The Eyre Peninsula – Part 1

As we drove down to our first camp on the Eyre we blow a tyre on the caravan. Not too much of a big deal until we realised that the jack wouldn’t lift it up high enough to put new tyre on. So we had to get car jack out (which is behind boys seat) and jack up enough to get some pavers under then put jack on top. After an hour Matt had it changed.





Our first camp on the Eyre was at Port Gibbon which had been recommended to us by fellow travellers, Garry & Kath. It was a good low cost camp with 2 drop loo’s, water, shower cubicle which you can take your solar shower into and have a wash. All for $5 per night, can’t go wrong. As we were setting up other travellers came over and spoke to us. It was exactly what we needed. We hadn’t had a very good couple of days so friendly people was exactly what we needed.

Beach wasn’t nice but covered in seaweed. Still good enough for playing in the sand. 



I have never seen seaweed like this. The waves were crashing and pushing it up. It was fascinating.



We took a drive into Cowell, a great fishing town. Seems like a popular place for fishermen as caravan park was full and so was the boat ramp. Boys had a play at park.



On our way back to camp we stopped and looked at some air raid shelters that were left from world war 2. They were pretty interesting.



We had been told there was sea lions just around the point. So we took a drive to see if we could find them. But the boys found sand dunes instead which is much more interesting and fun.



After some fun in the sand dunes we started looking for the sea lions. Off in our own world Ethan yells out “What’s that?” He spotted one. He thought it was a rock until it moved. 



We couldn’t find anymore. One was better than nothing and he was a big one. Matt got within 3 metres of him until he started to growl.

The next day we had a cruisy day a bit of fishing, bit of washing and a chill out day.

From here we were going to go to Lipson Cove which is meant to be beautiful but very open. It was a windy day so we decided that we’d keep going down to a place called Louth Bay. It was a good low cost camp. Only enough room for 6 vans but flush toilets, 2 in each. And there was water and 100 meters away a beautiful little beach. 500 meters there was a jetty and playground. All for $10 per night. So we stayed 5, making this our home base to see some of the places we’d driven past and to explore Port Lincoln from.





We went into Port Lincoln and got 2 new tyres for the caravan just so we didn’t have to worry about blowing one going across the Nullarbor and paying top dollar. They were both as old as the van. We also wanted to get a new battery so it could run our waeco as we have been struggling with  having a enough power. So Matt found what we needed online and organised for it to get ship from Adelaide overnight. Being a long weekend they told us we had to have picked up from the transport company by 8.30am Saturday. We raced into town got it then went back to camp and chilled out.



Matt had been fishing every night since Port Gibbon but hasn’t  caught anything. His luck had finally changed and he caught 3 squid. Not knowing how to clean them he brought them back to camp as Ethan & I had watch Des clean some back at Burners Beach. So with some very poor instructions Matt cleaned them up.



Next day we back tracked and went and checked out Tumby Bay & Arno Bay. Both were great spots that we’d love to spend some more time in. Tumby Bay was the bigger of the two and more commerical. But beautiful.







Arno Bay was full of history, with the boys we find it very hard to read all the information plaque’s. 1 that I got to read said about the mail ship bringing the mail,it would take a month for the mail to get there from Adelaide and that obviously would depend on the sea. So there would be signal put out so that people knew when it was arriving. People from all areas would come and see if their parcels had arrived. What a different time it was back then. 

Matt read 1 that told the story of the first man that started the farming of tuna in the ocean. How he would hatch them in aquamarines then taken out to sea and put them in tuna pots so that they were still in their natural habitat but in farm conditions. Each pot has to be more than  3 kilometres apart. We then started noticing these everywhere.

Was a great spot with lots of fishermen. Community is really behind the tourism here which just makes the towns just that bit more inviting.











 Ethan wanted to watch the sunrise, so he and I went down to the beach the next morning and watched. It was beautiful.



He did get a little bit sidetracked when he saw some seagulls.



We had been bribing the boys with Maccas for the past few days. So we drove around Port Lincoln checking out the Habour, called in and got some more supplies then they were rewarded with Maccas and a play at the park.