14
February
Thought we should check out our surroundings and decided to drive around
Kellidie Bay National Park, took all sorts of tracks and ended up somewhere overlooking
the other side of Coffin Bay, Colman thought he could find some oysters in the
wild but only got wet. We ended up on
Farm Beach for a couple of hours and went for a huge walk along the beach, we were parked on the beach and when we saw
every other four wheel drive leaving we thought we should do the same. Got to the exit point and saw a guy stuck in
the sand, we had not let down our tyres so Colman decided to gun it, and got us
out first go. (I’m so proud of him – sorry in-joke!!). Drove around the area a
bit and it was most spectacular and rugged as always. On the way home we saw Jaspar the friendly
ghost, a tree trunk that some local had painted and it looked just like the
real thing, what you see in the country!!!
Had 2 dozen oysters to celebrate when we got back, what a life. Peter
the Harley rider turned up with a campervan and a hug red-back spider sticker
on the side facing our door, great, we were not going to be good neighbours,
then he played Bryan Adams and I kind of forgave him. Tom and wife came over for a drink and a chat
– happy hour kind of thing to do!
15
February
Took it very easy and prepared for Ros & Stephan who came over
for dinner. Had a great night with those
two, poor Stephan, though his little Mazda 6 was a four wheel drive and almost
took out the undercarriage and didn’t live it down! A little bit into the night we worked out the
whole situation and decided that Stephan was actually the slave, he thought he
need one but we decided he was one! All very funny and those two are now known
as Roslyn & The Slave. A very good
night including some very dodgy dance videos that some girls had told us to
download on the IPhone earlier that week!
16
February
Took Momo up to Dunns electrical to have the Jake breaks checked
and to also have the generator looked at once again. We went into town and had breakfast at Del
Geornos, did a bit of wandering, did an assorted shop to prepare for the west.
Then met Toni & Lee for dinner at the Ming Inn and met three of their
friends also including one with a diamond in her front tooth, a lovely lady who
did mountain bike racing (and turned out to be a friend of Josel) as well as
Kiwi who flew spotter planes for the tuna boats. This was followed by coffee at
the Lincoln where your one with the diamond in her tooth left us because her
toy boy was waiting for her outside, etc, etc, etc!!! A very interesting night was had and it was
great to catch up with Lee & Toni before we left, would have been great to
have a chat with Kiwi but others had more important things to talk about! Decided to overnight at Billy Lights Point,
it was an RV friendly free camp overlooking Proper Bay and a few other vans had
taken the opportunity to do so, Colman had a chat with a couple of them, I
wasn’t so inclined!
17
February
Did big shop, last stop before the big expensive outback, Susie
petrol at $1.43 per litter and Momo diesel at $1.53 per litre, drove Momo back
down to Coffins then came back up to Lincoln to go to “Church” with Petar, Josell, Remy, Yoland. There was a band and we met some guy who was
all of 2 meters (according to me) and 6 foot 8 according to the non-metric
people, (you work it out)who could wrap his leg around the back of his head,
interesting young man, who was also responsible for making us get up and do
Nutbush City Limits!!. We also bumped into the ‘Slaves’ wives sister
(insider joke – sorry), Colman was
the DD so he drove home and I had the hangover!
18
February
Back up to Lincoln for the Farmers Market, in hindsight ‘should
have known better’. Popped in to say Hello and Good Bye to Roslyn & The
Slave, went down to have some dodgy coffee and a nice pastry of some
description. Then rang Sandy & Ike
to work out when they were coming around for dinner, unfortunately we had
forgotten that we had arranged to go driving down at Gunya beach beforehand,
they would be round at 3pm. We met up
with Toni and told her we couldn’t stick around because we had messed up our
social calendar, headed back to the car and met Vera (Petar’s mother) on the
way and said our goodbyes. Arrived back
at the campsite, where Josel (who was down for a 50th birthday
called past) and then Sandy, Ike, Jennni & Geoff, Malcolm & Pam
arrived. Had coffee and headed off to
Gunya beach where we drove in the soft sand and tried very hard not to get
stuck, which we didn’t. Back for a BBQ
and had a very lovely evening, most left about 8ish but Sandy & Ike stayed
till after midnight. Had a lovely time
and great chat, we got invited to the Alice Springs run in July for 30 days– I
can’t wait!! It was something both of us really wanted to do and now we will be
going, start organising!
19
February
Organised for leaving tomorrow
20
February
Did the Oyster town walk from the campsite up to the lookout and
back down along the bay, took us about 2 hours and most of it was inland and
hot. We did however find a ‘snake’ made
up of hairy mollies (for those none Irish they are hairy caterpillars), they
had basically formed an orderly column and were wandering across the road, and
a mandatory photo was taken. Now about Oyster
town, oyster farming was first established in the area in 1848 and by 1849
there were up to 30 cutters dredging the area for native oysters, by the late
1800 the town had died due to over harvesting!!. We also saw the ‘Old Well’ a hole with a bit
of corrugation covering it which stems from 1866, some remains of cottages from
a similar time, really couldn’t pick any part of the cottages- but it said so
in the brochure therefor it must be it.
The grand finally of the tour was the rosemary bush planted in 1850 and
now (they say) over 30 meters wide! It was exciting and Colman ended up picking
some for me, he is just so romantic!! (my hero, by bubs – sorry ‘in’ joke which
some will get), it was quite pretty – if you like that sort of thing, we used
it on our lamb chops a couple of days later, very exotic!! Went to get some oysters and as they were
busy and we were ‘locals’ I was allowed to pick my own out of the huge crate
that they had brought in this morning, these guys hadn’t been sorted so for
$7.00 per dozen I could pick whatever size I wanted, I was told if I could open
them without the knife I could have as many as I wanted – hmph.. . It was the first time we saw the ‘oyster machine’
sorting. It’s a huge conveyor belt and
someone stands at the beginning and takes out all the obvious ‘deviants’, they then head up the conveyor belt and get
rotated around a tub grader with holes
in it. The holes are all different sizes
and the appropriate oysters fall out and into their own appropriate baskets –
cocktail, bistro, small, medium etc. I
had also learnt the difference between Pacific and Angasi , the quote is that
is “ Pacific oysters are the Chardonnay of the wine world then an Angasi oyster
is the Shiraz”, we tried them both and
they were right, I can’t explain other than that, if you want to be impressive
(or a prat - you pick) next time you buy oyster ask if they have Angasi,
because they “simply are the classier oyster!!”. By God, we have become oyster snobs too (what
next?), but Dahrling I really do prefer the Angasi oyster, they do have so much
more texture & flavour then ‘those other’!!
Went to local butcher who was from Willunga and had learnt the art of
small goods from a German, no more to be said about the quality of the wurst! We
finally left Coffins for the Cummins Memorial Lookout which was a rest area
right next to the Cummins memorial, yet another drowning in this area. We
climbed up the hill and went out onto the cliffs, spectacular and rugged, well
worth the effort. We found an area full
of cairns (people piling rocks on top of each other type of thing) so we
decided we needed to build one too. And
it was the best one in the area, with the best view and all.
21
February
Left Cummins to Venus Bay and found the free camp right between
Venus Bay and Port Kenny, we had checked out Venus Bay and although it was very
pretty it was also packed and very small.
We decided to have a shandy at Venus Bay General store, and although they
sold alcohol it was not a pub, you have to buy a stubby, a bottle of lemonade
and they give you a glass so you can make it yourself. It was lovely just sitting there overlooking
the bay so we thought we would have a second one, then headed off to set up
camp. Didn’t do much after all that
excitement.
22
February
Did some geo-caching, first stop was the grave of Patrick Reidy
which was in the middle of nowhere, in fact it was just like driving along a dirt
road, then the geo-cache says stop, climb over a stretch of barbed wire, over a
sand hill and there it was a grave with a steel railing around it, it must have
been a local who put the cache there as you would have never known it was there
otherwise. It gave us another reason to
appreciate this geo-caching, A little
Pot of Gold was a Geo-cache at the entrance to a bush resort called Coddle park,
we went for a look at this ‘resort’ and it may have been someone’s dream one time but is now very run down. Decided to head back to the Colton cemetery to
check out the grave of the very first Greek settler to SA, he arrived here in
1822 at age 20 and his grave stone is both in greek and english. This was closely followed by the Bramfield cemetery
which included the grave of a Mr William Tree a local land owner and
shearer. Apparently he was a little paranoid
about getting his epitaph right that he had his headstone shipped out from England
before he died to make sure all the details were correct. And for your reading pleasure and education that
would have been 2052 in fifteen and one half days or the other statistic – 6762
sheep shorn in one season, something to be proud of I guess. We did pass Nowhere else on our way around but
decided not to stop as there was nothing else to see!! Talia caves were very spectacular; they included
the Tub, which was really a sink hole with an entrance to the sea some 30
meters deep and 50 meters across & the Woolshed a large cavern which lead
to a cave at the end all carved out by the motion of the ocean!! On the whole if you are ever down this way it
is well worth a look. Colman decided he
needed to climb down into the Tub via some tree trunk that some wonderful
individual had carved steps into and at the bottom you got to look out to see,
I saw the photos!! Back home and down to
Venus jetty to do some fishing, it was cold, the tide wasn’t just flowing it
was racing out and the fish were down below laughing. Home for port and warm up!
23
February
Venus Bay is a funny little place; the bay is basically completely
surrounded with only the smallest opening going out into the Great Aussie
Bight. This makes the waters very calm,
as long as the tide isn’t turning and a lot of the beaches (of which there are
not many) are very shallow so it seems to be very popular with families
(luckily no school holidays at the moment) We did the cliff top walk which was
the usual rugged and spectacular scenery and then saw dolphins, there must have
been fifty or more in the pod and they were having a great time, we spent ages
watching them. We then decided to build
another cairn, which Colman then broke and then we headed off to do some more
geo-caching. The first thing we found
was a little goat track down onto the beach which you would need to be a local
to find and which took you onto this spectacular and calm beach. We’re getting addicted to this because it
takes you to the most unusual and out of the way places, the next one took us
to a grave on its own in the middle of some sand dunes (and we all know I love
them) of a local who had died back in 1880 at the age of 40, there was a lovely
epitaph (they like them in this area).
The good thing is that if there is any background information it can be
found on the geo-cache site – we’re addicted!
We then looked for another on and found our first travel bug (Tristar
RG6K6E). Basically this is a ‘token’ a
lovely stainless steel star about 5 cm across which someone, somewhere has
placed on the road to travel via the caches.
This one was from Germany and had landed in Perth, come across the
Nullarbor and was now with us, not sure yet where we plan to drop it but it
will need to be a worthy spot. After all
that excitement we headed off to Port Kenny (I wouldn’t rush to add it to my
next itinerary) and decided the mandatory shandy at Port Kenny Hotel was
required. Chatted to a few of the locals,
as well as fellow tourists who advised us which caravan park to stay at in
Ceduna and which ones to avoid.
Apparently the choice is only 1, the others are either dodgy or covered
in barb wire with security cameras and all sorts, hmm, I wonder what type of barb wire exactly!?!
Back to the campsite to organise for tomorrow when I heard the giggling of
female voices, Colman was pottering in his shed so they headed over to
him. Turns out there were 3 French girls
who were travelling from Shepparton to Caruthers in a car with no air-conditioning. They asked if they could stay around us to
which we agreed (Colman was actually very excited by the prospect, one of the 3
was very pretty, but being from Paris she had the matching mouth and attitude,
he would not get away with anything here).
We ended up inviting them around for a glass of Australian champagne and
some chocolates and had a very pleasant evening. Helene was from Paris and she seemed quite
worldly and outspoken, Anais was from Toulon and she was a bit more down to
earth and very intelligent, Audrey was the naivest of the three. She made us laugh when she asked if there is
a moon in Australia, she hadn’t seen it as yet and didn’t know if we had one
down here too!! All up they were lovely
girls, spoke very good English and obviously were tough to pull off what they
were doing. We invited them for coffee
the next day and they said they needed to be up early to cross the Nullarbor,
we told them we were early risers too so all good.
24
February
Well we got up, had 2 coffees, washed the dishes, had a shower,
had breakfast and at this point is was 9.30 and not a thing was stirring over
in their tent, 2 slept in the car and one slept in a tiny little tent,
temperature had reached about 30 degrees and eventually we saw movement. They came over, had coffee and after lots of
hugs and horn tooting they hit the road.
We got ready and left Port Kenny to head towards Streaky Bay. Arrived, set up and straight down to the
beach. After we came back up we saw that
Peter (the Harley rider from Coffins) was there sitting with a couple with a
rig called Cuddles & Co, the people attached to the rig were Bob &
Sheryl & a dog called Rhana (I
think) who was more a child then a dog).
We had a chat and were invited down for drinks later, which we did, as
well as supper, an entertaining night was had, all very nice and interesting
people. Cuddles (I needed to call him Sir Cuddles for the first half an hour –
protocol apparently) was a musician and they travelled around playing wherever
they could, tending to follow the music festivals around Oz. Peter was from
Townsville, his surname was Wilmington so he had visited the place and was most
disappointed by it!! Anyway we will very likely catch up again in WA as that is
where he was heading, if not we were told to contact him if we ever pass
through Townsville.
25
February
Today we were going to take it easy, and we all know the saying
‘Best laid plans of men and mice’. Had breakfast at the campsite kiosk and got
talking to a couple about Ceduna, we had heard all sorts, the massive barb wire
around the campground together with the electronic sliding gate. The surveillance cameras up and down the
street and the fact that at night they (not sure who!!) turn on the loud
speaker with a kind of wailing sound to keep the “locals” off the street. It was also a dry zone and you would get
harassed if you had alcohol, you couldn’t buy cask wine (yes, sadly it is
getting to this stage, “store more, break less” and now to top it off this
couple had been there yesterday and her comment was that “It was 4 hours of her
life she would never get back”! Great…
It was a hot day so we thought we would head into Streaky and check out
the town, an hour later and we had thoroughly achieved just that, and with the
heat decided an air-condition car was the way to go, so we thought we should
drive and check out Ceduna ourselves.
Headed off expecting the worst and guess what, always form your own
decisions. We did laugh at the ‘barb
wire enclosed fence, obviously these guys had never seen a barb wire enclosure,
most of the wire was hidden behind great walls of creepers and climbers, we
eventually found a couple of cameras but –yes- there was an electronic
gate!!! We did find some casks at the
bottle shop later on and we never got hassled by anyone, still undecided on the
wailing sirens bit, will check it out when we get there. Drove down to the Shelly Beach caravan park
we were planning to stay, looked lovely ad booked a site, then decided to head back to Streaky
and visit the local attractions as well as do some geo-caching along the
way. Stopped at Smokey Bay but the
oyster barns were closed and Colman point blank refused to do the geo-cache
cause it was on a main road, so we headed off to the next one at Acraman Creek national park.
The corrugations were amazing, and eventually after taking a few wrong
turns we got there. It was hot as hell,
there was a huge beach in front of us and it was covered thigh deep in
seaweed. One thing I do not like at all
(really at all) is walking through seaweed, I persevered and got out into sand,
so far so good! After that it went pear-shaped! More seaweed, sunk deeper,
millions of flies, lost signal to geo-cache, overheating, didn’t bring water
from car, more seaweed, full scale panic attack and burst into tears!! Poor
Colman, got me back to the car, poured water over me and calmed me down, right
I was over this and I wanted to go home!
Left the beach, got lost, no map (were actually never planning on doing
any of this today), ended up in sand dunes, turned around, ended up in some
derelict homestead with lots of dogs, no
people and lots of cross bow bolts, luckily I got signal on my iPhone and got a
map and got us out! Now I really wanted to go home, go far a swim and
relax. See beginning of story about men
& mice. Got back and headed down to
beach and went for a swim, on way back Colman talked to some guy about crabbing
who then offered him some fish-heads as bait. SO.. had to go up to get bag for
fish heads, as we got back the neighbours handed us a bowl with 3 crabs they
had too many of, had to get bag down for fish heads, needed to put crabs into a
large pot, needed to get sea water so needed to find a bucket and then need to
cook these crabs, the neighbour offered to cook them for us if we got him water
& salt! Had to socialise with them – 1 very nice woman, nice husband and 1
dodgy couple because they were kindly cooking our crabs, but all I really
wanted to do was get a flagon of white wine and hibernate – which I must say
did happen after the crabs and social frivolities were done, well – lets just
say I Left!
26
February
Petar & Desi arrived around lunch and we went to the Streaky
Hotel for lunch and then just sat and chatted.
Petar had gotten me addicted to Gin & Tonics and Desi had brought up
a kilo of limes for us so I would survive the wilderness that is Ceduna. Petar had work to do so we spent some time
with Desi then did our own things and came back to get a lesson from Petar on
how to make the perfect G&T, followed by several G&T’s. Jenni & Geoff arrived late afternoon just
as Petar Desi were leaving to go to
their do, we had coffee, bubbly which then turned into dinner. A lovely evening was spent!
27
February
Home
28
February
Lana invited us to go catch razor fish with her, Ron, Heather,
Trevor, which we did, another thing we have learnt but I did have a few issues
with cleaning the things, you could catch 25 per person or 75 per group so we
had about 20ish. You clean them then and
there, Colman chopped the razor shell in half and Lana showed me how to get the
scallop out and kindly did them all for me.
Did the Cape Bauer Loop which we had done with my mother and then
decided with all the excitement of hunting & gathering we needed to buy
another crab net and went to the Streaky Bay jetty crabbing. Asked 2 young kids who were hanging around
the jetty where they thought was a good place and ended up getting a lesson in
how to throw the net, how to catch the crabs, where to look for them and the
best places to get them. We got 5 but I
couldn’t really do much to them – way too much like a spider so I just hauled
them in a handed the net over to Colman.
Apparently you should not take female crabs even if they are the correct
size, and you should not take anything smaller than 11 cm from the sides by the
pincers. Then had a Shandy at the
Streaky Bay Hotel, apparently the cool room had conked it so they had no beer
on tap so it came out of a bottle, not sure if this can rate in our Shandy
register.
29
February
Decided we need to go back to Murphy’s Haystacks and do the
geocache and then headed down to Calca and check out the historic township, the
cemetery and the old school, was a biggish town once, now there is
nothing. Then on to Point Labatt to see
the sea lions, difference between a seal & a sea lion, seals have ear flaps
and sea lions have little feety like back flippers that they can walk on (now
don’t quote me on this my memory is a bit dodgy but I think that is what the
sign said), apparently it is the only permanent colony on the Australian
mainland. Again more spectacular scenery
all around, continued around to Sceale Bay (pronounced Scale), did more
geo-caching, and then ended up doing the Westall Way Loop Drive, definitely the
better of the two drives. Again the most
magnificent scenery, it is amazing how rugged this part of the world is. Colman had heard that there was good fishing
at the Granites so we stopped there, ran into the neighbours from the campsite
(the 2 guys). Colman and I headed off to
find our little spot when we noticed about 5 surfers out on the waves, brave or
stupid, not sure which, funny thing was there was this old mix of all sorts of
dogs just sitting there patiently on a rock with the waves crashing around him
watching his master surf. Such devotion,
can’t see me doing that!!. Not that Colman would surf so it’s all good! After
all that came back and relaxed.
01 March
Gathered razor Fish, drove (!!) the Historic walk around Streaky
Bay, shopped and had lunch at Moceans, brilliant food which was good because we
had been trying to come here for days now and each evening for dinner it was
closed. We then headed off to Smokey Bay
Rest Area Rest area because Colman wanted to fit the air conditioner into the
bedroom without getting helpful hints and suggestions from all and sundry
around us. Relaxed and spent the
afternoon doing our Razor fish and dissecting the crabs we had caught a couple
of days ago
02 March
–0 4 March
Colman fitted air conditioner and I caught up on emails, photos,
diary and general stuff that needed doing
Love Momo&Co
