Settled Down

I guess it had to happen, we had a wonderful trip and always knew we would settle down once we finished the lap, we have found a nice place to call home in Laurieton and will now be able to explore all our beautiful local beaches and national parks. We are nice and close to Queens Lake so have been walking each day to try and get rid of some of the weight we gained whilst travelling. Time to get back to normal and do a little fishing as well!

Mount Barker & Hahndorf SA

From Cowell we moved to Mount Barker which is in the Adelaide Hills, Hahndorf is only 5k's away. Mt Barker is what you would call the Leura of SA, such a great town, with everything you could possibly want. We ventured out to Hahndorf for the day and feasted on fabulous German sausages etc, yum! Hahndorf was established by Germans who were fleeing Prussia, the town is full of fabulous places to sample all that is German, beer food cheese, it's all good. It was much larger than we thought it would be and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Coffin Bay & Cowell SA

Coffin Bay has to have one of the most pretty entries to the town, you come down a hill and as you turn the bend the beautiful blue water hits you. It is such a pretty bay with great places to fish. The shops are a nice change and the pub has excellent food at reasonable prices. Did I mention you get oysters straight from the growers at $7 a dozen and they are huge! Mick is in heaven.

The weather changed on us after a couple of days so we decided to move on and try to get away from the gale force winds. We decided Cowell would be a good base, the caravan park is right in town and next to the jetty which has many options for fishing and crabbing. While we were there people were catching sand crabs off the jetty, they were very tiny though and after a mud crab I'm not sure you would be bothered trying to get the meat out of them.
Cowell did have some great examples of SA architecture, they have so many old building made from stone and obviously do look after them and keep them for the future, here are a couple.

The bay covers 48 square kilometers and the town in known for it's aquaculture and agriculture, also a type of Jade is found in this area. This photo is from across the bay looking back at one of the pubs.

Eyre Peninsula SA

After stopping at Ceduna for supplies, fuel and Oysters we headed to a small village called Haslam were you can camp for $5pn and have a fire, there is a jetty which is OK for catching squid and leather jackets, it's just past Smokey Bay and before Streaky Bay, all very pretty spots.

Haslam Beach

The Haslam Jetty, there are so many here as the water is very shallow for a long way.

Every beach has a shack, can we get some on the Central Coast?

Looking back from Smokey Bay jetty to the town.

The rock face at Elliston which goes both ways, almost as impressive as the Great Ocean Road.

Mick is thinking how can I get a line in here???

From the Elliston jetty looking back to the town.

Can you see the fish?

Elliston has a drive along the cliffs with different sculptures, these are a couple, can you see the contrast in the background, they are wheat crops.

How does that hole look?

These are pictures of Lock Wells Beach, 283 steps down to the beach to fish, Mick was so keen, bet there are plenty of Salmon in there, this town has a salmon fishing comp as there are plenty here, I think they are different to the salmon we catch in NSW, even the caravan park has one on the front gate!

Typical of SA architecture this is the original Council Office in Elliston built in 1913, currently being restored.

The Nullabor

The Nullabor is a drive I guess one should do at least once, it is 1500 odd kilometer's long with next to nothing to see. You are graced with a Roadhouse every 100- 150k's which is great as you need fuel but be prepared to pay, Nullabor Roadhouse $2.04 per litre, Ceduna $1.50 per litre, just a bit of difference. Did  I mention the flies, it was impossible to sit outside before sunset as the flies were incredible, and we thought this was because of a westerly wind, but from the souvenir shops along the way selling hats with logo's "What Flies" I think it may be normal, we came out of the van in the morning and expected the CSI team to be searching our car for the body there were so many on the car!

The sunsets were amazing though.

You can see why travellers of old thought this was water, but it's only a mirage!

It's a bit of a worry when your road doubles as an airstrip for the Royal Flying Doctor's Service!

That's the sand dunes of Eucla in the background, looks like snow doesn't it?

How far is Eucla to anywhere?

Once you leave Eucla there are many places to pull over and get a great picture of the ocean, after all that dust and flies it's a welcome sight.

There are hundred's of these lizards on the road, they can move pretty fast for a fat boy!

Goodbye WA hello South Australia!!!!!
Mick is happy oysters at Ceduna $8.00 a dozen, sure beats the $48 a dozen in Broome!

Perth to Kalgoorlie

Leaving Perth we came across our first "point of interest", the Rabbit Proof Fence!

Then we went through a very small town called Coolgardie, I guess in it's day it would have been impressive as the RSL club sure looked like it was a big thing!

Not too sure what this building is but it's next door to the RSL

The night before Kalgoorlie was spent in a great free camp with a nice fire, thanks to Camps 6.

In Kalgoorlie we had a booking for 3 night but turned up a day early, the Top Tourist park was in shock to think someone might want to change their mind and create some work for them, how dare we think we could get an extra day, this attitude is so typical of WA but that's a whole other blog, we ended up at another park on a gravel drive through site for $45, fabulous. As we managed to get a bit done the night was all we needed.

Compare this to the free camp the night before, not really good value!


The "Super Pit" was quite impressive I must say, unless you stand there looking at it it's hard to imagine the size:

This is not a Tonka Truck

It's worth $4,000,000

And that's it in the bottom of the pit!

Huge old pubs fill the streets of Kalgoorlie, this one seems to go on forever!

 

Freemantle

After our first visit to Freeo with Rhonda & Col 5-6 years ago we knew it was somewhere we had to revisit,(not as much fun without you two though!) the building's are almost all in their original condition with not too many modern buildings to spoil the atmosphere, you really feel you have been sent back in time.

Hope you can read this, the town hall was opened in 1887 with days of celebration, a fancy dress ball for children was held on the second day and when an unruly mob tried to enter a councillor was shot and later the publican was charged and hung for the shooting.

The Sail & Anchor pub, our favourite in Freeo, they used to serve beers in lovely etched pint glasses but don't do this any more, just booring old glasses, I wonder what made them change? It's right next to the markets which are always worth a look.

This is a memorial to all the fishermen who have lost their lives at sea.

Acca Dacca fans love the Bon Scott bronze!

This stone archway was salvaged from the wreck of the Batavia, no wonder the ship sunk with all this weight on it.

This is a replica of the boat and part of the hull in the background.

Inside the hull, how did they ever leave the dock, how brave were these old seamen.

Not a bad size pub, The Esplanade Hotel.

Jan and Al must have been here today but we couldn't find you!!! The number plate is ARB is Al's second name Robert???