A weekend in Ceduna

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Odd to start a new post with a Postscript but nevertheless:







As we continued on our way further west on Friday, 5^th July we stopped at Minnipa for a quick break and whilst we were having a look at the information board about the area we discovered that the LP Track we were on in the Gawler Ranges Nat.Park is in fact a one-way track. In our defence, we were only going one way and there was no (apparent) signage to tell us which direction we should have been going in. I rest our case.















Ceduna is the largest town in far west coast of South Australia, it being just 480km away from the Western Australia border. A lady we met on the START Foundation Ride for the RAH 4 years ago originally hails from Ceduna and we sought her advice as to which caravan park we should stay in (there are 3 in town). Her suggestion was the Shelly Beach park and it has proven to be ideal for us. It is 3km out of town nestled behind sand hills and has large sites separated by little native garden beds. When we saw how the caravan park on the foreshore packed their guests in like sardines we were grateful for the quiet space here.







John spent time on Saturday morning washing the car getting rid of all the excess mud and muck from the gravel roads of recent days, whilst I caught up with our personal washing. Into town for a quick shopping trip and then a drive down to Smoky Bay to see if anything exciting was happening there. Unfortunately there wasn’t.







Purely in the interests of “Market Research” (wink, wink) we have decided that we will undertake to taste as many oysters as we can whilst travelling around the southern areas of the Eyre Peninsula, famed for its seafood. This will happen more toward the end of our trip of course, as we follow the coastline around, but today we thought we might find some down at Smoky Bay given that there is a large Aquaculture Park accommodating several oyster farmers. It turned out to be wishful thinking, but we will persevere! We started the research Friday afternoon – we went to a fish processing store in Thevenard which is just a short drive from Ceduna township. We bought some lovely filleted King George Whiting but his oysters were $17.50/dozen whereas the local supermarket had some juicy plump local ones for just $13.50/dozen – plus, at the supermarket we could also buy a lemon to squeeze over them.







Thevenard is the deep sea port area of Ceduna and it handles exportation of bulk grain, salt and gypsum whilst also sharing the bay with small fleets of fishing boats, the majority of which are skippered by Greek Australians.







The weather turned a little late Saturday afternoon with some light showers, but we enjoyed 22oC before it did so.







Whilst in town this morning we wanted to buy some wine – we prefer to carry casks when travelling. There were no 4lt casks on the shelves, so we picked up 2x 2ltr packs each of red and white wine. We felt sorry for the salesperson at the drive-through bottle shop when he had to tell us that, because of alcohol abuse amongst aborigines, strict regulations meant that we could only buy 1x 2lt pack each per day and that they had to be put through as two separate transactions. Our driver licences were scanned so that they could monitor who has bought wine and when. Such a sad situation that impacts everyone.





Sunday, 7^th July







We woke to a glorious morning after some reasonable rain yesterday evening. We had a bit of a lazy day owing to a restless night thanks to head colds that we have picked up – nuisance factor 10!







We enjoyed a lovely walk in the sunshine along the jetty and then climbed the sand hill behind the park to gaze out over the very calm waters of Bosanquet Bay before going back to the van and sorting out our plan of attack tomorrow as we depart Ceduna.







Still having problems connecting to the internet and even personal hotspot is playing up – given that it has been working previously we can only assume that the signal here is so weak (one bar only) nothing can connect securely. So, we will just keep drafting and post at a later date – nuisance factor 10+!

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Comments

[Lyn]

Looking good, so peaceful!