Entry 4 – May - 2025 – Streaky Bay to - Port Lincoln, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

It was about a 60-kilometre drive from Streaky Bay to the Venus Bay Conservation Park where we set camp for the night.

The Conservation Park track was slow driving. After a few kilometres of bouncing around we found a spot with views across the bay.

 

It was a promoted location for bird life. Though the bird life was sparse as was the country side flora. It had a dry barren appearance.

The wind was blowing with quite a force, making it uncomfortable to be outside. It was the time of the year when the flies swarmed about in large numbers, seeking out any moisture from human bodies they could get to. At sunset the mosquitos were all over our caravan windows, looking at us, wanting to extract our blood.  With a weather forecast of possible rain and strong winds we decided to move on after one night.

 

About 20-kilometres down the road we stopped for a look at Mount Camel Beach. The wind was whipping up quite a large swell. The roar of the crashing waves drowning out any outside conversation.

About a further 10-kilometres down the road we set camp at the Talia Caves Camp Ground. It was a small area with some allocated camping sites opposite the day use parking area.

We had previously visited this location a number of times. The waves from the large swell crashing into the normally sedate channels, provided quite a spectacle.

 

We were up early the following morning for a two kilometre walk to “The Tub.” The sun was just starting to appear from the distant horizon. There were no walking paths in this area and we needed to walk along the road. Thus, the early start to avoid the arrival of the steady stream of visiting vehicles who would be producing large clouds of dust and throwing rocks about.

It was quite a barren landscape around the cliff tops. The surface was predominately composed of rock with a sparse layer of sand. The seemingly only life, a small succulent plant with heads about one centimetre diameter.

 

We continued walking down the road a bit further and the view changed from a rocky cliff faced ocean frontage to an eye-catching endless beach with quite a picturesque ocean swell rolling in.

After two nights of sleep only disturbed by the sound of loud crashing waves, we headed down the road a bit.

There was a stop at a farm house with a side line bakery. Produce was a variety of fresh breads, rolls and fruit buns located in an enclosed market stand near the road. Payment was via an honesty box.

We stopped the night at the town of Elliston, parked up at the local golf club carpark for the night. It had been a dreary day with light showers of rain and a cold wind blowing. We decided to stay indoors for the rest of the day, hoping for better weather the following day.

A much-appreciated sunny sky greeted us the following morning. We took a drive around Elliston’s sculpture trail. It was an early start and we saw the local bakery was open. We lashed out with a pasty and pie for breakfast. A little play with our variety of food at meal time.

There was a walk along the Elliston Jetty where we got a close up look at a pair of Ocean Gulls.

Our next stop down the road a bit was to be at Sheringa Beach. It was a drive of about 8 kilometres along a dirt road from the main highway. We had fond memories from previously camping at Sheringa Beach. There is a loo, at the campground and on this occasion, the campground was at near capacity with other campers.

This was the busiest we had ever seen this campground. We had travelled the road between Ceduna and Port Lincoln a few times over the years. This year there was a dramatic increase in the volume of caravans, out and about. Either caravan travels had become more popular or the Queensland and New South Wales destructive flooding was still having an impact, with travellers venturing to other regions.

We were not keen to camp in a crowded environment. We continued a few more kilometres along the dirt road, locating a more favourable camping location. Our nearest neighbour, out of coo-ee reach, just the way we like it. Thanks to all those people at our normally quiet campground, enticing us to explore further down the road. We had discovered our favourite camp location to date for 2025.

As soon as we finished setting camp, we had a lovely stroll along our beach. At the end we sat and watched the surf rolling in. It was an exceptional, pleasurable setting.

There was a huge ocean swell, crashing into the shoreline during our first two days. It was an awesome sight, producing a fearsome sound. During night two there was a noticeable drop in the sound produced by the crashing waves, indicating the size of the swell was subsiding.

Morning three and the size of the ocean swell had dropped to around a third the size it had been. This coincided with the appearance of the wave riding surfers, taking on the waves further down the beach from our camp location.

On the beach there were dogs anxiously watching the wave riding surfers, waiting for their owners to return. Though some dogs were enjoying their own time socializing, until the return of their owners.

We had been lucky enough to position our caravan near a low sand hill, providing a buffer from the ocean winds. The caravan windows were just high enough to enjoy the view above the sand hill. There was a constant coolish ocean breeze and we spent much time in the comfortable confines of our caravan gazing out the windows at the beautiful blue ocean setting

Actually, the views from all our caravan windows were gorgeous. Nature views all round, ocean, bush and sand hills in the distance. It was a divine setting, tingling our feel-good senses.

One morning when we first opened our eyes we were shocked at a sight of nothing. We were in need to close and re-open our eyes, checking our vision. Our beautiful welcoming blue ocean views had disappeared. We had awoken, surrounded by a morning fog/sea mist.

We spent five nights at Sheringa Beach with day time temperatures in the low 20’s. It was pleasant weather conditions considering it was late autumn.

It had been five days of blue skies and we were very tempted to extend our time at Sheringa Beach. For us it was still our favourite location between Ceduna and Port Lincoln. As always it is weather dependant, helping to aid those feel-good sensations.

We still had a couple of new locations to explore down the road a bit and decided to move on from Sheringa Beach.

Generally, we travel with a guideline of thoughts for an itinerary, subject to change. A week into this trip, we received an invite to a special family function. It would have been so much easier if we had known about this prior to leaving home. Grrr.

We had travelled west of home about 1,000 kilometres. The family function was about 500 kilometres east of our home. Ironically, we had deliberated whether to explore locations east or west of our home prior departure. We can’t always get it right!

We decided to shorten our planned time on Eyre Peninsula by a week and explored options for a changed travel route, to include the family function. There were still some medical appointments to adhere to back at our home base, shortly after the family function.

Driving along the dirt road out of Sheringa Beach we were on a hill when our phone pinged. Ironically, we were alongside of displayed signage, “Phone Reception.”

Another phone call, resulting with more deliberation to ponder over.

And yes, another change to our itinerary and route.

We had ordered a custom-made inner spring mattress for our caravan. It was available for collection two weeks earlier than the proposed date. We thought, considering the time we spend travelling in our caravan maybe we should spend a little more money and get ourselves a comfortable mattress.

Our planned route east, had included bypassing the busy city of Adelaide. Now we were deviating, driving through Adelaide to collect our new mattress. Grrr. It would be nice to have our new mattress.

After driving down the road about 50 kilometres, including a change of drivers, our next camp was at Horrocks Lookout.

Along the way we did stop for a look at Cummins Monument. It was a barren, rocky terrain with salt pans and lots of ocean cliff face.

 

Horrocks Lookout was another bush setting with no facilities. You were perched high up on a cliff face with ocean frontage. It had similarities to the “Great Australian Bight,” located around several hundred kilometres further along the same stretch of coast line.

The following morning, we woke to cloudy skies. The clouds enhancing the arrival of the morning sun.

When obtaining the above photograph, Steve had turned around to see the appearance of a rainbow. Knowing rainbows generally last a duration of seconds. He hurriedly moved to the other side of the caravan to capture a photograph of the rainbow. Within those seconds the diameter of the rainbow had dramatically expanded. He actually ran further away from the caravan getting out to around 200 metres away. It was to no avail as the rainbow had expanded around the same distance but in kilometres, out smarting him.

A cloudy day also enhances an Aussie Ocean sunset.

 

Unfortunately, there was a limitation of time available for us. We could easily spend more time taking in the scenes of many other locations along this stretch of road.

After three nights at Horrocks Lookout, we left early to avoid the forecast rain whilst negotiating the dirt road back to the highway. Our next target location was at the large town of Port Lincoln. We headed to a car washing facility to clean the tow tug and caravan. The pantry and fridge were restocked.

We spent a day with Steve’s brother watching one nephew play a game of football and another nephew in the evening driving a racing car around a dirt track.

We caught up with a couple we had known for around 50 years and that was it for us at Port Lincoln.