Eyre Peninsula

The Eyre Peninsula is a vast area, encompassing miles of pristine beaches, the Great Australian Bight and the Nullarbor Plain, as far as the border with Western Australia.

We had to be flexible on our arrival here, as heavy rain was forecast for the following day, no good for our planned exploration of the Gawler Ranges National Park on gravel roads that were likely to be flooded. Instead we headed down the east coast of the V-shaped peninsula, and spent an afternoon and evening in Whyalla, where the huge OneSteel works provides a lot of employment. The motel pool was very welcome after our long drive from the Yorke Peninsula.

As predicted, the rain arrived during the night and persisted all the next day, so we kept driving south to Port Lincoln on the southern tip of the peninsula. We stopped at various small coastal towns on the way, all looking a bit sad in the rain but no doubt delightful in the sunshine. Boardwalks through the mangroves and coastal vegetation seemed to be on offer in various places, so we opted for the ‘award winning’ one at Arno Bay which was informative and enjoyable even in the rain.

Port Lincoln is a thriving fishing port - tuna, prawns and rock lobster (crayfish) especially, as well as a tourist town. Two main tourist attractions, both of which we were happy to forego, are the opportunity to swim with bluefin tuna (they are huge) or, 100 times more scary, to go cage diving several miles off the coast with White Pointer (Great White) sharks. No thanks! The latter trip is controversial as apparently they throw food into the water to attract the sharks and this can encourage them to associate humans with food...sadly, more about this later.

We had a night out in Port Lincoln at the local cinema (to see Burlesque). A quaint little single screen place, there were 18 customers, during the performance the projector broke down not once, but twice! It reminded me of Ruthin Picture House in the sixties when this was a regular occurrence.

We were lucky to arrive in Port Lincoln when the yachts in the annual Adelaide to PL race were arriving. The Lions Club (active in all Australian towns) were at the end of the jetty to welcome the yachts, grilling snags (sausages) and presenting each crew with a case of beer. This seemed to be the main reason for the yachts calling at the town jetty first before sailing round to the smart new marina. Whilst watching all this we got talking to Diane, a lovely local lady, whose stories ranged from the absolutely tragic (She had lost many relatives in a bush fire) to the amusing – her daughter is mad on animals and drove all the way to Adelaide to collect a baby pet emu, which now of course is huge.

Our next destination was Coffin Bay, about 40k west of Port Lincoln. Normally known for its lovely coastal national park, sadly Coffin Bay has been very much in the news as the day before we arrived a young local man had been taken by not one, but two, great white sharks whilst diving for abalone off the coast here.

CB is a very pretty small town, with a population of 600 which swells to 4000 in the season. It’s peaceful at the moment and we have a lovely apartment across from the beach. When we arrived there was an open-air wedding taking place in front of the main jetty – all very relaxed and informal, with the guests wearing thongs (flip flops) and the wedding cars were white 4WD Toyota Landcruisers.

The National Park is unspoilt, with some wild and rugged beaches on the Southern Ocean, and some calm swimming beaches on the inland side. The sun was out again so we did swim....but kept VERY close to the shore. We saw lots of emus, including one family of mum, dad and six young ones.

There were very few tourists about, so it was amazing to share the one picnic table at a beach with a British couple who had owned a flower shop in New Malden, where we used to live in the eighties.