Today we drove to Whyalla 154kms north east of Arno Bay. Whyalla’s slogan is ‘where the outback meets the sea”. Outback being the Flinders Ranges and the sea being the Spencer Gulf. We are catching up with Wally and Anne friends of ours from Busselton who are here for a few days visiting Wally’s sister and her husband (Marlene and Graham). We have booked into the Foreshore Caravan Park and have a site right on the beachfront. So far this is the most expensive park we have stayed in at $33/night. We are paying $5/night more for a beachfront site which is very nice except they didn’t tell us we would get gale force winds late afternoon/evening, gee is it windy can hardly open the door without it being blown away but the days are lovely. As with most of the beaches in SA so far the tide is a long way out but it doesn’t stop hopeful fisher people walking out to catch crabs. Because of the shallow inclines in the beach causing the tide to be way out people use crab rakes to literally rake crabs out of the sand. Seems to be fairly successful. 40 crabs per person per day can be caught here in SA – ridiculous who needs that many crabs?? We spent a couple of hours with Wally and Anne before they headed off to Marlene and Graham’s holiday shack in Point Douglas (45km north east of Whyalla) for a few days. They have asked us to visit them tomorrow (Fri). Wally and Anne also had our mail and a tripod for the satellite dish from home. John and I headed out to the local shopping mall to get our fix and decided that we really don’t miss shopping that much. Supermarkets open at 7.00am and close at 10.00pm here.
Had a lovely day at Point Douglas with Wally, Anne, Marlene and Graham at their holiday shack in Point Douglas. What a beautiful spot. There would be no more than 12 homes in this bay and the Southern Flinders Ranges overlook the bay. (I have visited the Flinders Ranges previously and they are just beautiful, unfortunately we won’t be exploring the ranges as it is not recommended this time of year because of the heat). The tide was in so we took the opportunity to go kayaking before it went out. The weather today was just perfect, not too hot but warm enough to enjoy a swim so I had my first swim in the Spencer Gulf! it was wonderful. Graham kindly gave us a whole snapper that his son had caught here which we have defrosting and will will cook on the weber tomorrow night for dinner, yum. On the way back to Whyalla we stopped at Point Lowly. This is one of areas where the giant cuttlefish come to spawn between May and September each year. There are diving/snorkelling tours during this time which would be great to do. On the way to Point Douglas we saw sea cages (see pics) that house yellow tail kingfish. These cages are owned by Southern Star Aquaculture and Cleanseas. In this area they specialise in growing the kingfish for 18-24 months when they harvest them and sell them in markets in Adelaide, Whyalla, Melbourne and Sydney, USA, Japan and Europe. When we were in Port Lincoln and Arno Bay Cleanseas also had offshore sea cages containing tuna.
Saturday very very windy, southerly wind gusts up to 54kmh and we are copping if right off the ocean. Because of the wind we decided to stay put today and travel tomorrow when we won’t have to deal with strong headwinds. We are heading east into the Clare Valley which is predominantly a wine region. Research we have done it looks to be very pretty with lots of trees, creeks etc. It is only 1.5 hours from Adelaide.
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