The Copper Coast of Yorke Peninsula

As far as winter weather is concerned, Adelaide and its surrounds sure do have a pretty good time of it.  It was cool (8°C) but fairly clear when we woke up this morning with the forecast advising it would warm up to a very pleasant and rain free 16°C by mid afternoon.

While we are waiting for the purchase of our house to close so that we can move in there is not much else we can do but venture out and about on short road trips.  Today we decided to visit some of the coastal towns on the 'Copper Coast' of South Australia's Yorke Peninsula.  For no real reason we targeted towns that had jetties or piers that we could walk out to the end of.  I was practising my panoramic photos today so please excuse the numerous 'panorama' shots included in today's post (tip: if you click directly on each photo it will enlarge and you will be able to pick out a bit more detail than you can see on the thumbnail sized images in the blog itself). 

First stop was Pt. Broughton located about 170 km NW of Adelaide.  The town perfectly fits being described as 'a sleepy little town' - so sleepy in fact that I forget to take a picture of the jetty (sorry about that).  I did take a photo of a grumpy pelican sitting proudly on a channel post near the end of the jetty.  He was not really that appreciative of us being there as he made an almost growling noise by rapidly clattering his beak open and shut whenever we stepped to the closest edge of the jetty to take his picture.  We took our picture and left him to continue surveying his realm.

Pelican standing guard at the end of the Pt. Broughton jetty

Wallaroo was the next seaside town we came to about half an hour's drive away.  The jetty at Wallaroo is about 800m long and is used to load locally grown grains, mostly wheat that has been delivered to and stored in nearby silos, onto ocean going ships.  Locals fish for squid from the jetty year round with a few trying their luck today.  There was plenty of evidence of recent catches in the form of ink stains all over the deck.  Swimming within a large enclosure attached to the side of the jetty is also big in the warmer months.


Wallaroo Jetty - Grain silo's in the background & ship being loaded at right

About 20 kilometres further down the coast was Moonta Bay where we saw a few squid getting hauled in by people fishing from this L-shaped jetty.



Just landed - you can see some of the ink it has squirted

As you can see from the photo above, squid are not the most handsome of creatures, but they make for some mighty good calamari especially when they are this fresh from the ocean and go straight into the pan!



Panoramic view from the end of the Moonta Bay jetty

The Pt. Hughes jetty is visible from the Moonta Bay jetty so it was just minutes after leaving Moonta Bay that we walked out onto our fourth jetty for the day.

Port Hughes jetty is straight out and back - no fancy ship loader or L-shape

This jetty is straight out and back with no particularly remarkable features.  It was however, similar to ALL of the jetties we strolled across today in that it too was covered in squid ink.

Last stop for the day was at Ardrossan on the eastern side of Yorke Peninsula.  The eastern coast of the peninsula is not part of the Copper Coast but Ardrossan has some very nice views over the water and it has a nice long jetty so we included it in our loop - and we were glad we did.  Due to good luck rather than good planning, by the time we arrived the area was bathed in beautiful 'photographers light'.  This is the light that you get very late in the afternoon when the sun is at your back and low in the sky.  As a result, the photos from here look great so they had to be included (even if they were not of jetties - thank goodness for something other than jetties I hear you say - don't fret we are nearly finished!).

It had been a while since we had eaten anything and with all of the fresh sea air and jetty walking that we had been doing we were hungry so we picked up some fish and chips to have as an early dinner.

Heather & Bernard enjoying the ocean view and some Fish and Chips

Ardrossan has some small red cliffs immediately above the coast.  The light blue sky, deep blue water, red cliffs, green grass and the beautiful sunlight made for a lovely scene.  I hope the photos do the place justice (last panorama for today coming up).

View from cliffs above the Ardrossan Jetty

As we strolled along the walking path above the beach there were flowers that looked like Marigolds? (I stand to be corrected on this) everywhere.  Their bright orange colour just added to the colour sensory blast that we felt at this place.

Is this a Marigold?

A quick walk out to the end of the jetty was the plan but it took a bit longer than envisaged.  Not because the jetty was longer than we thought but because it seemed that every kid on the jetty wanted to love-up Bernard as we walked by.  For one little girl just once was not enough - she had to stop us again as we made our way back in.

This little girl couldn't get enough of Bernard

Finally with our jetty walk completed and with the sun now setting we loaded Bernard and ourselves into our little red wagon and drove back to Adelaide.  We arrived home about an hour after dark and despite the fact that all we did was walk to the end of structures that poke out from the shoreline into the ocean, the time passed quickly and a good time was had by all.

Who knows what we will get up to next?  To find out, you will have to keep following our exploits on the next instalment of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?