Clare Valley to Yorke Peninsula

March 13 to March 20

While in Clare, on the way to Blyth for Sunday night (13^th), we dropped into the Knappstein Winery for a tasting. Not only do they have pretty darn good wines, but they brew two beers onsite. The beers were only fair (they’re all good, just some are better than others, hey Steve Maney?).

From there we headed across to the western side of the Yorke, travelling through Snowtown and Bute to Wallaroo on the Spencer Gulf. A great jetty but the only fishing is swimmer crabs (I call that crabbing, they call it “fishing”?) and squid. Some whiting, Australian salmon and gar fish around, but you must use floats due to the massive sea grass beds.

Marion Bay, morning coffee then a headland walk

We overnighted in Moonta Monday night, an historic mining town, a very well planned historic walk around the town again reminded us of how old some of their mining settlements are. We headed to Port Hughes for the first of many “Walk the Yorke” walks. Walk the Yorke was finally completed last year, and incorporates many loop walks but also the ability to trek the entire peninsula, some 300+kms. We completed many sections of Walk the Yorke over the next week. Tuesday night we were in Warooka at the local oval, a really central spot on the Peninsula which we used for three nights over the week.

Stenhouse Bay, Inneston Gypsum Train

Wednesday was Marion Bay near the bottom end of the “boot” shaped peninsula. Although it was a chores day for washing etc. we managed to have a good look around Marion Bay. Thursday was dedicated to the Innes National Park on the tip of the peninsula, and as far as National Parks go, this stacks up with the best! I would put it above Freycinet in Tassie, a lot more accessible. There is the ruins of Inneston, the Gypsum mining settlement in the 1800’s, which was a great self-guided walk. The coastal walks were spectacular as was the West Cape Lighthouse area. 

West Cape, Innes NP

I often complain about paying to enter some national parks, not this one! After most of the day there, we headed north to check out Corny Point and a cool ship wreck skeleton on Ethel Beach (think Dickey Beach but 10x the size), before returning to Warooka for the night.

Friday was coastline on the “heel” of the peninsula, more great walks and fantastic weather. It is the dry season for them and it has also been quite warm, ideal for tourists.

Not the World Champ, only 40 seconds

Saturday was a bit of a highlight for me, not only do I delight is finding great overnight camps, I love to stumble on (or planning for) small town festivals/music events/sporting events. Saturday was the Curramulka Speedshear Competition. Shearers from around Australia and New Zealand (yep, two from NZ) compete to shear a prepared sheep (neck, rump and stomach already shawn) as fast as they can, without missing any fleece or cutting the sheep. The current Guinness Book of Records titleholder was there, and 23.5 seconds later the sheep was shawn (and looking ……. “sheepish”).

We overnighted in Ardrossan, a coastal town on the eastern side of the peninsula, one of the better sites of the trip, right in the town and a short walk to the beach.

Sunday was tough. Leah’s dad is still in hospital, we have been getting daily updates, and they keep finding more issues with his health. We knew Leah had to go back, but it may take a number of weeks to finalise Russell’s issues and then prepare for his rehabilitation. We decide to PAUSE (not abort) our trip and drive back to Caloundra, planning to be back Easter Weekend. We have commitments in Darwin late June so we will resume our trip, all things being equal, in the next month or so, going north through Queensland and over to the Northern Territory. Once we are on the road again we will let you all know.

Broken Hill Lookout ....... what?

Overnight in Nyngan, next to the Big Bogan

 As we are driving back through Broken Hill/Cobar/Nyngan, we still tried to visit a few places as we may not have reason to go this way again. I have added a couple of photos of this drive for fun, the Nyngan one is for my “bogan” mates at Literacy, I won’t name names.

Adelaide to Burra

March 6 to March 13

After relentless winds Sunday night (6^th), we were happy to hit the road Monday, and head into Adelaide. Our mail is being redirected to Leah’s Dad’s place while we’re away, so Steve Maney kindly bundled it up and sent it to Pack and Send Adelaide for us to collect Monday. This will probably be a (roughly) 6 weekly task, even though we have pretty much changed all our important correspondence to electronic versions.

Spectacular coastline south of Adelaide

It is a very pretty drive up the coast to Adelaide, initially headlands plunging to the ocean, then sandy beaches further up the coast. We had a beach walk at Christies Beach, lunch at Brighton Beach, checked out Glenelg before dropping in to see “old” Pack and Send friends John and Sue in Adelaide. We overnighted in Torrens in the Adelaide Hills. A warning light on my dash decided to come on, and after much investigating (over two days) it was found to be a faulty brake fluid reservoir indicator. 

This 40cm example is the best so far Marky!

Our couple of days in the ‘Hills was well spent visiting the early German settlements of Lobethal and Hahndorf and tasting chocolate, cheese and vanilla slices (can’t be all wine and beer). We had 35 degrees on Tuesday so we didn’t miss all the heat wave Adelaide has been experiencing.

Heading north we entered the Baroosa Valley (yay, back to wines) and did a bush walk through the Jacobs Creek vineyard. We overnighted in Greenock just north of Tununda. The local council has done a great job in opening up all the small town’s footy ovals (they all have one, even tiny towns) for self-contained RV’s to overnight at. Very quiet, flat and spacious. We had a call from Leah’s dad that he was having shortness of breath, they admitted him into Kawana Private Hospital to do tests. It appears to be a chest infection, he is on antibiotics and they are keeping him in for observation. Hopefully he will be recovering quickly and discharged shortly. Mitchell is visiting frequently and getting him what he needs.

The plan for Thursday was to get another x-ray of my wrist so a doctor could give me the go-ahead to remove the cast and start rehab. A false start at the Kapunda Hospital when they didn’t want to do it so they sent me to Gawler, who also didn’t want to do it, but after a bit of negotiating they were very helpful! The doc gave me the all clear, and a few tips for our trip, not many doctors take the time to write a list and draw sketches of places to visit and surf!

Tide out, Port Parham

We travelled to Port Parham for the night, to a free camp on the gulf coast. The two photos show you the tidal movement, we literally couldn’t make out the waterline at low tide, more than a kilometre from the dunes. As we have experienced most of the way from the South Australian border, masses of sea grass washes up on the beach.

Tide in, Port Parham

Back to the wine regions, this time the Clare Valley. Did a nice “climb” to Neagles Rock above Clare, then an historic walk through the town. Many of these towns were settled in the mid 1800’s, and because their primary construction for buildings is stone, many are still in use (or fairly complete ruins) today. Many of them have self-guided walks so you can wander the streets and read about their history. It certainly gives you a better appreciation for the area, we very much enjoyed the Clare Valley and Plains. Tasted wines at Mitchell Winery (the wine maker is Andrew Mitchell, thought for Mitchell and my benefit I should check it out), before heading north to another town oval at Farrell Flat.

"Creek Street" Burra, mining accommodation 1800's style

Saturday we travelled 20km further north to Burra, an old copper mining town, and more recently known for a discovery of bones of extinct mega-fauna (big marsupials the size of small cars, that died out some 100,000 years ago). Had an awesome day walking the historic town and learnt how they managed to accommodate large numbers of miners, 300 metres of the creek in the town had "homes" dug into the banks! We walked the old mine site ruins and open cut, visiting displays of recovered mega-fauna bones, then dining at a restaurant recommended by my travel guide doctor. 

Morning coffee at Burra historic mine

La Pecora Nera (The Black Sheep) was opened by an Italian chef, he only cooks a couple of pasta dishes each night and makes his own pasta, offers authentic sparse pizzas, and cooks in a large Cob (wood fired) Oven. For the benefit of Tomas and all my Community Centre friends I couldn’t resist the photo, a great night.

Cob oven pizza, La Pecora Nera

Another night at Farrell Flat before heading to Mintaro, another (very) small service town established in 1849, which has been recognised with the whole town receiving State Heritage listing. Back to Clare for some supplies and then out 10 km west to (another oval) Blyth for Sunday night. It’s a long weekend in SA, so we’ll let the holidaying locals leave the Yorke Peninsula on Monday before visiting this coming week.

Robe to Adelaide

February 28 to March 6

Found a good truck wash in Robe and after some 3,500km I decided to wash the layers of bugs and dust off the motorhome. More great weather so more walking and mountain biking trails, and beaches. We are ticking off some of the “40 Great South Australian Short Walks” (according to a brochure).

Robe "Obelisk", another great overnight site

Kingston SE Sunset, a good camera would have helped

A couple of days in Robe and then onto Kingston SE for a couple of days. This area of the Limestone Coast is very RV friendly and very relaxing. It is also the “Lobster Capital” and you can easily get fresh lobsters from the fishermen. However you’ll still pay $80 a kilo!! The commercial licence can cost $60,000 per pot for the privilege so I guess someone will pay for it?

I was keen to do some fishing but the area is heavily covered by sea grass. So much that they regularly bulldoze the beaches and it can pile up a metre deep as it decays. You have to fish with floats to keep the bait out of the sea grass, and only catch “bait” for shark fishing off shore.

Coorong National Park Walk, Salt Creek

We headed up the Coorong National Park, a long coastal wetland where we stopped for two walks, one intended and one where I misread a sign. We saw two emu’s and a massive wombat nest, so still worthwhile. We stopped overnight at Narrung on Lake Alexandrina, and needed to take two ferries (free 24 hour ferries, must be cheaper than building bridges?) on our journey to Langhorne Creek. A great campground in town was within walking distance of cellar doors and a micro-brewery!

Granite Island, Victor Harbor

On to Goolwa the next day, visited the Barrage (one of five long “dams” up to keep the Murray River backed up during low rainfall) and Murray River mouth. Due to the barrages they continuously dredge the mouth to keep it open with no river flow. I can now see why the Murray River management is so controversial.

We are staying at a Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia (CMCA) member’s property for a couple of nights while we visit the Fleurieu Peninsula (south of Adelaide). This is a great system where members with appropriate property can offer to “host” guest members (ie. us).

Transport, Granite Island Tram style

We went into Victor Harbor to walk Granite Island and (being Saturday) check out their farmers market. We inquired about taking the motorhome to Kangaroo Island, but with the ferry costing over $600, we decided not to indulge.

On Sunday we traveled out to Cape Jervis (where the Kangaroo Island ferry departs) before cruising up the coast to stop at Normanville Caravan Park (washing day) Sunday night. As the Clipsal 500 V8 race was on in Adelaide, we thought we would wait until Monday to hit the big city. Unbelievable winds all day Sunday, had to be 70km/h, great for drying the washing.