The Eyre Peninsula 31 October to 5 November 2009

Double Click on this text to go to Google Maps for a more detailed map of our trip of Eyre Peninsula



Our first stop on the Eyre Peninsula was Port Lincoln named by MatthewFlinders after his home shire of Lincolnshire. This Port is three and a half times the size of Sydney Harbour and is the second deepest naturally occurring harbour in the world after Rio de Janeiro. Flinders thought it should be a capital city because of the harbour but there was limited fresh water so Adelaide was chosen by Colonel Light.

Matthew Flinders a brilliant navigator and cartographer, is well known and respected by Australians. There are memorials and statues to him in many seaside towns. On his first voyage on the Norfolk in 1798 he discovered Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania which saved several days on the journey to and from England. It was named after the ship's surgeon George Bass.

In January 1801, in command of the Investigator he returned to chart the coastline of Australia, linking the early Dutch maps of the area while charting much that was new and naming many of the features. He was the first to circumnavigate Australia. His maps were so accurate they were used up until WW2.

He was the first to use Australia as a name for the continent. Terra Australis was a hypothetical land to the South first theorized by Aristotle. Australia was called either New Holland or Terra Australis. Flinders book "Terra Australis" was published the day before he died and in it he noted his preference for the name Australia. This popularized the name and Governor Macquarie used it in dispatches and pushed for its acceptance. The name Australia was declared officially by the Admiralty in 1824.

Port Lincoln is now the home of a large fishing fleet and the centre for grain export for much of the Eyre Peninsula.

Southern Blue Fin Tuna are caught in the Southern ocean, towed in purse seine nets at about 1 km/hr [a three month voyage, in order to protect the live tuna from stress on the voyage] and then fattened up in Tuna Farms [shown here] before export to Japan. Each fish is worth about $1,000 in the pen, $6,000 at point of sale. Kingfish are also fattened up and exported. Seafood available in season include Boston Bay mussels, Lincoln Wild King Prawns, Pacific Oysters, wild and farmed Abalone,

Southern Rock lobster commonly known as Crayfish Yellow tail Kingfish, Suzuki Mulloway,Snapper and King George Whiting. Locally the King George Whiting is the most popular.


We saw dolphins, sea lions and visited a tuna farm and although all the tuna have been exported now we did have some wonderful Sashimi.

Port Lincoln is a beautiful place, and we walked the Parnkalla walking trail which followed the bay, drank coffee at Del Giorno's on the seafront and admired the statue of Makybe Diva the only three times winner of the Melbourne Cup [2003, 2004 and 2005] this being the home town of her owner Tony Santic. Stuck for a name, Santic gave the task to five women employees in his fishing business, who eventually used the first two letters oftheir given names [Maureen Dellar, Kylie Bascomb, Belinda Grocke, Dianne Tonkin and Vanessa Parthenis] to name the horse.

We visited the Lincoln National Park and dipped ourtoes in the water, having now completed our journey South.

This Emu and her chicks was enjoying the sunshine near the shore.

Our next stop was Coffin Bay. Coffin Bay was named by Matthew Flinders after his friend Sir Isaac Coffin. [John always thought it was linked to what he imagined was a high death rate from eating oysters!] Coffin Bay is famed for its oysters and you can have as many fresh oysters as Trish can eat from the local shops and restaurants. We did the Oyster Walk, which although nothing to do with oysters is beautiful as it follows the coast for about 8 kilometers.

There is a nice restaurant overlooking the Oyster beds called ...... The Oyster Bed.

We drove from Coffin Bay to camp at Elliston. We had lunch overlooking the sea. Oysters to go are Trish's idea of perfect lunch.





Elliston is the centre of the Abalone Industry. Trish bought some Abalone to cook from the Australian Bight Abalone.

There is a lovely beach with an old fashioned jetty. Every port on Eyre Peninsula has similar jetties, a legacy of an era when the ocean was the main highway for grain export. Elliston has a very narrow entrance, difficult in a high wind.

The jetties are retained now as fishing spots for the locals and tourists.

Elliston has commissioned a series of sculptures for its Headland Drive, a novel and fun idea on a beautiful coast road.


We also visited Locks Well a deserted beach south of Elliston and a great spot for catching Salmon.

From Elliston we drove to Venus Bay. On the way we purchased bread from Colton on the honor system. It was lovely bread cooked in a German wood fired oven.

We had lunch at Talia caves overlooking a fabulous but dangerous beach for swimming with strong rip tides.

Tricia did a walk along the beach.

Venus Bay is another lovely fishing town and we camped right by the water.

We did the headland walk.









We then visited the 4WD beach. A beach isn't a beach in SA unless you can drive on it.

We set off on November 3 for Streaky Bay, stopping first at Murphy's Haystacks a series of Inselbergs on what was farmer Murphy's property. They were named when a visiting Irish agricultural expert, advocating harrowing, passed by in a coach and praised Murphy's harrowing techniques for producing such outstanding "haystacks". The Irish joke continues!

We had lunch at Point Labatt, a sea lion colony on a rocky outcrop. We stopped and watched them.

Most of the sea lions were sleeping apart from two youngsters who were playing in one of the shallow pools. They became so energetic that they lept into the air in pursuit of each other. Eventually they called their mothers who took them out into the ocean for a longer swim.

Our next camp was Streaky Bay, another oyster town, with the mandatory jetty. There is a nice cafe there called Mocean, a great spot to sit and read the paper.


From Streaky Bay we drove to Smokey Bay, a major oyster town again with a jetty, for lunch.

Then on to Ceduna a pretty town at the end of the Eyre Peninsula, with gardens and of course the jetty!!

Oysters are farmed here at Denial Bay. As one video expounded they are a great crop for this area as they are drought proof.

Darwin to Port Lincoln - 20 to 26 October 2009

Mindful that Burke and Wills get no credit for being the first to cross Australia from North to South because they failed to return to their start point, instead ending up dead near the "Dig Tree" in outback Queensland, we decided to retrace our steps south before heading west to Perth.

We drove 3,095 km following the  Stuart Highway from Darwin to Port Augusta, where we stopped to collect mail, and then on to Port Lincoln on the Eyre Peninsula.  We plan to follow the coast of the Eyre Peninsula to Ceduna and then across the Nullabor Plain to Perth.

Click here to go to Google Maps for an interactive version of this map

A      Darwin                20 October 2009

B      Katherine            20 October 2009

C      Tennant Creek   21 October 2009

D      Alice Springs       22 October 2009

E      Coober Pedy       23 October 2009

F      Port Augusta       24 and 25 October 2009

G     Port Lincoln         26 October 2009

Darwin - 30 September to 18 October 2009

John stayed in Darwin while Trish returned to the USA for about three weeks.  Darwin was entering the "buildup" prior to the start of the wet season and was hot and humid, but has great bike trails so John could ride every day.

Litchfield - 24 to 27 September 2009

We arrived in Batchelor on the 24th September and stayed at the Batchelor Caravillage. They feed the parrots each evening.

Batchelor was initially an experimental farm. The farm was named for the South Australian Politician Egerton Lee Batchelor, although given its history it could well have been a reflection of the marital state of the many thousands who have called it home over the years.

An airport was developed in 1933 and due to the outbreak of World War II it was extended in 1941 to enable B-17's to land. From December 1941 it played an important role as the base for General MacArthur's bombing force and thousands of men were stationed here.

Uranium was discovered in 1949. Batchelor then became the service town for the Rum Jungle Uranium Mine. The miners stayed in town and were bussed to the mine.

Of the many stories about the naming of Rum Jungle the best and most likely concerns the bullock team carrying the rum rations for the construction workers on the Overland Telegraph in 1870. Why all the rum was shipped in one lot is a mystery, but not surprisingly it got bogged in the East Finiss River, and the only solution was to lighten the load. The bullockies drank the rum, having one of the better binges in history and leaving the name Rum Jungle behind them.

The mine is inactive now and the pit has become a lake.

Nowadays Batchelor is the entry point for the Litchfield National Park. Litchfield is on the escarpment and has a lot of waterfalls.

We visited Florence waterfall and plunge pool, Buley Rockhole, Tolmer Falls and Wangi Falls

We swam at Wangi Falls plunge pool and walked the rain forest canopy walk.

We can highly recommend the Butterfly Farm Restaurant in Batchelor which has excellent fresh, well cooked local food. A lot is grown on the premises.

We dined there a number of times.

We visited the Termite mounds. [We are not keen on termites as they ate some of our house once, although it did enable us to do some remodeling so it wasn't totally bad]

After listening to the Ranger, a complete enthusiast, we felt much more positively disposed towards them. There are many different species of which about 400 reside in the Top End of Australia. They clean up debris, animal and vegetable depending on the termite, bringing the nutrients into the mound. When their mounds are no longer occupied and fall down they contribute to the ecosystem by liberating these nutrients into the soil. As tropical soils are nutrient poor this is a very positive benefit.

Tree pipe termites make hollow branches which can be used as homes by other animals and as didgeridoos.

Magnetic Termites orient their mounds on a North South axis to keep the mound at an even temperature. Their mounds look like tombstones.

We also visited the lost city. This kind of rock formation occurs as the Sandstone fractures at right angles. As it erodes it give the impression of walls remaining.

We visited Blyth Homestead built in 1929 as an outstation of Stapleton Station, owned by the Sargent Family. This is a typical pioneering homestead or camp of the era. There once were many houses like this but for obvious reasons not many remain. We think it shows how tough it was for the early settlers in this area and the difficult conditions they worked in.

Douglas Daly Nature Park - 22 & 23 September 2009

We left Kakadu reluctantly and drove down the Kakadu Highway to Pine Creek an old gold Mining town, lunching at a roadside stop and then on to the Douglas Daly Nature Park.

 
This is another exceptionally beautiful camping park, on the banks of the Daly River, and almost empty of travellers.

We had dinner at the bar and met another visitor, a great grandson of Stanley Kidman, who established the Kidman Pastoral empire. He talked in detail of the provisions Kidman had made to keep the empire family owned, which it still is.

This park has many great swimming venues.

  

We drifted down Butterfly Gorge on the good ship rubber tyre which saved us scrambling a kilometre straight up and down. Unfortunately we only have this glimpse of the gorge as our camera is not waterproof and the good ship rubber tyre is not all that stable. We had fun though tipping each other off. The gorge was stunning. Tricia is happy in water anywhere ( almost).

Douglas Hot springs, part of which is a sacred site flows at between 50C and 60C, even hotter than Dalhousie Springs, and again the rubber tyre is put to use.

Above the camp ground on the Daly Esplanade were the Twin Pools, the Thermal Pool and The Arches. Near the Arches is a sandy beach and people swim up giving them a natural water slide down. As the sandstone erodes the country is returning to ocean floor.

Amazingly, given their location all these areas are free of salt water crocodiles, so swimming is encouraged.

This was also the home of the Fenton Airbase extensively used by both Americans and Australians during WW2.

 

The road in to Butterfly gorge had a great patch of "bulldust" - a part of the road where the soil turns into a fine dust like talcum powder and as a consequence the road develops huge ruts and holes, some which can be hidden by the dust.  These can be a real hazard on outback roads, and are another reason for the snorkel on the Landcruiser, as normally air for the engine is taken in from under the front mud guards.  As can be seen from this photo the dust is all pervasive.