9 & 10 February 2014 – Eyre Peninsular here we come

9 February 2014 Eyre Peninsular here we come

Fullarton to Port Germein 240km 3hr  drive

We got away from home a bit after 4:30pm after celebrating Ben’s 32^nd  with a lunch down at Port Noarlunga Beach. (A very good way to start our holiday 🙂  )

We had originally planned to get away on Monday, but instead of leaving early on Monday to beat the peak hour traffic we decided to get away the day before, even if it was to only drive about 3 to 4 hrs, our aim was for a free camp site somewhere north of Port Pirie.

There has been a bushfire burning in the lower Flinders Ranges for about the last month, “The Bangor Fire”.  It stretches from just below Port Pirie in the south to a bit north of Port Germein in the north. It is all burning east of the highway up in the ranges. After we drove past Port Pirie the fires were very clear from the highway, we could see up to 3 or 4 water bombing planes in action and lots and lots of smoke, but no flames visible to us. The winds were very strong easterlies, so they were blowing the fire and smoke away from us, but I am sure it was making life hell for the fire fighters.

We decided to spend the night at a free camp just north of the Port Germein Jetty on the foreshore of Spencer Gulf.  It turned out that the free camp wasn’t really on the foreshore, but just around the corner instead, which in the end was a blessing as it was more protected from the howling easterly than it may have otherwise been.   

As we pulled in, we noticed a campervan was already set up for the night. After we had parked the van, it turned out that they were an Older English couple, he was on Skype telling someone somewhere that they were still in Australia and that it was still very hot!! LOL.  By the time we left in the morning there was one other van in the area, making 3 of us all up.

Aiko finally settled, she had sat upright on Deb’s lap the whole trip up, much to her disbelief and discomfort!, Aiko normally goes to sleep after the first 10 mins or so. We settled back, had dinner, a well-deserved drink and watched the INXS mini-series on TV.  (A great show, loved the music and the references to the bands and venues on the Northern Beaches in Sydney I grew up with.) The wind slowly abated through the night, and Aiko had one of her best first nights in the van ever (she is usually really unsettled the first night away in the van, but I guess she may have been a little bit tired!! LOL Who knows why!? 🙂  )

10 Feb 2014  Port Germein to Cowell  240km 3hr drive

We were up around 7:30am and after breakfast we rolled out onto the road at 9am, a nice leisurely start to the day. We decided we would only drive for about 4 hours today, and so picked the area around Cowell for our stop for the day.

I  love the country side up here, the Lower Flinders Ranges are amazing, at times it felt like we were driving through a Hans Heysen painting, the rugged majestic beauty of the Australia bush at its best. After we went through Port Augusta (and I managed to keep the car and van heading towards Port Lincoln, rather than up the road to Alice), we came into Saltbush country. Deb doesn’t like this too much, but I love the difference and how quickly the landscape changes before your eyes.

We decided to fill the car with fuel in Whyalla, the first service station on our side of the highway. Well there wasn’t one, not on our side, so we just kept driving.   About 80km out of Cowell the car was saying we enough fuel for 89km! I slowed a tad and the numbers slowly got better and by the time we pulled into the Caltex in Cowell we would have had less than a litre left in the tank!!

After refuelling we drove to the foreshore caravan park to see if they had room for us, Unfortunately our van was too big for the sites they had left so we did a quick drive through the park and headed back out of town to the Harbour View CP. They had lots of room, I presume because they are well off the highway and out of town. There is a bit of an onshore breeze and the waters are a bit chopped up by it, combine this with a low tide and the gulf was decidedly uninviting!

After lunch we took a drive up to Lucky Bay, where the Sealink ferry terminal is for the trip from Wallaroo.  After a drive around and walk to the beach, we are still trying to figure out how this place got its’ name!!! The village of Lucky Bay is a string of fishing shacks (in the best tradition of shacks obviously owned by a hardy bunch of fisho’s.) strung out along the beachfront, each one having a boat shed with a small living area attached to it!

We then went back to the van and had a nice relaxing afternoon doing not very much!