WE CONTINUE ALONG THE EYRE PENINSULA

Tuesday  23^rd April  -  We left Point Lowly heading for Port Gibbon another free camp area about 1 ½ hours further down the Eyre Peninsula.   We were sorry to be leaving such a beautiful spot.  We’d made some lovely new friends there and promised to keep in touch with Dave and Dian.  We had really enjoyed our stay and had pretty good weather most of the time.  We had 3 options:  to stop at Cowell and see what the place was like; to try to get into Port Gibbon if possible, or go to Arno Bay if we couldn’t get into Port Gibbon.  We pulled into Cowell for lunch and had a look around the town.  It was a fairly small town, but had lots of character.  The Foreshore Caravan Park was by the water with a newly built boardwalk stretching all along the Franklin Harbour.  There was a kiosk by the harbour to purchase fresh seafood and oysters.   The oysters from here are considered to be amongst the best quality oysters anywhere and are available all year round.  A thriving oyster industry has been established here with many commercial farms in operation.   It was mainly a fishing town with a long jetty and not much else to do if you weren’t interested in fishing. There was a newly built Lions park with new toilet blocks and a covered playground with tables and seats around the park.  The harbour was full of parked 4WDs with empty boat trailers. The local hotel advertised “$10 Spit Plate – Book Early”  (I presume that meant spit roasted meats).

I was very keen to visit The Cowell Jade Motel to see what products they had for sale.  I wanted to replace my jade elephant that was stolen in the caravan.  It had been a 50^th birthday present to myself whilst we were in Thailand.  I’ve always had a thing for elephants and had quite a collection of glass/Swarovski ornaments at one time.   Inside the showroom there were some beautiful pieces made into jewellery and ornaments.  I headed straight to the elephants and was very happy to find the one I liked best.  We were told Australian jade is much harder than Chinese jade.  The ornaments were much smaller than the one I’d lost and also a darker colour jade.   I was still happy to have one for my much smaller collection of treasured ornaments in the caravan.

Nephrite jade was found in the Minbrie Ranges by a local farmer in 1965. The “Cowell Jade Province” covers a 9 square kilometre range and is one of the largest and oldest deposits in the World  

We decided to drive further along to Port Gibbon about a 30 minute drive from Cowell. We turned off the highway along a 6km dirt track which was very dusty but not too bad to drive on (Richard said it’s a b grade road).   It was called a “donation camp”.  We pulled into the camping area and selected the spot we wanted.  There were 5 other caravans already set up there.  Our neighbours had been there for over 3 weeks as there’s no time period for your stay there.  There was a donation box underneath the pluto statue in the bush rockery.  A caretaker came around daily to empty the rubbish bins and restock toilet paper in the eco toilets.  There was plenty of water available with 5 or 6 water taps around the camp. Once we’d set up we noticed an area opposite the van and went to investigate.  It was the designated “beer garden”, complete with tables (BYO chairs/grog).  It really tickled us as it was roped off with blue heavy ropes in low posts and a few shrubs/trees for shade.  There were hanging wooden signs from the trees telling us to “sit down, shut up and drink “, “no lies to be told” and “tell jokes and smile”. We went for a walk along the beach and noticed the remains of the old jetty – it was once a shipping port.  We could also see the 10 metre high red bluffs stretching along the coastline. They were very striking and sheer – no way to scramble up them if you got caught in the tide. There were houses and residents living there, but it was quite isolated.  Where we were parked was on the upper area, with steps leading down to a flat area with a covered wooden bbq table overlooking the beach.

 We sat there having our wine, beer and nibbles watching the ocean and thinking how beautiful it was.  It was very quiet and dark there at night and it was lovely hearing the waves crashing.

Wednesday 24^th April  -  The tide was out quite far in the mornings and we went for a longer walk further along the beach that stretched for miles and miles .  Around the third rocky outcrop we noticed a flock of galahs nesting in holes high up in the bluff.  They were all perched outside their holes and looked as if they were peeking out at us.  They were really funny and kept squawking at Sally to move off their territory.

After lunch we went for a drive along a 4km dirt road further along the coast to Point Gibbon where we were told there was a bull seal and his females on the rocks.  Unfortunately he wasn't visible whilst we were there, but we did find some good lookouts and drove as far as we could on the dirt road until we came up to the sand dunes that we didn't want to drive on. Some of the campers there were riding dirt bikes through the sand hills that went right out to the point.

We spent the next few days reading and relaxing.  We’re both into the author Lee Childs and started on the pile of unread books in our “library”.  His main character Jack Reacher is an ex-army Major who always gets himself into difficult situations that make compelling reading . He’s a very good writer and you get hooked quite quickly.

Thursday 25^th April  -  We had the most spectacular full moon that night, shimmering pure white from the shore, rippling across the water to the horizon.  We were mesmerised watching it and it capped off a beautiful relaxing day.

Sunday 28^th April  -  We went for a drive along the 20km dirt track tourist drive to Cowell.  It was so spectacular and we stopped off at the lookouts along the way and went on the beach access roads where you can camp.  They all led right onto the beachfront.  The sand was pure white and the water gorgeous turquoises and blues. We almost felt like Robinson Crusoes on our own deserted island. We stopped at Flat Rock a popular fishing spot, which lived up to its name, lots of stones and flat rocks leading out to the water.  We weren’t sure how a keen fisherman would get his boat across it as there was no actual boat ramp to launch a boat from. We continued the tourist drive through to Cowell which is an RV friendly town.  We were quite surprised to find all the local shops open, hardware, IGA supermarket, launderette and the few coffee shops.  Most shops in SA are shut on Sundays.  Our second visit to this town really impressed us. 

We’ve really enjoyed our free camps.  There are so many little hidden gems around and we were just glad to have been able to see  some of them.

Total days free camped to date since we got the new van  -  17.

Next Week:  We’ll be going further along The Eyre Peninsula to  Port Lincoln in The Lower Eyre Peninsula.