Entry 2 – Dhilba Guuranda / Innes National Park, South Australia, February 2022
We were in need to pause our time on Yorke Peninsula for a few days. We parked our caravan at a friend’s farm and headed back to our home town of Adelaide, stopping at Steve’s parents on our way home for a catch up and an assessment for any parent needs. Yes, Steve’s services were required and we negotiated a time line for his attendance. A drive of about 350-kilometres for the day.
The following day was spent at Mary’s family town of Lameroo where we farewelled one of her brothers who had unexpectedly passed away. Our Adelaide based son, Ash had accompanied us for the day and his presence was much appreciated. A drive of about 550-kilometres for the day.
The next day we looked after our grandchildren, Isla 4 years and Zephyr 2 years for the whole day providing our son, Ash with some respite where he could catch up with his work duties. By night fall our energy reserves were much depleted and we crashed into bed.
We were up early the following morning completing a big food shop and headed back to Yorke Peninsula. Enroute, we stopped at Steve’s parents where he attended to some tap repairs and received some further instructions from his mother for more future work.
By mid-afternoon we were back with our caravan and it wasn’t long before our eyelids drooped shut. It had been a busy, non-programmed three days.
After a restful night camped at Rob and Glenda’s farm, we headed south a bit aiming for the small township of Marion Bay. We propped about 15 minutes down the road at the township of Minlaton where we had planned for a 10-minute stop to obtain some local information from the tourist information centre.
A caravan travelling through town stopped opposite with the male driver getting out walking towards Steve yelling out. As it transpired, “evidently Steve was still holding his youthful appearance.” The vehicle occupants Martin and Maria recognised Steve from our pre-married days. We were now approaching 39 years of married life together and we hadn’t seen them since. We were suddenly 1 ½ hours behind our time line schedule after a quick chat, briefly touching on about a thousand topics.
We arrived at our accommodation at Marion Bay, where we spent the next five nights at a holiday rental property in the company of Petra and Jeff whom we first met during 2020, the first year of the covid-19 pandemic. Petra has kindly shared some of her photo’s for viewing with our mix.
Once our food supply had been transferred to the house fridge it was evident, we were also set for some good food experiences where we were sharing alternate nights to provide a meal.
The holiday rental property was located at the southern end of Yorke Peninsula, directly alongside of Innes National Park our target area for exploring. Part of the land in the national park was the site of an 1890’s to 1970’s gypsum / plaster mine with it’s own township. In the 1970’s with the ceasing of mining operations the area became a government controlled national park.
We commenced our national park scenery experience starting at the Stenhouse Bay Jetty, built for the loading of ships with gypsum and other nearby produce.
There were many optional walking tracks to choose from throughout the national park. We walked around the point of land at the West Cape Lighthouse with beautiful views out across the ocean and over Pondolawie Bay.
We walked down the many steps onto West Cape Beach where we sat in awe watching the powerful surf generated by the ocean. The picture of the rock with giant waves breaking over it we thought to be about 3 metres high above the water prior to the arrival of large waves.
There was the site of the Ethel and Ferret ship wrecks at Ethel Bay with its good cardio-vascular work out negotiating the steep stairs down to the beach from high up on the cliff face. It was another fabulous location where we got to appreciate the powerful ocean generated waves. We even saw how the many survivors escaped the ship wreck.
After our evening meals at our holiday house location, we would head off on a walk to view nearby locations. It was always in a different direction, sometimes along the coast line, or around the back streets or into the national park.
With the arrival of inclement weather one morning, we stayed put at our accommodation heading out for a walk around Marion Bay between rain showers. Once the rain diminished, we headed north for the rest of the day to explore Daly Heads campground and nearby areas.
We continued to seek out the different walking tracks scattered throughout Innes National Park. The Royston Head walk was an enjoyable walk through the bush with its magnificent rugged coast line viewing. From Royston Head we could see the appropriately named, Wedge Island way out into the ocean. We enjoyed the Pondalowie Bay board walk through the sand hills to the viewing platform at the surf beach.
We had originally booked accommodation to share with Petra & Jeff at the historic Innes township located in the national park. Unfortunately, this had to be cancelled with the passing of Mary’s brother. We walked around the old township enjoying its sights with a couple of pictures showing the towns bakery and what might have been our accommodation if we had arrived a week earlier.
On our final full day together, a new lookout was opened near the Cape Spencer Lighthouse. Our initial day time visit came at the same time as some rain. We returned evening time hoping for some nice sunset viewing from its elevated position. On the drive there a male emu was standing steadfast on the road stopping traffic. It didn’t move to the side of the road until all twelve of its chicks had crossed the road safely. Unfortunately, our evening sunset viewing at the lookout was buffeted by strong cold winds where Jeff & Petra walked about on the nice new walking paths to keep warm. Steve found a different spot to escape the wind while we waited for the sun to do its stuff, illuminating the sky. Unfortunately, the heavy cloud cover hindered the brilliance of a potentially beautiful sunset lit sky.
After five days of busy activities, we farewelled Petra & Jeff who returned to their home. It had been a fabulous time together and we had immensely enjoyed the landscape of the national park. We decided to extend our time at Innes National Park, booking a camp site in one of the national parks camp grounds for an extra three days.
We continued with our daily walking activities enjoying the scenery of Innes National Park.
It was departure day and we stretched out as much time as possible, absorbing the soul pleasing ambiance of the national park setting. We stopped nearby the entrance / exit walking the Stenhouse Bay Lookout Walk as a final parting experience. We finally drove out of the national park during the early afternoon.
We propped about 5 kilometres down the road at Marion Bay to catch up on our electronic internet stuff for a couple of hours before proceeding up the road a bit setting camp at the Daly Heads campground.
Unexpectantly, we had good phone reception at Daly Heads allowing us to complete all our electronic correspondence including an hour’s video chat with our friends in Canada. We could see Gleeson’s Landing located about 2 kilometres north and had experienced negligible phone reception there around a fortnight earlier.
Daly Heads had a nice setting which attracted plenty of other campers.
After a couple of days at Daly Heads we decided to move about 5 kilometres north, returning to Swincer Rocks, where we had previously stayed, noted in our prior edition.
Once we had set camp and sat outside under the shade of our awning soaking in our surroundings, looking out over the ocean we felt our bodies oozing into a state of relaxation. Swincer Rocks was our kind of location with a great setting and minimal other people about. Not that we mind other people, we do love to chat – but we also enjoy ‘owning’ these special locations.
Each day we would walk the length of “our beach,” about 3 kilometres in length. Tongue in cheek we called it “our beach,” due to not meeting anyone else along the beach each time we walked its beautiful setting, some days, three times.
We had initially proposed a couple of departure dates for a timeline to move onto other locations. For us, Swincer Rocks had a wonderful soul pleasing atmosphere which we didn’t seem to tire of, thus why move. We watched the sea gulls, dolphins swimming by each day and other land birds moving about. We daily walked the length of the beach, enjoyed its refreshing waters with a dip or two on our daily walks.
We put off departing Swincer Rocks till the day we were in need to head back home. Up the road a bit whilst on the route home we stopped at the Warooka Pub.For lunch with a small group of “Yorke Peninsula Locals,” to celebrate one of our travel friends, Glenda turning 70 years.
Yorke Peninsula was predominately utilized for its quality farming land and whilst driving about including on our return drive home, one needs to be aware of the movement of the locals.
It was an early end to our Australian lifestyle, travelling with a caravan for 2022.
More journal entries to come during 2022 with a different twist.
