Fowlers Bay..a place we will return to for a longer stay!

Here we sit in the rain at Balladonia, POWER and INTERNET and a lovely hot shower, the last day of May. This is about our last few weeks.

Cactus beach, 21 km south of Penong, we lunched here and watched some surfers, one of the best surfing area in Aus.
To get here we drove on a causeway between shallow salt lakes which reflected pink, Cheltenham Salt is 'mined' here.

PENONG, aboriginal word meaning "waterhole". Penong is known as the town of 100 windmills, we did not see that many, these are apparently owned by individuals for their water supply.

I need to explain the importance of the characters in this chapter...there is us.

In Ceduna Doug and Jean Hawke from Kerang caught up with us, our intention is to travel together as it suits catch up here and there, each year we have spent alot of travel time together.
Micks' cousin Jim Greer and his wife Julie ex Whorouly South and from Kerang also, not known to Doug and Jean, by staying in contact with family we knew Jim and Julie were going to be in Fowlers Bay..hence the catch up. Jim sends us a message that Jan managing caravan park will be known to Doug and Jean...and so when we go to book in for a few days there is Darren and Jan also from Kerang!! a tremendous, fun loving couple on a 'sea-change'...our few days ended up being 11 days and we reluctantly left, to return one day.

As we aproached Fowlers over the rise we saw a beautiful blue bay, tide in, long jetty, white sand dunes and a few houses, picture card perfect. The permanent population is 19. Mick andI had stayed there overnight many years ago.

Cousin Jim and Julie are staying there till maybe Oct, as they look after the amenities about an hour a day and are enjoying a travel lifestyle too. There is only the park office in the town with a few supplies, pies coffee and cake.  Ceduna is 160km away and the ladies make it a day out at least every 10 days on average. No mobile service, internet or TV unless you have a satelite dish, the locals all have satelite setups, own water supply from 'soaks' and water tanks and solar systems, there is no grid power, no water service, no RATES ..and a great friendly community spirit.

 
 Fowlers Bay from the dunes, there is a Motel which operates when the Whale season commences, June-Oct, and in summer and other hols.

Whales come into the bay to calf and rest, we were too early to see any although there had been some sightings.
People talked about he whales coming in and rubbing on the jetty to get their barnicles off!!










On the edge of town at the base of the dunes, which incidentaly keep moving...are the 'soaks' ie fresh water pushed up by the tides, quite amazing and a good fresh water supply, no more new soaks are available. Mostly the water is pumped by the windmills but currently the park has a solar pump on theirs.

Darren checking his solar pump and water supply 'soak'. Many lines of poly pipe on top of the ground to each property from here.

We attended a Morning tea fund raiser for Breast Cancer in the local hall. About 50 people enjoyed a delicious morning tea of sweet and savoury country cooking and there were many prizes to be won..we won none! Over $2000 was raised on the day, some $'s were donated online.

 

A Saturday night 'lamb on the spit' nite at the hall,cooke dby the lads...roast vegs and sweets and coffee..$15 each, another $800 for the night with abround 50 in attendance mainly from the caravan park. The hall has a new kitchen, has been rendered inside and out to stop the salt damp, new windows arrive in July and the next project is to line the roof..small community great energy, proud to live in Fowlers Bay.

 

Darren and Jan have a 'cook up' at the caravan park each weekend if nothing on at the hall.There is a comfortable camp kitchen and tables and a pit fire is lit each evening for anyone to gather around and have some social interaction.

First night out on the lit, 300 +meter jetty and Doug lands 2 huge squid..40+cm tubes. One was delicious stuffed with a flavoured rice and cooked in a hot oven for 15 minutes, then sliced, very nice.

Mexican Hat is this area, and another nearby beach is Scotts Beach, good for salmon fishing, about a 15 km dive from Fowlers, you can also camp in these areas but the caravan park was great and the jetty kept us busy, trevalley, mullet proved to be good eating and tommy ruffs for bait and a few leather jackets, we caught a few more smaller squid then they disappeared!

 

Jean and I had a 3 hour walk up and along the dunes, good workout.

On the very very top we could see all they way to Mexican Hat

The history of the area is well documented, I liked these....

On Sunday Jan and Darren  have 3 hours off for the week so off we went  over the dunes..

To see the sea lions, bask and swim, beautiful sight from up on the cliff.

BBQ lunch on the cliff top, blue sky, serene.

Lionel the local showing the novices how to cliff fish!! They caught about 18 'sweep' on cockles in a short time which was enough after Mick went around and took a photo pf the 25meter face!

Whaling was a big time industry here, the  sand dunes have covered up much of the evidence

 

At the end of a great day Lionel says come around and I will cook the fish!! We negotiate with Rosalie his partner that we will bring, me fried rice, Julie a salad and Jean made 2 apple pies and Jan arrived with some nibbles ..a great evening was had by us in Lionel and Rosalies shed..fish and chips, cooked on 4 burner gas rings in camp ovens using canola oil, hot as... quick as...best fish I have eaten this way, a great night..Fowlers Bay hospitality was the best!

 

 

There is heaps more I could say about Fowlers Bay, early morning walking group, not real speedy but still out there, I only went once, but was able to do heaps of other walks, plenty of them on the jetty, day and night always action there.

The caravan park is small, has a great atmosphere and is fanatically clean and tidy.. and herb beds, every park should have these!


This sausage we bought in Ceduna, nice...kangaroo

Brutus, every ones friend, he would meet you at the jetty start barking and run along and get excited right above a school of fish!

 

So ends Fowlers ...lots of nice people visit there, come for a day stay for many.

 

 

 

and this is yet another pic of doug and I cannot get rid of it

 

 

 

 

 

The Concrete Crappa!!

 A 180 km trip from Kimba to Minnipa for the day and another free camp spot maintained by the Apex Club...very little town, more grain silos.


Again we unhitched in the morning and went touring, on other trips we were not in the Freedom Lifestyle mode..









Yep this is the the 'public convenience' at Minnipa.

 This area was a few km out of town and would have been lovely to camp at, missed it and it was mentioned in the Wikicamps app..poo

Note the 'outback dunny' to the left amongst the trees, camera went flat just when I wanted to take a classic shot.

 Many of the early settler houses were built like this out of stones collected near by, still plentyof stones/rocks around, very rocky country.

This is the edge of a lovely rocky outcrop, water directed into a concrete drain and into a dam

 Like I have said no shortage of rock and hard work.

 



 My Mick..could have pushed this over a few years ago!















From the top of the rock, rain storms passing in the distance, no rain for the wheat oats or barley crops which were just starting to sprout. The concrete drain to the dam is amongst the trees in centre of picture .



This is in the Gawler Ranges area an area which we think would be great to go to in either Autumn, or late spring for a few weeks. Maybe next year sometime...

At Minnipa..built in the 1920..the largest concrete water storage in the southern hemisphere..reckon the 'men' of today better think about 'manning up'...


We popped into Streaky Bay..we had stayed there on other occasion, not much changed size wise to the town but very nice street scaping in progress. Nice long jetty walk, and a shop keeper should have been pleased to see us.....we have been croc-ed!

 

this was another overnighter just before Ceduna and a CARAVAN PARK, our first park in 3 weeks, and that was real POWER that a very long SHOWER!

 

Smokey Bay and Ceduna..Oyster capital of Aus!

Oyster leases out of Smokey Bay, the boat just before this was stacked high with loaded oyster racks, I guess this was the overflow...

 

this is how we travel with wet laundry..

 

and this is what happens when I have not done a thorough 'cabin check'!

Corelle is good!

I have had the fridge contents on the floor..once!

Sugar and coffee can be messy too, done that once!

Shit happens..goodnight!

 

 

 

 

 

Thankyou Edward John Eyre...

Thinking about Eyre..what an adventourous young man he was... 23 years of age when he did all the exploring in this area across South Aust.
Eyre Peninsular, Eyre Highway and Lake Eyre...all harsh country.


From Whyalla we hit north to Iron Knob, then westward in various 'rain events'. Skiffy showers.


 A poor pic of Iron Knob, small settlement there, and a free mine tour M-F wrong days for us but I believe it is very good.
There is a speck on the right of the left mound, that is a crusher..the mounds are huge.

 Kimba..on the highway. Big galah statue there, one of the 'big' things you are supposed to see in Aus.
A nice little town with great  free off road camp areas...welcoming town. We stayed in the Lions Club area frequented by a local who loved to chat, a grain grower who retired into town 20 years ago. We unhitched here and did a 50 km circuit out to Buckleboo which was actually some huge grain silos, for wheat, barley and oats.
These silos with Viterra named (as are all the silos we have seen)  on them were operated by a canadian company but end of last year were taken over by Glencore another huge overseas commodity trader....so not Aussie owned...la la la.

Eyre and his indigenous friend..note the compas, no GPS or iphone.These sculptures are very interesting perched on a hill out of Kimba near the golf course.

 In the background..huge communication tower and our vehicle...think I am glad to be living in this century...what amazing changes we have experienced..coming from persons born before the middle of last century...ahhhhh

Bascombe Rocks.

On a good gravel road out of town we walked over and looked at some 'soaks'..in all our travels we have never seen these. The rock outcrops/mounds had moss growing on them and they were an natural water catchment system. This wall had been built to chanel water down to a dam and a soak area. It was a day after very little rain and as mentioned in litrature tadpoles had hatched and snails and wormy things..fascinating.

The pic is of a small patch of moss...I guess it burns off in the really hot weather.

This is a really pretty place..for the outback, there is beauty everywhere, just depends how you look at it I guess.

A lady in the laundry said to me today..you must have seen all Australia..
no way and we never will and every season and climate change offers new experiences.








Eyre Highway, ex Viterra grain silos and the water pipeline from Morgan on the Murray as previously mentioned, which ends in Ceduna but branches off all over SA..and when speaking to a local about it he claimed that SA only takes 7% of the flow..dunno bout that...he started going off about all the greedy so and so's in other states..outa that discussion!

Outback SA cruising...wide open spaces

Burra SA is a cute little town with a copper and tin mining past, lots of rock homes and old shops. Whoopee it was the annual Antique fair weekend, so we had a nice browse thru market stalls and a few shops and checked a great quilting exhibition...they do my head in, I could never plan to do such things and admire friends who do quilting.

On the Barrier Hwy we were  amazed by the many km of wind generators along Mt Bryan, lots of info about them when I googled it!

We camped up at Peterbrough, out in the sticks while our mate Dennis W was having his Surprise 70th in View Bank, Melb...sorry we could not be there!

 These were quite unique at Orroroo, many layers of corrugated iron and the heads moved in the wind.

All my pics are from my iphone...so not the best quality but it saves carting around and keeping track of everything...just love my phone..rarely used as a phone!

Some of our travel days have only been 150-200km depends on the head winds and how we are feeling, and what camps are around etc..no rush anymore..the Freedom Lifestyle!





Planned destination Point Lowly about 30 km north of Whyalla, 6 warm and relaxing days, right on the water near a little harbour. The port was used for the fish farmers who have since moved out and there are a few very nice I might add beach shacks, the locals known as 'shakies'.
There were often up to 40 vans etc set up in this area, max stay 2 week and must be away for 5 weeks before coming back..I am sure that is what many people did.

It was time for the new specs after the cataract surgeries so into Whyalla, selected 2 pr specs which I will be able to collect in Kalgoorlie at a later date....Freedom lifestying..just make things happen where ever you may be...
We had a nice experience in Whyalla when the local Bra Shop or the retirng husband of owner picked us for travellers and proceeded to tell us all about the town and its mining and steel work, ship building history and about the water pipe line from the Murray and the fact that due to so much unused Murray water that they had a 400 head dairy farm and some irrigated cropping..all in the salt bush country.. the dairy is no long visible and the water was diverted to Iron Knob up on the Eyre Hwy. He talked of the Goyder Line which I had heard of but not remembered much about and how the saltbush is one side of it and the mallee scrub the other..googled it and it is all about the rain fall either side of a line across the bottom  Aus...freedom lifestying allows us to have these great chats..we liked the red rusty looking Whyalla, but it would be very hot in summer.

 Point Lowly is at the top of the Spencer Gulf and this is the area where giant cuttlefish come to breed, there are currently concerns about their deminishing numbers so the area was close for a year to cuttlefishing..but the squid were plentiful as were some late season blue swimmer crabs caught in drop nets off the jetty.






These are squid caught on a squid jig, they pull and squirt black squid ink out, the plan is out in the water, but sometimes you cop it when they are in..if you're are not too smart!!
The leg/tenticles can suck onto you but you pull them and the head out, keep that for bait for the crab pots, you can eat the leg things but when you cook them they can cause the oil to splatter and I get spot fat burns and crack the shits..so they are better off bait! With the help of some sand the outside 'wings' are peeled off, you can eat these, then there is a flat bone in the body which you pull out, and then turn the 'hood' inside out and clean it..not hard..and there you have it CALAMARI

 The crabs are blue before cooking and are fun to catch in some areas we have waded and raked them, fun thing to do til a sting ray floats by!!
These were caught in drop pots, there is a size limit, we kill and clean our crabs before cooking, makes for nicer eating, some people cook them whole and deal with the gut as they eat..not us!!

Half crabs we drop into boiling water for about 5 minutes, they are delicious and sweet as..yum.

 The squid hood can be sliced into rings or diced into pieces, to make pieces roll up you need to score the inside of the flesh..battering is nice but fattening, very quick to cook.

My favourite way is to coat/shake with salt and pepper and Chinese 5 spices,  cook about 40 seconds in very hot oil...you need to be careful not to over cook or you end up rubber bands!

Beer or wine is a must!

For those not familiar with camping this is the 'dump point' for the 'dunny'...not my job I must add.

There is always water at a dump point and unless otherwise indicated it is suitable to use for the caravan water tank!!

Just have to get your head around it!!!

It can also be the place to get water for washing...note my washing stick..a 'sailors washing machine' actually a funnel with large holes drilled in it attached to a walking stick, does a great job, usually my job, but Mick is the hereo here!!
(if only for the photo)