We go coastal, see some art, slow down, step back in time and get blown away ….. literally.

We decided that we would do the Yorke Peninsula, and instead of giving you a blow by blow we thought  ….. ” hey why not just give you the highlights?

Working along the west coast from Moonta we kept calling in at little villages. Everyone has some claim to fame, some more than others.  Other towns not so much, they all have similar things in common like a jetty, water tower or water tank art, most have a population not much bigger than my thumb. Occasionally they even have more than 1 bitumen street .

Mostly they get remembered from our experience of the place, more than whats there…. We will forever remember Port Victoria for the chicken soup incident…. and so will Little Bus, we are still finding noodles!

There was Minlaton which has the Watsacowie Brewery with another fantastic porter and stout, great beer at a reasonable price, we even had a six pack to take away, great names for beer like Watsakraken, Lawn cruiser, Ethel Porter (named after the wreck of the Ethel), andJazzy red (named after a dog)

Seems people think Jo is always drinking alone but someone has to take the photo, even if after a few it does end up a little out of focus, and off course someone has to drink the beer…. it’s a hard life.

Also memorable was the Corny Point Lighthouse, because it gave us a little taste of what was just around the corner at the National Park,

The overall best part, well, for us anyway, of the Yorke Peninsula was the Innes National Park. Because it had everything we like, spectacular scenery, history, crashing surf against rocks, beaches and plenty of wildlife. There we did some walks, then some more walks, some steps down and then back up again, by then end of the whole day we had well and truly gotten our steps in, and then some.

One highlight is the wreck of the Ethel.  A barque which struck a reef and ultimately got beached, they tried refloating her, but mother nature had other ideas and she was blown back onto the beach even higher this time. The owners gave up, salvaged what they could, and there she remains even today.

Ironically, another ship, the ferret, saw the wreck at the time and reported it. Then 16 years later decided to follow suit and became wrecked on the same beach whereby the locals helped lighten her by drinking the rum and whiskey she was carrying. She too ended up being abandoned, and now the only thing left is part of her boiler, quietly rusting away.

Its amazing how many pics of lumps of twisted rusted metal, in the damp sand I can take.

Innes is named after the town if Inneston which was a gypsum – plaster mine, the plaster and gypsum being exported from the Stenhouse Bay jetty. Little remains of the railway and town, and the heritage walk gives very little information on what does remain.

We found that all the way around the peninsula the picture boards generally needed replacing as a lot of them are unreadable now.

After the Innes National Park we treated ourselves to the best steak sandwich ever at the tavern. I was going to put a photo up, but it was sooooo good. I simply ate it instead.

Then mother nature did an ‘Ethel’ on us and we retreated to the east coast and a caravan park to reset and restock.

We did the washing pegged it out and waited to see if we needed to pick it up  over the other side of the park. But the Aldi pegs actually hung on for grim death!

We took it in just before the grey clouds unleashed. Which combined with the wind was just incredible…. and fun.

Every town has some form of art, but our favourite was the one at Wool Bale bay (named because there was a groove in the cliff, just wide enough to roll a wool bale down… how else would you get it to the ship?). It was just nice, and the grey and white murals were so effective.

Also there was an old lime kiln, we’d seen many lime kiln roads, but this is the only one that actually had a lime kiln  on it. So the on the spot decision to turn off the main road had been a good one.

After that, it was a gentle meander up the east coast and onto our next area…. wine country….. .

But until next time here’s some other pics to enjoy