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.

Whaler's Way

Some time overnight the wind die down.Thankfully. We started out this morning as mums were taking the kids to school.

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....

A Day BY The Bay

t was a wild old night. I kept waking and hearing the wind blowing. It did not let up and the morning was just as bad. Our accommodation faced west which was the wind direction and we copped it full on. Opening our front door was an interesting exercise.

We had been arguing, mildly, about today. I had wanted today to feature a unique Coffin Bay experience. The Antique Shop, Cafe and Pig Farm experience. Where else can you get it all? Marjan though wanted the more classical cultural experience of A Day AT The Bay. This is Coffin Bay doing a day that brings in visitors from near and far and they do food and music........and it seems, wind.

Marjan of course was victorious and so A Day IN the Bay it was. It did not kick off till later in the morning so we variously walked, did Internet stuff with banks and accommodation places, caught up on some washing, played with photos, read books and had cups of tea and biccies.

There was a market on today as well so we caught that first. Marjan bought some fig jam and some carrot cake. So we had patronised half the stalls.

We started our A Day ON The Bay with a drink, local wine and beer, and some oysters at the Yacht Club listening to a very nice young singer. It was very pleasant.....the Coffin Bay CBD is north facing with land/hills on the other three sides, so the wind was manageable, and we found a warm spot inside.

After a while we felt we needed to share the moolah with other provedors and so we headed down the oyster trail to 1802 where we had another drink, some more oysters, prawns and joy of joys.....some pork from our never to be visited antique shop/cafe/pig farm. It was raining and windy here, but we manageD to snag a spot behind a brick wall when the courtesy bus dropped by and half the tables emptied. So Marjan, in her arctic sleeping bag coat was snug and alcoholically primed and listening to the musician who had fled inside, via the outdoor speaker.

Have I mentioned that emus seem to just wander wherever the like here. Wish people had little pick up bags for their droppings.

The in water oyster bars do not do much trade at high tide.

Some more oysters at Beachcomber's whilst watching the owner being interviewed for local TV ......ribs at the pizza joint as I could not face an oyster pie, whilst listening to a duo who kept thanking their family for coming and the little kids for dancing.....and we were done. The other two venues would have to look after themselves. Slightly heady from the drink and full from all the food we headed back to our digs where I promptly fell asleep contemplating the fact that I have probably had more oysters in the last few days than I have had in the past.....oh say six decades. That was A Day NEAR The Bay.

Windy

Coffin Bay oysters are apparently considered among the best in the world, Certainly the dozen we had last night were clearly the best we had eaten. The dinner, all local seafood, was great and the oysters the highlight. We should have had a dozen each. A Japanese family dining next to us asked about freshness and was told that they only harvested what they thought they would use each day from their own oyster bed. There is a tour here where you choose your oyster flavouring from a menu and then put on some waders and go and have them whilst standing at a pontoon/oyster bar. We probably will not do it as we both prefer our oysters cooked.

So enough about food.....we will have more later......

It was a windy morning, but we headed out for the Port Lincoln National Park. It is essentially on the eastern side of the peninsula and Coffin Bay on the western. The differences though were remarkable. The park was a thick forest of mallee gums, melaleuca in flower, and acacia. It looked quite impenetrable in parts. The start of the park looked a little odd as the road had a power line down one side and a pipeline, presumably water, down the other.

At any rate, after a couple of stops to check out the sights we headed off on our first walk up a hill with a monument to Matthew Flinders. He apparently climbed it in a desperate search for water, reasoning that the large trees on it indicated a good underground water source. He did not dig deep enough apparently, and his expedition was only saved because a day later they found sound water on the other side of the bay. Quite ironic as you will see later.


The view from the top was magnificent looking north........
.

.........and looking west was Port Lincoln.........and in a national park, we had perfect phone reception.....they even had signs on roads when you were leaving phone reception behind.......only on the other side of the park

It was blowing a gale on the top and even sheltering on the lee side of the monument we were being buffeted. We had noticed some wildflowers on the way up, and we continued spotting them on the ways down. It was hard to photograph them, because even in sheltered corners they tended to be waving wildly in the wind.

We continued all the way to the end of the peninsula at Point Donnington where there is a lovely cottage that can be hired, near a lighthouse and a very choppy coast. We were watching the tankers skirting around towards the shelter of port and the seabirds either rocketing past with the wind or struggling against it, when we spotted some more dolphins......... the wind was making no difference to their frolics..........

 We kept wandering about and on the eastern coast we found a spot that was a little more sheltered, though we still did not get too close o the edge as wind gusts tended to rock us about........

..........then we found a very sheltered spot by a little forest of melaleucas where we could have some lunch. What horror! When we unpacked our lunch we had let our cracked pepper pate back in the fridge. The avocado, cherry tomatoes, King Island brie and hard boiled eggs with fresh bread just felt inadequate without the pate. But we are hardy and soldiered through it.

Our after lunch stroll, brought us another unwelcome surprise. I almost trod on a black snake sunning itself, out of the wind. We had spotted a few at Coffin Bay but this one was close. I was too busy getting out of its way to get a decent photo. We did also spot a number of other wildflowers and a very prone eucalypt that was in flower.

Onwards to the western side of the park....... wew were again running next to the powerline and pipe and discovered why. Halfway on the dirt road to Wanna was a couple of pumping stations. Apparently this area has an aquifer which together with the aquifer that sits under the Uley basin and the southern tip of the Eyre peninsula provides much of the water for Port Lincoln and Coffin Bay. Poor Flinders, dying of thirst among so much water......

They really should bottle/package his water and send it to Melbourne. We could give it to the CFA to put out fires and save that lovely dam water for a more useful purpose. Seriously the water is foul. So much so that we bought water at dinner last night at $11 a bottle.

The road to Wanna was a challenge as it had some serious pot holes......A Fiat 500 could drop into one and never be found again. The was also the normal amount of road reptile hazards....I have not menioned befor that in the Eyre you seem to need to dodge a sleepy lizard.....aka blue toungue, aka road gherkin.......every few kilometres. When it is not a lazy lizard it is a painted dragon, and here when it is not either of those it is a black snake.......I shot this from the safety of my vehicle, with my feet up on the dash.....just in case....

We managed to get though all the hazards and spotted the warning signs.....road ends 500 metres.....road ends 50 metres......road has ended.......two rows of bumpers.....the most recent being quite serious looking bollards concreted into the ground. We wondered how many locals had flown off the cliff face at this spot to justify all of the warnings.

That is as close as I dared get to the edge. The wind was buffeting me about so much that it was causing me to stumble about a bit.

 On the way back we checked into the giant sand dunes...........who would have thought that sand dunes are not a great environment in windy weather........I am still tasting it at breakfast the day after....

We decided to head back into Port Lincoln and have a bit of a look there. The town was dead.......then we heard the roar of people.......turns out it was their local grand final.......we checked out visitor information, had a coffee on the foreshore and tried to walk out on the jetty/swimming enclosure. A gust almost tipped Marjan into Boston Bay, at which point we conceded the outdoor to the wind.

The drive back to Coffin Bay was marked by horizontal rain. Given that it was sunny at the same time we were wondering where the rain had actually begun falling. We were glad to be indoors when the thunder and serious wind gusts really got going. I switched on the footy to find Richmond almost through.

It is windy again this morning and the rain has started as I type. We are planning to stay local....we wanted to enjoy the Coffin Bay Day on the Bay festival of food and music......I hope it clears for them.......

Wild Thing

We have moved downmarket. We still have an ocean view, but it includes a couple of people's back yards. Oh well!

We headed out early to do a bit of a shop at Port Lincoln, or as the locals call it Lincoln. They only use one word here....Streaky, Smoky, Lincoln, Coffin........too much effort to use two. Marjan was not used to city driving.....these light things are a real bugger.....and as for the roundabouts.....we missed one and had to come back and try it again. I laughed, Marjan scowled at me. Anyway we shopped, talked footy to the middle aged checkout lady....everyone is up for the Crows tonight......and headed back.

Today was time for the national park. It is literally on the edge of town and even if you do need a 4WD to see it properly we were going to see it anyway.

Our first stop at the  Templetonia Lookout was gorgeous. Plenty of Templetonia (Cocky's tongue), but also lots of Lasiopetalum discolor, which we have been seeing all round the Eyre, and also some correa. "It is like a garden" said one woman there with us. She was right.

We went on a short walk. 5K. It turned out NOT to be 5K at all so we did not get to the end, because there was other stuff to do....like lunch....but we enjoyed the wildflowers everywhere. The acacias were out, there were hibbertias and a bunch of others that Marjan recognised and I did not. We were surrounded.

We wandered back for our lunch through the rocky ground and found another fellow looking for a feed. A heath goanna.

After lunch we headed out to the seaward facing part of the national park. Some lovely views of course and a glorious beach with turquoise water. We had seen a dolphin from the cliff top. We wandered down and I had a swim. Again quite carefully....unknown beach, miles from help, old bloke...........

After coming in from the swim, I noticed that the little beach birds were quite unafraid of me and so I rushed up the dunes for the bird lens, and started firing off hundreds of shots of what appears to be Baird's Sandpiper.

Whilst this was going on Marjan noticed some more dolphins.....and they put on a show....

Wild thing....you make my heart sing........it was what came into my head. Marjan and I live for our children and grandchildren.....but after them....give us some wild things.........We were elated and tried to follow them down the beach........they were moving too fast and we were too tired to run.....we merely watched them cavort down the beach until we could see them no longer.....our hearts were singing.....

We continued to amuse ourselves with some other wild things......

As I write this, the owner of our units has headed off to the pub for the Adelaide game.....fully kitted up and picked up by the pub bus, she and her mate looked very excited....a big night is expected......hubby has gone to the game with mates.......

We will be heading off to Coffin's only restaurant where we have a slap up dinner already arranged by one of our daughters. Oysters by the kilo!