West Side of the Eyre Peninsula 8-20 March 2015

Moving on from Port Lincoln I (Jolmer) am very keen to go to Coffin Bay and try to catch more scallops. It is the long weekend and Coffin Bay is packed. Dumping our black water is about all we can do before moving on. Elliston Caravan Park has a powered site for us and we desperately need to hook up to shore power. The water tank is very low and all would appreciate a shower.  Elliston is not much of a town nor is the natural bay. I am suffering from post Port Lincoln blues which does not help!

On we go towards Venus Bay. All the caravan parks along the West Coast are fully booked. They are absolutely packed with grey nomads who are making the most of the calmer autumn weather before heading north.  There is a bush camp with no power, no water, no normal showers and 1 single toilet just before Venus Bay.

Coodlie Park turns out to be heaven for us. For $10 per night rather then the usual $75 we have a large area of bush land where the kids can run around, a camp kitchen where they can do school work and a fire pit where we can make campfires for the first time this year.  Coodlie Park does have bucket showers. An ingenious system where you can fill a bucket with hot water, pull it up above your head and then let it run out slowly through a shower nozzle. Nice, for once.

Most of the coastline here is being assaulted by an almost constant flow of waves from the Southern Ocean. The lower layers of rock are very hard but the higher layers are softer and easily worn away which has lead to caves and sinkholes all along the coast. We visited the Thalia Caves and the Tub (a hole in the ground with a narrow tunnel leading to the battering waves of the ocean). I try to catch some fish at Venus bay but the wind makes it hard. Laura drags in the only worthy catch, a nice squid and we have another playful encounter with a pod of dolphins.

These same dolphins give us a great show the next day when we watch them from the cliff top while they play in the breaking surf waves. They ride the wave and then jump out the back meters high into the air.

For many years I have a dream to swim with dolphins. At Baird Bay this dream becomes reality. Baird Bay eco tours do a 2 in one tour: swim with sea lions and with dolphins. All the kids get suited up and we go on a 3 hour tour, first to the sea lions and then the dolphins. These sea lions are very used to visitors, it is part of their daily routine. Our boys don’t last very long in the cold water, but Laura plays with the sea lions for hours. Then it is off to find the dolphins. They are not in a very playful mood today but I do get a very good look at them once as they cruise past. At last, a dream come true...

At Surf beach we have a surf lesion from Emma, a local instructor. All the kids manage to stand up on the boards that we bought for them in Port Lincoln. They are hooked. Talking about a dream coming true: I hoped to get the kids surfing this year and it is not hard to get them keen.

The Eyre is coming to an end. Soon we will get to the Great Australian Bight. One of the last towns before the Bight and the Nullarbor is Ceduna. Here we meet up with Joll who flies in from Adelaide and together we go fishing with Ray, who is a retired local police officer and very, very keen fisherman. We spend 2 days on the water, learning a number of new tricks and bagging out on whiting the first day. We also catch more blue swimmer crabs and squid. 

As this is the last town before the big drive we stock up on food and fuel. I give some extra care to Jack who has been an amazing bus for us so far. The weather forecast is great. Tail wind for the long drive! I am happy we did not listen to our well travelled friends in Barham who all said we are driving the wrong way around! West Australia here we come!

East side of the Eyre Peninsula 24 Feb – 8 March

Port Augusta is a town at the very top of the Spencer gulf and marks the beginning of the Eyre Peninsula. I (Jolmer) decide that we do not have enough fishing rods so we stock up on 3 more reels and a small rod! Where the Yorke was narrow with tired roads and farm land at its most unattractive, the Eyre Peninsula offers brand new wide roads and endless scrub country. The economy of this part of the country is fuelled by mining. Mining is big dollars and it shows on the road. Very nice!

At Whyalla we park beachfront and start the next morning with a run on the beach. There are dolphins hanging around the fishing jetty and they make up for the lack of crabs. Tim and Hugo have a great time looking at them play in the water while the rest is doing school work.

When we try to leave, the bus does not start! From the steering wheel that is. We can still start from the engine bay at the back.  It is not easy to find an electrician in town who can help us but eventually we manage to get help and the spare part that will fix our starting problem. We push on to Cowell to find all the caravan parks booked out. A pity as I really wanted to stay a few days to fish the large bay here.  On we go to Tumby bay where we book into Modra Apartments. Not the apartments of course, but the owner Damien offers limited spaces for people that are self contained. It is at the harbor next to the boat launching facility. We catch squid and blue swimmer crabs in the bay and harbor. It is here that we make the first episode of the “Smit family fishing channel”: Talking Squid. (see previous Blog Magic Moments).

I am really loving this part of the country and when we pull into Port Lincoln this feeling only increases. We have another stunning parking spot for the bus at yet another boat launching facility, overlooking the Boston Bay. The weather is great and we go fishing and snorkeling in the bay catching blue swimmer crabs with nets and by hand. I also find a few scallops! There are razor fish aplenty and we cook some up (see previous blogs for recipe). Christel concentrates on school work with the kids and also takes them swimming in the local pool. From barely being able to swim before leaving, the oldest boys are rapidly transforming to very good swimmers and Tim and Hugo are starting as well.

A highlight for all of us is the swim with the tuna’s.  Port Lincoln is world famous for Blue Fin Tuna fishing. Nowadays the tuna get raised in pens in the harbor. Boats go out and catch juvenile Blue Fin Tuna on the edge of the continental shelf. They are then transferred back in big holding nets and grown out to commercial size fish before being sold to the Japanese buyers. One of the raising pens is changed into a tourist attraction where you are able to get into the water and swim with these fast swimming fish. It is amazing to see them from up close in their own environment.  Apart from the Tuna there is also a pen with Blue Morwong, Port Jackson bay sharks, Salmon, King fish and snapper.

Leaving Port Lincoln is hard. Between Tumby Bay and Port Lincoln we might be onto something for the future……..

The Yorke 11 -24 February 2015

Adelaide had done us well. With the EMST training course behind us and Jack fully loaded and refreshed it is time to hit the road again. We stop for a quick visit to the aviation museum before driving out of town and hit the wide-open roads.

Well, wide open is a fine way to describe the Yorke Peninsula. The Yorke Peninsula has the shape of a boot, just like Italy, and it lies between the Gulf of St Vincents and the Spencer Gulf. Formerly home to large herds of sheep and cattle, it is now mainly broad acre no till farming. At the end of summer that means endless bare paddocks with stubble from last year’s crop, waiting to be sown again after the autumn rain.  Summer is also the time of wind and with that dust.

The first stop is at Hugh and Marion’s house (friends of friends). They have been living and farming centrally on the peninsula their entire life. Next to their own farmhouse is a separate house that used to be the old homestead. We are given excess to the whole house and are able to hook Jack into mains power and water. Christel gets serious about schoolwork and I pull the new boat trailer out of its boxes and get the boat ready.

After a hard days work we go down to the beach and launch for the first time after Kangaroo Lake. It is great! The RIB works very well and we manage to catch about a dozen garfish. There is even a dolphin that comes to say hi when we return to the beach. Laura attempts to stalk it and see it with her snorkel but the dolphin stays just out of sight.

On the way back I manage to get the car stuck in the sand. Digging out does not work so we head back to the homestead and I get help from Hugh and his other 4x4. It does not take long to pull the car out of the sand again, unfortunately on the way back the boat is not secured enough and it slides off the trailer onto the gravel road. This is not good for a fiberglass boat! There is a big hole in the bottom of it together with damage to the trailer as well. 

Our children have a great time playing on the farm with old mowers and other toys. We explore the top end of the peninsula a bit by car.

Over the weekend temperatures soar to 42Celcius and we have an in-house airco movie marathon. On Monday I find a repairman for the boat and trailer and by Tuesday we are on the road again further south with a big thanks to the Wearing Family for all their support and hospitality.

Peter has his birthday at Corney Point (the nose of the Yorke boot). He turns 7!  We celebrate with the usual streamers, cake and presents. Then it is off to the beach for body boarding in the surf of Berry Bay and Pizza for diner.

Marion Bay is our final stop on the Yorke. We camp here and explore the Innes National Park with its beautiful bays, rock formations, lighthouse and Stenhouse Bay Jetty. The jetty was used to load Gypsum onto ships in the good old days. All the kids take to the water at Chinamen’s Hat. This is a rock formation that creates a sheltered bay ideal for snorkeling. The RIB proofs invaluable as we go fishing in the big Marion Bay and against the cliffs east of Stenhouse Bay.

The Yorke roads are narrow and as we drive up north again it takes a lot of concentration to keep it all together. We camp the night at Port Germein, home to the longest timber jetty of South Australia. I try to catch some blue swimmer crabs off the jetty at night and catch only small ones. The next day we all walk to the end of the jetty. It is truly very long!!

Adelaide - First week of February

Being in Adelaide is a bit like coming home for me (Christel). When I was in my fourth year of Medical School I was fortunate enough to be part of a research project in Adelaide that lasted 6 months and had me living on North Terrace in the residential wing of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, back in 1999.

My two worlds couldn’t be further apart, considering I was a single Med-Student then, returning now married and with a lot of children. Mode of transport is also very different. I was driving a mint green Mitsubishi Sigma Station Wagon back then, and now we’re pulling in with a Denning-Super-Amazing-Motorhome.

Jolmer is navigating the Adelaide Hills very well, low gear and slow descent. The only tricky thing is to figure out where to stay, not all caravan parks welcome dogs, and most parking lots are not for overnight stays. After two nights on the Adelaide Foreshores we shift to Belair National Park, slightly in the hills, with a pool and a welcome sign for Flicky.

Here is where we are much better suited, the bikes are coming out of the trailer and the awning is being set up with all the possible side flaps we can find.

This is where we start the first term of distance education. Let’s say we need a couple of weeks to get the hang of it. I need to be broken in as a supervisor, and the children need to adjust to having their mother around delivering the work.

Of all of them Jaap is the one who misses his former teacher the most.

Jolmer is committed to teaching a trauma course and is away for a couple of days.

We hit the city for a visit to Adelaide Zoo, a walk through the Botanical Gardens, casting a look at the glass house and the windows of the residential wing where I once lived. Into the CBD to return to Scoozi for lunch –which I must mention: many times had I been here in 1999. Anno 2015 we find the restaurant unchanged! Even the penne with chicken and broccoli in white cream sauce with black pepper is still on the menu. I am hit by a major flash back, and cannot express the joy of being able to show my children and share pizza with them. So after we were there earlier in the week, we have to return for cake this time.

The day continues in the cinema where we watch the Australian movie Paper Planes. What a very sweet film. Please go and see it, rent it, download it, or buy it.

We finish the day with a quick round of ten pin bowling. Who says we cannot have fun while Dad is teaching?

The rest of the weekend is less eventful; actually, we are in a bit of a pickle, because the black water tank is full. Very full indeed. It is starting to get smelly in the bus, and I don’t think it is wise to maneuver the bus to the dump point on my own. Firstly because the awning and all its flaps are up, and secondly, I don’t know yet how to empty the black water tank. We are stuck with a smelly tank and visits to the toilet amenities –which is really not a big deal.

Jolmer is pleased with his teaching achievements and when we are reunited we start making plans to move on from here –and empty the tank of course.

There are two more things that need to happen before we go: we catch up with my supervisor and teacher from 16 years ago, prof. Deb Turnbull. How very precious to catch up with her and pick her brain at the same time about my current research project.

Secondly Peter is ready for his first swim test. We are doing this the Dutch way and he is getting his skills tested for a Swimming Diploma A. Laura comes with us to the SA Aquatic Centre, a very large swimming pool complex. He swims with his clothes on first–this is one of his tests- and does a few skills including floating on his back, on his stomach and swimming a certain distance. After that he needs to tread water for a minute. During practice he has reached to the side of the pool a number of times and I have been worried, but with a lot of screaming and encouragement he does his full minute and passes for his A Diploma.

I haven’t even mentioned our trip to Ikea (Laura, Jaap and myself), our visit to our financial adviser and his family for an evening meal, and our late night trip to Mount Lofty summit. This lookout point is closed after dark, so we have no choice but to sneak around the entrance building in the cold windy evening, to be able to enjoy the breathtaking views of the city by night. And there are many more little things that would be too much to mention.

Adelaide, I love you! City where somehow the majority of traffic lights always seems to be green, where the time passes at its own pace, where the hills are just a stone throw away, where we caught up with old friends and met new people.

It has been a terrific ten days. Let’s not wait another 16 years before we catch up again.