Memory Cove

The bottom section of Lincoln National Park is the Memory Cove wilderness area so called because of the small bay – Memory Cove – which is in the wilderness area. In 1802 Mathew Flinders was looking for a place to anchor so he despatched a small clipper carrying eight men to find a safe passage. They did not return. Another sailor set out to find them and returned with the wreckage of the boat but the sailors were never found. So Mathew Flinders named the cove Memory Cove and named eight nearby islands after each of the sailors and another Catastrophe Island. This cove is where I have chosen to scatter some of Margies ashes because of the name and the fact that we enjoyed camping at Memory Cove in 2001.

The road in to memory Cove was being repaired and parts were very rough where the grader had pushed dirt and lots of rocks into the centre of the road. Coming back out was not nearly as bad as they had rolled the road with a massive roller and squashed all the rocks into the dirt to produce a flat surface. We stopped to take a photo of our destination in the distance. The island in the distance is Thistle Island named after the leader of the sailors who drowned in 1802 during the Mathew Flinders expedition around Australia.

The road into the camping area was just as I remembered, as was our camp site. The only difference was that the sites and road were just sand when we were there in 2001, rather than the current gravel. I remember I had to use the towbar I had fitted on the front of our Patrol to extract our camper from the site, I had backed the camper into a corner of the site that prevented me from hooking up and driving out as the turn was too sharp.

We took our shoes off on the beach and waded in to scatter the ashes, the water was freezing.

It was an emotional time for us both, so we settled at the picnic table for a BBQ of Deen’s hamburgers and raised a toast Margie. A little silver eye joined the proceedings.

I forgot to mention on the way in to Memory Cove we had to wait for quite a time for a family of emus to move off the road. After our lunch, Deen put her drone up again and took a photo of Memory Cove.

On the way out we called in at Wanna which is on the edge of the wilderness area.

So that completed a successful day of mixed emotions, one we had been trying to complete for the last 3 years. Tomorrow we will be off to Coffin Bay for some oysters and fresh seafood.

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