13 February 2014 Port Lincoln Eyre Peninsular SA

Yes, another slow start, I think we are getting used to this holiday thing. 🙂

We woke to overcast skies, but no rain. I headed down to the jetty straight after breakfast, leaving Deb, still in bed, with her morning “paper” (Do you still call it a “Paper” if it’s an electronic version of the printed version read on an iPad??  mmm 1^st World problems again! )

I was gone for about 1 1/2hrs, and returned drenched to the bone but with a smile on my dial, yes we had squid, enough for tea!!  Yep, 4 days into this holiday to get my first fish, that’s right a single squid, but big enough for us to share. 🙂

After I wrung out all my clothes, showered and had a coffee, we went into Port Lincoln proper to meet up with an “old” friend of Deb’s, Martin, who lives and works in Port Lincoln, and has done for almost 20 years. We had lunch at an Italian Café on the main waterfront. Deb had a great time catching up on old times and exchanging more recent things with Martin. I enjoy meeting Deb’s old friends, it always gives me more of a glimpse into her life before I knew her,  🙂 .

Martin had to go back to work, but offered to show us around town later in the day, so we took him up on his offer.  We arranged to meet him at our caravan park later in the day.

I took the opportunity when we got back to try a bit of fishing again, with the idea of adding to my morning catch.   But alas, it wasn’t to be, and I came back empty handed, again!! I am beginning to think I should try somewhere else!!

Martin arrived at the CP at about 5pm baring gifts, well Tuna to be precise.   Once we had that safe in the fridge, we headed out for our personal guided tour of the city and surrounds.   We first, headed north out of town where Martin showed us a bit of the Aboriginal history and new and old settlements.   Then went up to the top of a local lookout to catch a view over Boston Bay and beyond, but the cloud had set in and we couldn’t see too much.  We drove around a few of the newer housing estates, past a lot of tuna processing facilities and eventually headed out to the west coast of the tip of the Eyre Peninsular and a couple of local surfing beaches. Martin explained how at certain times of the year some locals sit on the cliffs above the beaches and count the number of surfers and sharks all in the same patch of water!! He joked (well I think it was a joke) that often the sharks outnumber the surfers!   The scenery out here was amazing, so pristine and rugged, I’d love to see it when a big Southern Ocean swell was coming in!!

  From there we drove to the Marina, it’s a combination of a working commercial fishing port and seaside housing estate with some pretty swish homes and boats.

We then drove further around passed the marina to the edge of the national park and a view back to the western side of Port Lincoln. It’s a great looking city from every direction you look at it.   From there we went back to that little Italian Café and shared a pizza and drinks.

As happens it was time to go, so we all got back in the car and drove back to the CP and dropped Martin off at his car.  We have arranged to have dinner with him next time he is in Adelaide.   We are both looking forward to seeing him again soon.

Not to miss an opportunity, with it not raining and no wind around, I took off down to the jetty to try my hand at some night fishing.   Well it was windy down on the jetty, and there were about 10 others down there before me, well it was 9pm I guess! Slowly all but 2 of the others left, and after an hour with no bites I called it a night too (I didn’t see anyone catch anything or even get a bite while I was there, but there were 2 squid caught just before I got there.

And so ended another hectic day on the Eyre Peninsular. Looks like there will be a bucket load of rain here tomorrow, so it might be a very quiet day for us.