First stop: the Port Lincoln marina. Apparently it hosts the biggest fishing fleet in the southern hemisphere. I am always a little skeptical about claims like that, but it was impressive. It was also hard to photograph as the ships were packed in tight. I shot between two to show the turret crow's nest on the tuna boat where some poor sod has to climb to get a decent view.
The winches and stuff on the prawn boats made pretty patterns against the sky.
Eventually we had enough and we went into town proper to pick up the key to Whaler's Way. This is privately owned land. The Theakstone family have owned it since the 19th century and have set aside a portion as a private sanctuary. The portion in question is essentially a large proportion of the coast between Coffin Bay National Park and Port Lincoln National Park. Certainly the headland that makes up the end of the Eyre Peninsula.
It is called Whaler's Way as whalers worked this area in the 19th century, hunting southern right whales. The very ones that are starting to come back in numbers since we stopped killing them.
A large part of the coast is spectacular cliffs, ranging up to 125 metres.
Behind the cliffs is a forest of prostrate eucalypts and cypress pines. With the occassional emu poking its head up.
And among the flattened trees, the usual assortment of wildflowers are everywhere.
Additionally there is the odd surprise. Marjan took a very sudden leap back when we saw this little an very beautiful fellow. We are not sure what sort of snake it is, but we gave it a wide berth.
The trip was basically drive a bit, stop, walk a bit and check out the coast. The road is private and the surface quite rough, verging on 4WD. It is not very long, but travelling quite slowly was taking a while. We were heading for a spot we had been told had an osprey nest. On the way we spotted the white bellied sea eagle hovering high above us. .
No osprey though. The nest was empty and did not look like it had been used this season. It is on the top of the stack.
As is a fairly regular occurrence, we got peckish and found a place to have a picnic lunch.
After lunch, which included the missing pate, we kept heading west to one of the highlights of the drive: Theakstone Crevasse. It is a 30 metre long, 9 metre deep crevasse with the ocean pouring in. On a calm day like today it looked fairly tame but quite interesting. Apparently it is a fault line in the underlying granite an a very brave surfer has paddled in and found it keep going another 30 metres underground. Better him or her than me.
The coastline continued to be lovely. From here we could see the beach at Coffin Bay where we had been entertained by the dolphins. Alas they had not made the journey over.
We were, however entertained by this particular songster, who had a loud an melodic song. One of my tasks for later is to identify the species. I do not recognise it.
Whilst some of the land around the cliffs was quite lush if flattened, in other spots it was quite barren looking. I suppose it is dependent on the amount of salt spray.
But even here the plants were interesting.
We failed to spot any fur seals where we had been told a colony existed, but the rocks were pretty.
At about this spot we got some phone coverage as we were close to a sea monitoring station, so I crazily responded to a message and called work. I was told I was crazy. We soon exited the private land and had a quick look at Fishery Bay where the whalers had a fishing station and remnants still exist. Apparently this is also a popular Port Lincoln swimming spot. It looked glorious; but it was 16C; but it looked glorious.....so I had a swim. Once I got over the fact that I had an outside-in ice cream headache, and that various bits of me were shivering and shriveling, I quite enjoyed it. I even managed to catch a couple of gentle waves. More grey, grumpy, lumpy flotsam than elegant, sleek dolphin, but at my age I take what I can get.
Revitalised and energised and .......well.......... not absolutely knackered, we headed to the bottom end of the national park to have a look at a couple of sand dunes and the Sleaford Mere, a salt lake that fooled Matthew Flinders. He had spotted this from the top of the hill (Stamford) we climbed the other day an hoped it might be fresh.......SA only seems to do salt lakes.
off to Tumby tomorrow......we are like locals......we only say Tumby.........and we probably will struggle for internet at Tumby........unlike here where if we stand near the window in the back bedroom with the laptop held high we get a better than crap signal....
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