WE’RE IN WALLAROO ON THE YORKE PENINSULA

MONDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER   -  We left Marion Bay and drove for 186 very windy kilometres to our next destination Wallaroo at the top of the other side of the Yorke Peninsula.   We arrived at Wallaroo North Beach Caravan Park, part of the Top Tourist Group .  It was a very big park by the water, really well maintained with many improvements being done to the on-site cabins.  The facilities around the park had been recently up-graded.  It was $190 for the week.  It was an extra $7 per night to be on the water front.  As it was so windy, we decided to take a spot a bit further back in the park.  The new managers were a young family with Hugo their golden retriever who roamed freely around the park and wandered into everyone’s vans looking for pats and titbits and only listened to Michael his master.    We often saw him besides Michael on the golf buggy he drove around the park, with his 3 year old side-kick Haydn.

Captain Mathew Flinders was the first European to sight Wallaroo when he was surveying The Spencer Gulf in 1802 in his ship The Investigator.

Wallaroo comes from the Aboriginal words “Wadlu Waru” meaning wallaby urine.

Wallaroo, Kadina and Moonta and are the three towns known as The “Copper Triangle” and have a rich history of mining and smelting.  It is known as “Little Cornwall” because of the amount of experienced Cornish miners that settled there during the copper boom.

Wallaroo is a port town 160 kilometre north-west of Adelaide with a population of 4,000.  It was once the major port in South Australia with cargoes of timber, coal, machinery and food supplies coming into the port and leaving with heavy loads of copper ore and ingots and later wool and wheat.  Wallaroo is still a major export port for grain and is home to the Spence Gulf prawn fleet.

PAINTED SCULPTURES OUTSIDE THE MARITIME MUSEUM

THE LONE SURVIVING CHIMNEY AND FURNACE OF WALLAROO MINING AND SMELTING CO - THERE WERE ORIGINALLY 12 CHIMNEYS STANDING 13 FEET HIGH MADE FROM OVER 300,000 BRICKS

HAMMOCKS IN THE TREES ALONG THE BEACHFRONT AT WALLAROO

BEACH FRONT VAN SITES

COPPER TRACES IN THE ROCKS ON WALLAROO JETTY

We settled in and went for a very windy walk along the beach. It was too windy to put the awning up.  The park was fairly quiet when we arrived, with people coming and going every day.

TUESDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER   -   We had a dreadful storm overnight with very heavy rain and thunder and discovered the two hatches in the van were leaking.   Richard suspected it was the silicone around the insides of the hatches.  We arranged for the local caravan repair man to come and have a look at the van the next day. 

WEDNESDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER  -    The caravan repair man came and told us the silicone around the hatches had perished beyond repair and peeled off more readily than it should have (great news for an 18 month old van).  He put on some new silicone as a temporary measure, but advised us the only way to ensure the hatches were waterproof in the future was for him to take the hatches completely out and re-do the job.  We organised with him to have the van for a day the following week, which meant we had to stay in Wallaroo longer that we’d planned.

We went to the movies in Kadina to see The Hundred Foot Journey.  It’s been about four months since we’ve been to a movie, mainly because most of the small towns we’ve been to didn’t have a cinema.   I was movie starved as I’m used to going at least once or twice a week with my friend in Sydney.  It was a lovely, entertaining, feel good movie and we both really enjoyed it.  Helen Mirren (who I just love as an actress in any role) was the owner of a posh 1 Michelin Star restaurant in a French village.  The abandoned restaurant opposite her was bought and run by an Indian family (much to her disgust with loud Indian music and curry smells all day long).   Don’t go to see this movie if you’re hungry as food is a big feature in it!! 

After the movie, although we now fancied a curry, we had Cornish Pasties in the local bakery for lunch and looked around the old limestone buildings around the town.   There were lots of shops and businesses and a big Target, Reject Shop, Priceline and Woolworths supermarket.

Kadina is the largest town on the Yorke Peninsula with a population of over 4,000.  Kadina comes from the Aboriginal word ”Kaddy-yeena” meaning Lizard Plain. 

FRIDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER   -  We went for a drive to Moonta 30 minutes from the caravan park.  It was a lovely little historic Cornish mining town with bakeries and village shops and the old-fashioned Moonta Mines Sweet Shop in the main street.  It’s a popular area for retirees being close to Moonta Bay and Port Hughes and also because of The Dunes at Port Hughes - a Greg Norman designed golf course. 

SUNSET AT MOONTA JETTY

Moonta will be hosting the Moonta Open Gardens Festival in October.

Moonta comes from the Aboriginal word Moonta-Monterra meaning impenetrable scrub.  In its heyday, Moonta was South Australia’s second largest town.

It was in Moonta in 1861 that copper was discovered by a shepherd who noticed traces of copper in a wombat burrow in the hills.

We went to see our second movie that week in the little cinema inside the Town Hall – a very rare occurrence for Richard (not for me though).  We saw “And So It Goes” with Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.  Michael Douglas played a hard-hearted realtor who always insulted people.  Diane Keaton was his neighbour who taught him to laugh and love again.  It wasn’t brilliant must-see, but it was funny and entertaining and we both enjoyed it.

SATURDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER   -   We went for a drive to Port Broughton, 30 minutes north from Wallaroo.  It was a delightful picturesque little seaside town popular for fishing in the protected waters and fishing charters in search of big snapper.  Blue Swimmer Crabs are the most popular catch of the day.

Port Broughton will be hosting the annual Rubber Duck Race on 5^th October to raise money for the Sailing and Boat Club, with duck and spoon races, hunt the yellow duck on the foreshore and many more family activities all day long.

WEDNESDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER   -   We took the van into the caravan repair man in Kadina.  We had the whole day to fill in until we could pick it up again, so we drove into Jayco spare parts in Adelaide to pick up some hinges for the kitchen cupboards, as they keep breaking and we’ve used up all the spares we had. By the time we got back to  Kadina, the caravan was ready  –  job well done thank goodness.  Now we’re ready to head off again.

THOUGHT WE WERE IN THE WRONG COUNTRY DRIVING TO ADELAIDE!!!!

METAL SCULPTURES PROTESTING A PROPOSED WASTE DUMP THAT THE RESIDENTS WERE OPPOSED TO 

We’ve enjoyed our stay in Wallaroo, despite it being very windy most days.

We have now completed our journey all the way around The Yorke Peninsula and have found it very easy to drive around.   As it’s a small peninsula, the towns weren’t too far apart and there hasn’t been a great distance to drive between destinations.  It was a pretty peninsula, very green and mostly flat.  We particularly enjoyed our time in Marion Bay and Innes National Park. 

NEXT WEEK:  We will be driving further north to Peterborough to stay for 2 nights to visit “SteamTown” an interactive night time show revisiting the romance and history of steam trains.   From there we will be crossing the border back into New South Wales and visiting Broken Hill.