Ye Olde Yorke

We had a lovely 11 nights visiting both sides of the Yorke. The towns are old, small and quaint, and largely built with stone and full of history, and the coastline in between is untouched or grazing land dotted with derelict ruins of old farm houses.

MOONTA is a very large town that was settled around a copper mine in the 1860s, with Cornish Tin miners brought in to mine it. We stayed 2 nights on the RV oval for a donation so we could explore both the town and the old mining district

Famous for its Cornish Pasties...yummm

Old mine remains, although the church and cottages are still used

1860s

ARDROSSAN is famous for the red cliffs and blue swimmer crabs, off the jetty or rake the sand at low tide. We stayed at a bush camp which had been Parara Sheep Station

Parara Station old homestead


Down the coast to PORT VINCENT and walked to the lookout over the harbour

We had a treat of 8 fur seals basking on the rocks, and diving in for s swim

EDITHBURGH for lunch..great view


A lot of the Yorke interior is made up of salt lakes

WOOROOKA and YORKE commercial towns, good for free overnight camping

MARION BAY and nearby the remains of STENHOUSE BAY which historically mined and supplied Australia’s chalk and plaster raw materials

Remnants of the old rail track from Inneston to Stenhouse Bay jetty ( high on the cliff above the jetty)

INNESTON AND INNES NATIONAL PARK

The NP had a few lighthouses, many wrecks and some lovely scenery....Cape Spencer Lighthouse

And view from here

The Wreck “Edith”

West Cape Lighthouse..unusual shape snd made of unpainted metal

and view from here, we had lunch at the bays

Inneston was almost a ghost town, with only the Managers Homestead, the Post Office and 2 other cottages restored and used for holiday let. The walking trail through the town had signs outside the remnants of the bakery, school building site, stables, Lime and Chalk works and furnace. You could hike along the old lime trail 7km to Stenhouse Bay jetty where the chalk was exported to Melbourne

I am normally the opener of the paddock gates...this was a first and a bit tricky

Blue Lake Inneston....a salt lake


We overnighted in Marion Bay Cvn Pk for easy access to the National Park

POINT TURTON the only modern but small town on the Peninsula, we stayed in the caravan park for 3 nights near the jetty. It is very beautiful and popular, but we had the worst site, hated the noise and lack of space so left a day early.  Fishing off the jetty and rocks was overcrowded at peak tide times and a bit hit and miss, but the water was crystal clear 

Sunrise is at 7.20am, it was not hard to catch

 Nearby Flahertys Beach, the temp hit the low 30s again, great timing for a final swim before winter

We went to the much more secluded BARKERS ROCKS bush camp for peace and quiet and squid fishing, Derek caught one, whilst others caught a few, I only caught a couple of small flathead

Squidding off this reef with a float and squid jig....we only had one float

This is a squid caught on a jig

Also great for swimming and snorkelling 

We had one day of rain, but a beautiful sunset

Promise to self ..... to go back to Barkers Rocks for a couple of weeks......loved it that much

On our way to the Yorke

Our aim this week was to reach the Yorke Peninsula - Moonta, and hopefully spend some time on the Boot sightseeing, fishing, crabbing and squidding. The weather has been so windy, averaging about 35km with gusts over 40km. The days have been sunny, but cool.

Smoky Bay oysters near Haslam are the best.... we bought them shucked, but only $10 for 13 if you shuck them yourself. For.Derek I did them Kilpatrick, and I had them with Brie, and Natural.  Two dozen went down well

We by-passed the crowds on Perlubie Beach, but bumped into friends we met in WA (that’s their van in the foreground) who had just spent 3 weeks here fishing, high tide had just caught many out during the night and were still bogged...the seaweed is a good indication of the tide mark

This is why you don’t stand on cliff edges...Venus Bay. Nothing holding this edge up

We took the Birdseye Highway across the Eyre Peninsula through lovely green grazing country side

Par Avion... what a mail box!

Beautiful huge tree just popped out of nowhere

Locke, it’s great to take a walk around the small country towns, they all have something unique to offer

Overnight at Cleve Weir free camp, the wheel house was open

The Aussie Book Exchange, a godsend to Nomads

Whyalla was the greenest I have ever seen it, it is normally grey salt bush and red dirt. Mt Laura Whyalla in the distance

Finally got to see my old house ...... it had been hidden behind a huge fence on my previous visits, sadly it wasn’t very tidy and now it’s all concrete, but still I have some great memories 

The new Whyalla circular jetty was finally completed, but only the crazy braved the winds

We have to do the washing sometime, so visited windy Port Germain, and soon got the washing dry whilst we had lunch, can’t beat the view.  Too windy to hang it under our awning, so tied it to the brick wall...

and a walk along the 1 mile jetty, that’s how far the tide goes out. We walked straight into the wind. 

We wondered what this was about we have never come across this before.... it use to stand off shore in the middle of Spencer Gulf, and was used to indicate to ships how high the tide was

Moonta is the top end and start of 11 nights on the Yorke Peninsula