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| Eyre Peninsula's 'Seafood Frontier' Route |
We set off travelling north from Adelaide with the aid of a stiff southerly breeze – very good news when towing a caravan that is as aerodynamic as a barn wall. Having a tailwind pushing against the back of the van was like having a sail unfurled which assisted the engine in moving us along for 300km until we reached Port Augusta and turned southwards. From that point onwards the last 80km into Whyalla (and the first stop of our trip), was much harder work for the engine as we were now ‘dragging the barn’ straight into the teeth of the wind.
Whyalla is where I did the first 4 of my 5 years of university
studies. Since graduating almost 30 years
ago I had not been back to Whyalla so it was nice to stop and have a look after
all of these years. Like most places you revisit after some time away, while there have definitely been some changes over the years everything still appears pretty much the same as I remembered it.
After two nights in what was a very windy Whyalla we broke camp
and travelled 150km to Port Gibbon which is located about 20km south of
Cowell. It was here that we were really
fortunate to come across a pair of Sea Lions resting on the beach at Point
Gibbon. These very large creatures allowed
us to get quite close and so long as we stayed a distance away that they were comfortable with we could have watched them from there all day. It
was an unexpected but great encounter with nature.
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| HMAS Whyalla - the first ship built at the Whyalla shipyard in 1940/41 |
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| Sea Lion encounter at Point Gibbon |
Heather has also produced a video of our Sea Lion encounter which can be viewed on her YouTube channel via the link below (PS: this Sea Lion video is just one of many videos capturing the sights and sounds of our journey. Take a look at a couple and click on 'Subscribe' if you like what you have seen. Becoming a subscriber to Heather's channel will simply result in you being notified whenever she posts a new video - it won't result in you receiving any advertising or promotional 'spam' from anyone else.)
Next overnight stop was Lipson Cove. A beautiful beach and bay complete with
seabird colony on a nearby offshore island which we were able to wade to at low
tide. Also present while we were there
was a pod of 7 dolphins. The dolphins stayed
close to shore near our camp for most of the day – it was very nice just to
look out at the water periodically and see them still slowly cruising the beach.
Following Lipson Cove was a stay in Port Lincoln located near the
bottom (southern tip) of the Eyre Peninsula.
We spent 3 nights using Pt.
Lincoln as our base where, after 6 days of very blustery conditions, some calm and hot weather finally arrived! |
| Beautiful view from our site at Pt. Lincoln Foreshore Caravan Park |
We explored the town itself including its foreshore and commercial fishing marina. Pt. Lincoln is home to a large seafood fishing fleet where they catch and process tuna, abalone, prawns, and crayfish/southern rock lobster.
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| Some of the Pt. Lincoln fishing fleet in the marina |
One of the highlights of the trip was a day trip from our Pt. Lincoln caravan park to Whalers Way. This former whaling station is where the coastline along the relatively sheltered and shallow waters of Spencer Gulf ends and exposure to the full power of the Southern Ocean begins.
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| Cliffs and the Southern Ocean at Whalers Way |
The rugged coastal scenery and deserted beaches we saw at Whalers Way was just a taste of what of the western Eyre Peninsula coastline was to offer.
Stayed tuned for WTF? – Where are The Farrows? and Eyre Peninsula Coastline – Part 2.
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