Streaky Bay and Wilmington

Streaky Bay is a nice little fishing town that boasts the record for the largest shark caught on a rod. We arrived there on Brielle's actual birthday after passing through the Ceduna fruit checkpoint and the oyster roadside bar, two must stops.




That evening we went out for dinner at the local which was quite nice, the sneeze guard over the salad bar was of top notch quality and the kids were given activity bags which was a welcome touch.





After spending a few hours in the bar we were surprised to see that the wind had picked up considerably whilst we ate and Darren rushed back to secure his awning. Fortunately a chap from a neighbouring van had kindly packed up Darren's awning for him after almost losing his own, lucky he did as the wind was quite strong by the time we returned and would have made a real mess of it for sure. Something we learnt a while back...take your awning down at night or put the annex up - twice I dragged Ves out of bed in the wee hours of the morning to hold the awning whilst I ran around dropping it!



The next day we drove on one of the tourist loop roads highlighting all of the local attractions which included several rocky outcrops of coastline with lookouts, some unimpressive rock pools and a sea lion colony which was much more impressive than the rock pools. The sea lions were a real hit and Brielle often refers back to them. Unfortunately some the lookouts and rock pool shots did out come out as there was no memory card in the camera.

The next stop on the loop road was an area called the "Murphy's Haystacks" which reminded us of the devils marbles. More impressive than the rock pools, probably not quite as impressive as the sea lions, so it would have to be a close second for the day. There was actually dozens upon dozens of these rocks, the pics certainly don't capture the way these just pop up in a field in the middle of nowhere. They are pink granite structures that were formed about 100,00 years ago via erosion of the surrounding rock.

We spent one final day in Streaky Bay where we lazed around for a bit, did a quick shop and didn't have a coffee at a cafe as planned as they were all shut, didn't go down well. Was nice weather so the boys took an esky onto the pier to go for some King George's but ended up having fun with floats and herring instead. The majority of these became food for the local pelicans which was enjoyable for the kids....not so much for the mums when all the kids came back smelling of fish after tossing them to the birds.

Due to poor weather conditions we decided to leave the main Eyre Peninsula (Coffin Bay and Port Lincoln) for another trip and detour slightly north towards the Flinders Ranges. To do this we drove from Streaky Bay to Wilmington to walk the gorge there before heading into the Flinders the following day. After the last month or so of beach it was a nice change to be back in the gorges ad tracks.

Wilmington also saw the departure of Darren, Stacey, Evie and Remmy. Thanks guys had heaps of laughs,  good luck with your travels, make some room in your freezer for the salmon!