SATURDAY 13^th May

So the next night we camped at a place called Yeldulknie Weir, (or something like that) last night, was a good night, a pleasant little campsite run by the Lions Club who run a few campsites around here for a $10 donation usually into an honesty box. For your $10 here you get, BBQ’s, toilets, small free library housed in a fridge, firerings, lighting and a scenic view of the down water side of the weir.

What was especially nice was that after a little wander up to have a look at the old wheelhouse, we discovered that yet again somebody had generously left us a nice bed of hot coals perfect for another round of baked taters, we wrapped up our last potatoes and dug a hole in the coals with a stick and covered the spuds over, 40 minutes later perfect little golden balls of deliciousness.

Whilst they were cooking another couple turned up with their brand new cub camper, Mark and Bridget…we got talking a bit over the still warm fire and by the time out taters were cooked we had been chatting like old friends, a few bits of stick on the embers, and away they went to flame, a few slightly larger chunks scavenged from off the ground and we had a nice little fire, we never want big ones anyway and we were not even sure we would be staying the night.

Anyway after a bigger log was placed on, it started to seem inevitable… so we got some of our Jarrah and then the fire was well and truly under way. A third couple turned up in their T-Van, Eric and Cheryl, and they had a roof rack of wood so the fire got even bigger, cutting a long story short by 7:30 it was plain we were not going anywhere, so after enjoying a few wines we crept into our little bubble and slept.

But hang on I hear you say, iat the end of the last episode, we were at Tumby Bay sleeping in company of the Gigantasurus Bus!, so what happened? A whole 24 hours has passed since then?……. Well as part of slowing down we decided to take a detour inland, to Cleve, why Cleve? well its supposed to be one of those heritage towns, renown for its heritage buildings, and also for a cheap RV stay, with coin operated hot showers!. Plus its an excuse for a country drive, and we like them, but first we shall backtrack a bit…. back to waking up in Tumby Bay .

The Bay’s

Well we had a good night in the Tumby RV park, packing up we headed back into town to wander around the mangrove boardwalk, a pleasant little walk just after sunrise, plenty of birdlife around including the sacred kingfisher who was so blue… and herons and lots of other little fluffy winged creatures.

Then north, Port Neil, and Lipson cove, Port Neil nearly had us squished by a falling pine tree branch that decided it didn’t want to be part of the tree anymore, crack! , split, crack!, creak! groan but never quite fell.

Port Neil is a pretty little place, driving around it was all but deserted, not a sausage could we see in the caravan park, and in the whole town not enough sausages to form a semi decent BBQ. But lots of new building going on, so maybe the crowds were still coming?

There was a good water fill point in the park just opposite the not so open looking pub, so we took our share, walked out along the jetty, partook of the public conveniences, had a gander at the “shed” information bay, and as is my want I took a lot of photos of the Bofors gun in the park (for reference in model making) before hopping back into Little Bus and continuing on.

Arno Bay, next on line, was smaller, more like Wedge Island. Then off inland to Cleve, A drive around the RV Park looked good for $10 with coin operated showers, but thought we would look at the Yeldulknie Weir site first, and the rest is history. (see the beginning of this post)

Anyway today, we left early just on dawn, the thing we like about mountain ranges (OK small hillocks) is that they can collect the fog and mist so driving through at sunrise can be magical… a little blinding but magical.

First stop was Cowell, another pretty small little coastal hiccup with a great foreshore and playground, a main street full of history and a foreshore pub full of pigeons, The silo art was colourful but a little inaccessible.

Whyalla Surprise

Then a town we hadn’t really been looking forward to Whyalla… a steel town, iron ore town and something of a mix between Newman, Kwinana industrial strip and the Rockingham foreshore.

They are making an effort and it has everything you would need for staying there, they have done a good job of the foreshore with sculptures, landscaping and the new circular jetty (it is a lot smaller than it looks in the photos but a walk out and around is interesting). So all in all better than we expected or remembered.

Taking advantage of the foreshore BBQ, we had a fabulous breakfast on the beach front, bacon, eggs (cooked inside a slice of bread) tomato chutney, goats cheese all in a sandwich accompanied by coffee, People walking past commented how good it looked, and it tasted even better!

The wetlands project I think must still be establishing as it didn’t look tempting for the birds and critters let alone us so we gave that a miss. The reptile park that we probably would have stopped at has closed down, in 2021 so the brochure is a bit out of Date.

A drive up to the lookout, a visit to Aldi (yep exactly the same as ours at home) and then out to the museum, they have a great model train layout and also a WW2 minesweeper ship that you can tour.

the DVA pension gets us both in at a reduced rate and we actually really enjoyed the museum

We where by now looking for a place to spend the night and we headed out towards Point Lowly. Point Lowly, has a nice lighthouse and 30 or 40 vans pulling up their own piece of Bitumen, most in the designated camp site but you always have few that like to do their own thing. The cuttlefish are migrating here for their annual cuttlefishcon… AKA cuttlefish convention…. Just think Woodstock from the 1960’s with tentacles, colourful, free spirited meetups and all things fishy.

$10 bucks gets us a seat in the stands but you have to go into the water to see the main event.

As it turned out couldn;t see anything so maybe they are still on their way.

We tucked in to a little designated pull in for the night and enjoyed the sunset.

Well it was a nice quiet night and interesting sunset over the fractionating plant where they split crude oil into its many components, but the lights at night twinkle as does Whyalla across the gulf, sparkling in the darkness.

Morning sunrise was magnificent as always, but as yet we have not had a sunrise over water, just the orientation of the campsites we have chosen prevented it so technically this was our first one. I wandered down for some lighthouse pics in the pre dawn, then ran out of battery, so back I went, in the meantime Jo had packed up everything , so we had a shower in little bus, still a new experience for us (no we don’t smell!, we just don’t use Little Bus’s shower that much.) and headed off to Port Augusta

Driving out looking across Spencer Gulf there seems to be a big plume of black and white over Whyalla, as if it’s on fire….. If ever there was a photo to say what’s causing the global warming this is probably it!

We realised we had no information on Port Augusta, it seemed as if the local tourist centres don’t want you to leave the peninsula! Port Augusta was our most easterly destination on this trip so it was really just to have a look then start the trek west.

Port Augusta is kind of like Kalgoorlie, the feel of the place is a little lack lustre, The Wadlata Outback Centre was a little bland… the front door had been smashed (great first impression) and inside only 1 person manning it. We were interested in doing the tunnel of time, but it would have cost us $45 each even with concession and lasted she says 1-6 hours! We didn’t really have that amount of time even if it was only 10AM and in hind sight we made the right choice to move on. We did a quick shop in Coles, and headed out to what we consider the best thing in Port Augusta…… the Arid Lands Botanical Park. But that deserves it’s own post.

See you next time…. Oh and we still haven’t seen any wombats!

Al & Jo