Trip 45, post #4 – Eyre Peninsula

Right, let’s kick on with the Eyre Peninsula leg of the trip.

For those not familiar, the Eyre Peninsula is the big Southward pointing triangle of land, cornered by Ceduna in the Northwest, Port Augusta in the Northeast and Port Lincoln in the Southern tip. Famous for its seafood and farming, there’s plenty of space and things to see here.

Passing through Ceduna on a picture-perfect Sunday, the ocean along the Ceduna terrace is calm, flat and serene. We spent a couple of hours here, firstly chucking a couple loads of washing through the laundromat, before grabbing a yummy lunch at a café, then shopping to restock, and finally topping up our van water tanks.

We had intended to push on through to Murphys Haystacks for Sunday night, but whilst watching our laundry spin in the old Mayfair automatic, I found another free camp on WikiCamps called Point Brown Observation, just 50km down the road and on the beach. So, 30km on the black and another 25km on the limestone gravel road, we arrived at a large-ish park/turn area, with views to die for and unbelievably good weather. No wind and not a cloud in the sky meant the ocean was shimmering flatter than my belly. After a quick setup, it was back to sitting in the camp chairs with a cold beer, taking in the views and wondering what other people were doing – that’s right, they’re at work, sucks to be them – being the consensus.

The following morning dawned just as glorious so, after a lazy brekky, Jules and I hiked a 6km look around the headland to the west of our camp before doing the 1km drive the opposite way to check out the Rockpool. Unfortunately, the incoming tide made the rockpool a bit dicey, not to mention the water was at ball-freezing temperature, so I had a quick paddle only. Dinner tonight was yummy eye fillet steak and field mushies done on the Weber, with small roast potatoes and sweetcorn cooked in foil over the coals on our firepit.

Today (Tuesday) we continued South, doing a quick reccy stop at Haslam Beach, before stopping in Streaky Bay. Our friends Mel and Phil had highly recommended we visit Seafood On Stanley, so that’s where we went, spending a good 40 minutes chatting and laughing with Jeff Schmucker the fisherman and owner. Jeff is an interesting and cool guy, who took us through the art of oyster shucking and gave us the low down of his fishing and surfing career. You can hear all about it on a Podcast he did, search “Fish Tales Jeff” on Spotify. Anyways, Seafood on Stanley is well worth a visit and we left with a dozen fresh Streaky Bay Oysters, a kilo of fresh cooked Spencer Gulf Prawns and 500gms of filleted King George Whiting, all of which are destined to be tonight’s dinner.

After a pie at the bakery, we drove out and set up at Murphy’s Haystacks which is our camp for the next couple of nights. And it’ll also be the first camp where we’ve had to pay any camping fees since leaving home! (albeit, only $10)

I managed an early start this morning to shoot the inselbergs that are Murphy’s Haystacks at sunrise. It was well worth the effort as the colours and light were spectacular.

Then it was back into Streaky Bay for a coffee and a better look around, without the vans in tow and what a difference a day makes! Yesterday the bay was picture-perfect flat, but today it was a little choppy and whilst still nice, was far less inviting. We drove the Cape Bauer loop to view the dramatic coastline to the South, taking in the Whistling Rocks and blowhole, then wended our way back around the North, Streaky Bay side, where it was more beaches and mangroves.

After a quick bite to eat for lunch, we headed out the back roads to Sceale Bay, and then Point Labatt to view the Sea Lion colony. We got lucky here as the local ranger turned up on her rounds, after recently completing her master’s on Sea Lions, and we got an impromptu 30-minute info session on all things sea liony. Really cool, she was lovely and very passionate about her work.

Finally, we visited Baird Bay (not much to see here).

Sing it with me “Oh what a night”, and afternoon… On arriving back at Murphys Haystacks after our little jaunt through the countryside, we found ourselves in a veritable wind gale and dust storm. Dust from the recently tilled and seeded paddocks was being whipped into gale-force flurries of brown dust that got everywhere, so we retreated to the van for the evening, relaxing as the wind eventually died down around 10 PM. So it was off to bed and all was well in the world, with a gentle drizzle settling in, till BANG, 1 am and the bloody wind arrived again, this time in gale force proportions, whipping, and banging old Goldy around like a boat at sea in a maelstrom. Jules and I both laid there, waiting for the wind to drop which, thankfully, it did around 2:45. So with renewed sleepiness we drifted off into never-never land, only to be rudely awakened again by the returning wind at 4 am for another 45mins or so. But come sunrise, we’d survived, and so had Goldy – the bloody legend she is – so after brekky, we packed up and headed south to our next destination Port Lincoln as the BOM was forecasting heavy rain Wednesday and Thursday, so we figured we’d see that out in the comforts of a caravan park.

Making the most of the 230km to Port Lincoln, we stopped in at Venus Bay for a look-see, and then Jules found a local baker on WikiCamps, who bakes in an old Scotch Oven and sells his bread and sweet buns at a roadside stall with an honours payment system. Luckily for us, they still had some bread left and whilst I was demolishing my first sticky bun, the baker popped out to check his stocks and we had a quick chat. He was a lovely bloke who clearly loved his craft, sourcing his flour from the local mill at Cummins. With mornos sorted via the sticky buns, we then planned to have a couple of slices of fresh bread with butter and vegemite for lunch on arrival at Port Lincoln. We also visited the Woolshed Cave on the drive down.

Unfortunately, the wind is still pretty strong here, but we expected this and we’re hoping the luxuries of a caravan park, with flushing dunnies and hot showers, will compensate for the crappy weather over the next couple of days.

As forecast, Friday dawned overcast with sporadic showers. But that’s all good, as we’d planned a drive around the countryside today, starting with trying to find some wild koalas living in a small crop of trees about 30kms south of Port Lincoln. Following the WikiCamps map, we found three of them right at the promised location, and they were looking bedraggled and ended up looking even sorrier for themselves as another heavy shower passed through. Pretty cool experience though as these guys were only 2 to 3m off the ground and allowed us to get close.

We then followed the gravel road we were on, out to the old Whalers Station, of which nothing now remains but it is a lovely little bay. From there, we shot off into Coffin Bay where the weather gods gave us some love and more sunshine as we enjoyed a seafood platter, watching the emus wander the main streets of the town, literally making cars stop and beep them to get them to move off the road.

From Coffin Bay I opted for the circuitous route home, first driving West away from Port Lincoln, to then take the gravel Duck Lake Rd out to Cummins, which is a large-ish town with one of the oldest remaining operating flour mills in Australia, and the source of flour for the fantastic roadside bread we’d bought, and are still enjoying, from Colton the other day. It was then out to Tumby Bay on the East Coast of the Eyre Peninsula, a lovely little seaside town with great silo art and local artwork spread throughout the town.

Saturday 1^st of June 2024 and with a glorious day, full sun and no wind, Spencer Gulf, visible from our van, was dead flat and inviting us to explore it. So, out came the foldable e-bikes and away we went. Cycling a round trip of approximately 17km around the town, out to the boat ramp towards North Shields, then back into town, where we checked out some shops and had lunch on the foreshore. We then rode out to the West Coast Distillery where we hoped to sample the local gins but, unfortunately, they were closed, so instead we rode to the Beer Garden Brewery a local craft brewery to sample a couple of beer paddles of their fantastic beer in front of the fireplace. This was followed by a slightly wobbly ride back home to the caravan park for dinner, drinks, and chilling.

A chill day today, being Sunday and all. We did some washing and some odd jobs around the van, restocked our food and fuel, and then found ourselves with an arvo to kill so Jules and I headed back to The Beer Garden Brewery for another pint (or two) of Porter.

Checking out of Port Lincoln, we made our way the 160km North to Cowell, our campsite for the next couple of days. En route, we dropped into and checked out Port Neill and Arno Bay, both lovely little seaside towns that would be perfect chill spots with good weather.

“And the award goes to…(drum roll)…. Cowell!”. Well done Cowell for some great and cheap caravan-friendly crowd-pleasers. First up, the Cowell RV park is just one km from town and provides free potable water, a communal firepit with some firewood, rubbish bins and well-spaced, level sites all for $10 a night. Looked after by the Lions Club, it’s a great, cost-effective place to park our arses, and the van, for a couple of days as we check out the town and region. But alas there are no dunnies or showers – well don’t stress as just up at the marina, that one km away, there are new public dunnies and showers, with the showers costing $1 for 10mins of hot water.

So with our camping in Cowell sorted, we spent a couple of days looking around Cowell and the area. Topped off with an $18 pig on a spit roast dinner, with jacket potatoes and vegies at the Franklin Pub.

That wraps up our Eyre Peninsula leg of the trip and tomorrow we’re heading Northwest again to spend a week exploring the Gawler Ranges.