We had a big drive of 480 Km on Sunday from Morgan to Colwell which is on the west coast of the Spencer Gulf on the Eyre Peninsula. Most of the country we travelled through had been cleared for farming and hardly any trees remained, the hills were all completely bald, it was a bit of a dreary drive. However on these hills were probably a couple of 100 wind turbines slowly turning out power. On approaching Port August after crossing a low mountain range through Horrocks Pass, the shoreside flats were dotted with more wind turbines and a massive solar cell array.
We did stop at Stone House Bakery (in Stone House the village, well 6 houses!) for a delicious homemade pasty and Coke, Deen had a beef pie with the essential coffee. We also passed the Wirrabara silo art on the way to Port Augusta. The artwork of a farmer and his dog were excellent. I forgot to mention we did call in to see the Waikerie silo art just before Morgan which I had seen on a previous trip, but the regent parrot was just too good to resist another photo. Jimmy D’Vate is my favourite silo artist and his birds are just excellent.
The Harbour View caravan park at Cowell was a bushy one with lots of Mallee trees and small shrubs with lots of space between the sites. While there we visited the Cowell silo art which was OK, nothing special. It was Sunday and the town was deserted and the only fish and chip shop was closed, Deen and I were hanging out for fish and chips.
On Monday we had to drive only 200 Km to our campsite at September Beach in Lincoln National Park. The National Park park hooks around the Port Lincoln bay to the east and September Beach is on the east side of the point of the “hook”. There are lots of fish pens in the bay with a couple of big factory ships in attendance. Tuna are caught in the wild and transferred to the pens and fed sardines until they are at market size. Yellow tail kingfish are also farmed here and at Arno bay north of Port Lincoln.
We called in at Tumby Bay to view the silo and street art there. The silo art is unique as the two boys are painted across the curves of the six silos. Most silo art is painted vertically on one silo with the painted background linking the major artworks. Getting the images to align across the curves of the silos is a difficult job. ,Argentinian artist Martin Ron created the Tumby Bay silo mural, he is an internationally recognised leader in large wall murals and has worked on sites around the world.
We drove through the main street of Tumby Bay where there is some street art, some of which was quite good, but we couldn’t find parking with the vans attached so we drove on to September Beach. We have a large site which can easily accomodate us both in our own bushy enclave. This is Deen’s first drone photo, the sea was really that blue.
Here is another drone photo of the bay behind our site.
We drove around the National Park and visited a few camp sites, ours seemed the best to us. Richardson’s Shack was a bushy camp site but no toilets. I really liked the shape of these small trees at Richardsons.
Tuesday was a shopping and resting day so at about 11 am we headed into Port Lincoln (43 Km) collected the key for the Memory Cove wilderness area, did our shopping and had our fish and chips. We went the the Fresh Fish Place for a delicious meal. Beautifully cooked fish, so fresh, they sell about 20 different types of fish plus calamari, prawns, oysters, baby octopus, etc. etc. whatever you fancy all caught locally. I had King George Whiting and Deen had Flathead. Don’t miss this place if you ever visit Port Lincoln, not fine dining but yummy food.
Tomorrow we are off to Memory Cove having obtained a special clearance as the road is closed for roadworks. NPWS agreed to let us in as we had cancelled three booked trips because of COVID. The road contractor was contacted and he agreed that we could travel in. We will be the only visitors there, just like when Marg and I camped there for 3 days about 20 years ago.
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