Port Lincoln - Coffin Bay

We spent a couple of windy days at Port Lincoln. We really needed to go to a "big" town as we desperately needed to get Tilda some new shoes as her crocs and brown boots had both broken and we also wanted to go to a "big" supermarket, rather than an IGA, to replenish our food and water.

On the way to Port Lincoln we drove via "The Woolshed" and "The Tub" at Talia Caves. These were sign posted as "geologically spectacular".  It was a 6km one way trip over very rough road and I have to say, perhaps we've been spoilt, but I found them both pretty underwhelming and I don't think it was worth towing the van to see them... but everyone and everything mentions them so we thought we'd check them out.

View into The Woolshed (a limestone cave)

View out of the Woolshed

The Tub (a cave where the roof has collapsed to create a big open tub)

Port Lincoln is home to the biggest fishing fleet in Australia and a trip to the wharves is worth it, just to check out all the amazing fishing boats. You can also go out to the tuna farms and do tours/swim with tuna. It would have been great to do but it was just way too expensive for us. You could see some of the fish farms off shore.

My favourite part of our stay at Port Lincoln was our day trip to Coffin Bay and Coffin Bay National Park. I absolutely loved Coffin Bay and would have loved to stay there. It had a nice little playground on the foreshore and a good BBQ and picnic area, where we enjoyed pizza for lunch.

Coffin Bay Foreshore

The pizza was pretty good

Playground fun

I really enjoyed Coffin Bay National Park too. We could have camped at Yangie Bay in the National Park but we weren't sure if we'd have been able to get our big van in to a site and we didn't want to drive all that way and not fit. It's good we didn't as they are in the process of upgrading it and we may not have found a suitable spot. We saw a couple of goannas, a roo and an emu, all of which are apparently very common in the National Park. There are only a couple of places you can get to without a 4WD and we decided not to do the 4WD tracks but just enjoyed the couple of spots we could visit - Yangie Bay, Avoid Bay, Point Avoid and Golden Island Lookout.

Avoid Bay looks deceptively beautiful

Golden Island

Point Avoid

Streaky Bay and Surrounds

Streaky Bay is a lovely, sleepy seaside town and the caravan park is right on the water. We only had 1 day/2 nights there and it was blowing a gale for a fair bit of it, so it wasn't particularly pleasant to be outside or at the beach. Regardless, I still liked it as a town and I can see why lots of people love staying there.

Caravan park foreshore and view

One of the most bizarre things about Streaky Bay is that wheat is grown almost to the cliff/beach edge. Coming from where we do in NSW we just aren't used to seeing crops growing that close to the ocean, and certainly not wheat. So you look over all these beautiful pale brown wheat fields to the ocean beyond and it is lovely.

In 1990 a young man caught a Great White Shark on a handline off Streaky Bay, and given that it's not far from there that you can go cage diving with sharks, I wasn't too keen to go in the water. There is a lifesize replica of the Great White on display at the Shell Service Station, so we went to check it out... it is truly a monster. It was over 5m long and weighed 1500kg! Scary as to imagine being in the water with that! There is a netted swimming area near the jetty, and I am guessing that is where most people swim... pretty much no one was in the water more than ankle deep when we were there because the wind was just too unpleasant, or perhaps they knew something we didn't.

Shark replica 

On our first day we did one of the tourist drives and drove out to Whispering Rocks and the Blowholes. The weathered limestone coast makes for some very rugged and interesting views. The Whispering Rocks makes a 'dragon breathing in a cave' type of sound when the waves rush in to a cave (Tilda's description). It was certainly more of a noisy breathing sound than a whistle, as such, but it certainly an interesting phenomenon. The Blowholes weren't blowing when we were there. I don't know if the tide was too low or if the sea just wasn't rough enough/big enough waves, but given that they're a short way from town, it's worth the drive to check them both out (they're next to each other).

Whistling Rocks

The Blowholes lookout

Our second day we drove to Point Labatt to see the sea lion colony. This is definitely worth the 51km (one way) drive. It is the only place on mainland Australia where you can see sea lions and while you are up on a cliff above the colony, with binoculars or a good zoom camera lens, you can see them so well. We got to watch pups feeding and playing about in a rock pool, as well as see all of the ones just lazing about sleeping on the rocks and sand. We were there for half an hour or so before Rory started getting bored and I could have stayed there for hours. It was simply amazing to watch.

We also explored the coastline along the Westall Loop and  the rock pools of Smooth Pool.

One of the many beautiful views along the coastline

One of the rock pools

"Camelot" the public toilet at Scaeles Bay

Albany Part 1

By the time we got to Albany I think we were all a bit “travelled out”. We'd done so much over the past couple of weeks, and moved every 2-3 days, and it was starting to get a bit tiring. We had some things we needed to do at Albany, including getting the car serviced, the windscreen replaced and catching up on school work, so we treated our 5 days there a bit more like being home, and a bit less like travelling. By that I mean we did some touristy things but not as much as we had at other places.
Albany is the first European settlement in WA and is located on the King George Sound, which is an amazing body of water, dotted with granite islands. The Sound is very beautiful and also comprises Princess Royal Harbour. These water bodies combine to create a massive, sheltered body of water. I don't think I took any photos of it though. I think the travel fatigue translated to a lack of interest in photographing things. I tended to just absorb what we were doing, rather than also trying to remember to take photos so we could look back on it all.

Albany is quite a nice town with lots of shops and services. I checked out all the possible camera purchasing options but the 2 camera places in the town had very limited options (one had 2 compact digital cameras – a $99 one and a $585 one). There was a Harvey Norman but their prices were excessive ($30-$50 more) and we didn't discuss price matching, which in hindsight I should have done.

Tilda, Rory and I had a lovely afternoon on the beach near our caravan park. It was nicely sheltered, which was good, as the wind was blowing pretty strongly the whole time we were there. The sand was a lovely white and there were shells galore. We made a sandcastle covered in shells. We could have covered the sandcastle 4 or 5 times over with the number of shells Tilda found.

Albany has a strong whaling heritage and I remember going to the whaling museum when I came to WA in 1985. We didn't go to the museum as it was pretty expensive for a family and we had been to the whaling museum in Eden. I didn't think the kids needed to go to another one, at the price being asked.

The Brig Amity

We did the audio tour of the Amity, which was the ship that carried the first settlers to Albany. They have built a replica that we toured. The kids had a great time exploring the different decks. It was amazing to think they housed 63 people in the mid deck, although they were obviously on different watches but how the heck they slept them all under there was incomprehensible. I was impressed by how much ore luxurious the officers space was. There was so much more fancy work on the wood work and a couple of the officers and captain had their own rooms, although they were not much larger than a modern toilet! The beds certainly weren't full length by any means. It was interesting to do the audio tour and hear what the journey was like and to learn about what supplies they brought with them to establish a new settlement. It wasn't as good a location as hoped and so Swan River (Perth) became the main settlement in WA.

The Officers area

The Captain's bedroom (kids are sitting in the bed)

Denmark

My last couple of posts have been all about the amazing forests of WA's southwest but the shift to Denmark (around 75km... or 65km depending on which way you went) brought about a big shift from a focus on forests to the beauty of the beaches. The body of water we stayed at, at the Rivermouth Caravan Park, looked a lot like Neranie on the Myall Lakes at home. It was kind of weird to look out the window of the caravan (the wind was too cold and blowing for me to sit outside) and see something that looked so familiar.

Denmark is close to William Bay National Park which is home to some incredibly stunning beaches, namely Green Pool, Elephant Cove and Waterfall Beach.  We left our caravan at the Information Centre so that we could go and explore the area without worrying whether we could take the van or not. All three beaches are close together, with Green Pool and Elephant Cove on opposite sides of a headland, and then a short 4WD to waterfall beach (I don't think it is in the National Park).

Green Pool was popular when we were there, even though it really was too cold to swim. The sun was shining but the water temperature was probably 18-19 degrees and the onshore wind was cold enough to make you want a jacket... totally not swimming weather for any of us. There were a few people who decided to brave it but it was obvious they weren't enjoying it and were probably just ticking a bucket list item. Green Pool is very sheltered from the ocean by granite (or granite like) rocks which create a beautiful, crystal clear, calm bay for swimming. It would be perfect for swimming in warmer weather and I am disappointed we won't be there to enjoy it. I can't think of any beaches back home that would rival it for crystal clear water and calm, sheltered swimming.

Elephant Cove is so named as there are a number of rocks that, when looked at from the right location and angle, look like 3 elephants. It is a beautiful, sheltered cove too and much less popular that Green Pool.

Waterfall Beach is named because there is a small waterfall part way down the beach, which I am guessing is spring fed. The water is very clear and very cold. We had lunch here and spent some time exploring the rocks and rock pools on this beach and headland. Tilda and I had a great time spotting all sorts of interesting things, like 2 different types of nudibranchs, 2 incredibly red anemones and some broken sea urchin shells. We also found some interesting fish, that were very hard to get good photos of, as they were perfectly camouflaged. I am so glad my little girl loves exploring rock pools with me. Rory does too but he has a tendency to stick his finger in pools and holes and that's not the safest thing to do so having him with me causes me too much worry.

The water looked so inviting but was very cold

2 red sea anemones

one of the nudibranchs we saw

The other nudibranch we saw

Denmark is also a good place for foodies to visit. There are wineries, at least 1 cidery, a honey place, a toffee and cidery place, a chocolate factory plus more. We stopped at the toffee place. It is a pretty interesting little business. They sell toffee and brittles, ciders and a mix of sauces and spice rubs, all made on site. They also sell ice creams that looked very yummy and have recently started doing burgers as well. We sampled some toffee and came away with a mixed bag that included choc mint toffee, peanut popcorn brittle, wattleseed and sandalwood toffee (I'll have to check that when I go to eat it as I'm not sure if that's what it actually was called) and more. We also taste some of the sauces. There were a few I liked but give that we had bought some at The Berry Farm in Margaret River, we didn't buy any more. Greg came away with some apple ciders.

On our second morning we paddled the canoe up river to the town, for a bit of fun and adventure. It was an easy paddle, of around 1.5km to town. We pulled the canoe up on to the river bank  and wandered the shops of town, getting some morning tea at the bakery. It was quite calm and peaceful (if you tuned out the kids constant chatter) on the river and something I would like to do more of as it is a great way to explore.