being piped all he way to Ceduna.

We drove up though the catchment into the Koppio Hills. The country was so different from what we were used to on the west coast. Gum trees, obvious moisture, rolling hills.....we were having to change gears.......

We got up to the Tod Reservoir but it was closed as they were doing some major maintenance. Still we managed to exercise some native hens who took fright and actually got up in the air and we also had a look at their little museum about the reservoir.

We kept winding though the hills to the Koppio Museum where we were welcomed by some fairy wrens at the gate. This is one of the weirder museums I have been in. Essentially it seems to have started as a museum of one German family who settled here in the 1850s. Obviously they kept everything they ever owned and now they have it on display. Over time it has obviously been extended beyond the family to become a little farming museum. I loved the tiny bank and post office....which were real. And I was utterly bemused by the largish shed dedicated to barbed wire though the ages. Who would have known that there are so many barbed wires and barbed wire tools.

They also had an amazing gum tree....one of many lovely gums in the area.

We kept seeing impressive canola vistas. This little part of the Eyre could be in parts of Victoria. It is much, much greener than further west and north and the rolling hills mean you do not have the endless vistas.

 Eventually the hills were running out as we made it to the centre of the peninsula. It looked like wonderful agricultural land all the way to Cummins where we stopped for lunch. The town was divide in two by the railway line. Very odd. Also odd were the updated Lions Park facilities. Some lovely ceramic work adorns the place, but what took me was the picture of a whole bunch of blokes smiling into the camera overlooking the urinals. Quite disconcerting.

We then drove back over the hills, via a different but equally pretty route, to the coast. Tumby Bay is quite an odd looking town. A typical oldish rural town in the centre with old SA style buildings and then suburbs that could be Patterson Lakes, or other parts of Port Phillip Bay running along the seemingly endless beach/bay.

We had time to go out to the waterfront near Tumby Island. Marjan has already picked up half a dozen pretty rocks and she wants to return......we may need a trailer for the rocks. On the Eyre a visit to the pier is also a must. No sign of the leafy sea dragon....the water was quite murky....perhaps after all the wind chopping up the water and sand.