Hi from Walleroo, Yorke Peninsular

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We have booked into the caravan park on the water at Walleroo on the western coast of the Yorke Peninsular. After a day of catching up on washing and being lazy in the sun, we left Port Vincent this morning and drove down the east coast and across to the western side.

The scenery was mostly farming with the very green paddocks and a few sheep, with lambs, and always the ocean in view. It's a stoney coast and the paddocks have many stones piled up, made into rock walls and the ever present stone houses - it reminded me of western Ireland with all the stones.

We stopped for lunch at the wharf at Port Victoria, notable because it was from this wharf that the last two windjammers left full of grain in 1949. This side of the Peninsular is known as the Copper Coast and was inhabited by Cornish miners who came up from Burra, north of Adelaide, to mine the copper. In fact each year there is a Cornish festival and all the food shops advertise Cornish pasties. I think the copper mines are now closed but grain is the big thing all around the area with a few big silos at wharfs and we saw a biggish ship being loaded with grain somewhere on our travels today.

We came to Kadina - our first biggish town for a few days, and then this town. Wallaroo is undergoing a transformation, from a mining town full of the little old stone houses, to attracting tourists. They've built a new marina with big McMansions on estates and canals nearby. I have to get used to the sun setting over the ocean - I supposed we'll see that a lot in the next few weeks.

We haven't seen much wildlife apart from birds - just one echidna drinking from a puddle at the side of the road. Everything else has been roadkill - three foxes, three roos, a wombat and an emu. Perhaps there'll be more live animals on the Nullabor.

Our next area after this will be towards the Eyre Peninsular. The day begins cloudy but by about 11am each day the sun is shining and warms things up. It has become cooler the last couple of days, only about 16C. We can't wait till we're once more in the warmth and can pack away the winter clothes - but that probably won't be till we're north of Perth.

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