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!!
No comments:
Post a Comment