A Tour Of Yorke Peninsula

Yep - This is South Australia - Years Behind The Rest Of The States

 (Will Qualify that statement at a later time lol)

Get ready and strap yourself in, ready for a whistle stop tour of the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.  Known as the 'Boot' of Australia, this is one of the pristine areas of Australia.

Just over an hour or so drive from Adelaide and boasting 700 kilometers of coastline, the choice of beaches or that quiet, tranquil bay is yours.

From the Hummock Ranges in the east, across to Port Broughton in the north, Yorke Peninsula is the traditional home of the Adjahdura people. You can still find artefacts in various townships, including Tiddy Widdy Beach, Moonta Bay, Point Pearce and Point Yorke. Take the Aboriginal Cultural Tour if you would like to know more about the area's indigenous inhabitants.

Yorke Peninsula is full of surprises. In 1919, World War One pilot and aviation pioneer, Captain Harry Butler, made the first airmail flight from Adelaide to the Yorke Peninsula. He was the first man to fly across St Vincent Gulf and the first to fly over water in the southern hemisphere. Captain Butler's Red Devil Bristol monoplane rests in a display hangar in Minlaton. It is believed to be the only genuine one of its kind left in the world.

Over the centuries, many a ship met it's demise along this rugged coastline and now lie at rest at the bottom of the sea, and offer many dive spots around the coast.

Our time being a bit limited, we thought it wouldn't take us too long to investigate all that the area has on offer.  Typical for us, we just sauntered along, taking the back roads and by roads, with any sign of a dirt road, enticing us down, just to see what may lie at the end of the road.

We left Maitland, where we are camped and headed south toward Minlaton,known as the Barley Capital of The World and home to Harry Butler, a World War I flying ace. His Bristol M1C Monoplane has been restored and is preserved in pride of place in a building the centre of the town. When he flew an air mail run from Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent to Minlaton in 1919, it was the first over-water flight in the Southern Hemisphere.

Harry Butler's "Red Devil"

Field Upon Fields Of Barley

Heading further down the road towards Warooka we decided to take the turn before w got into town and headed out towards the coast to Point Turton.  This magnificent place over looks Hardwicke Bay and is very popular for the fishing and boating enthusiast.  This part of the coast is characterised by white sandy beaches, backed by sand dunes and areas of scrub, which are at the moment covered in wildflowers, and make a wonderful sight.

The day had started out as fairly overcast and and when we got to Point Turton it appeared that we had reached the end of the earth.

Reflections

It just seemed that you couldn't see where the sky and the horizon met.  I was in my element of course and spent ages taking heaps of photos.

Further down towards the point we reached Corny Point.  The history of Corny Point goes back to 1870, when because of the threat to shipping, a light house was built, and at the base of the lighthouse is the most amazing rock platform that one could wish to see.

Rocky Foreshore

Fire Rocks

The Rugged Coastline That Is The Yorke Peninsula

The weather started to improve and the sun started to show itself and it was turning into a pearler of a day.

Turning the corner out of Corny Point, the road forward led us to Innes National park, which is a place you could well spend a week on its own.  We payed our $8.00 vehicle entry fee (concession these days) and stopped off at Rhino's and got ourselves a steak sandwich and took it down to Stenhouse Bay where we sat with the ocean views to enjoy it.

Barry Found his Dream Home

One Of The Natives

One of the Many Wildflowers Out In The Park

Old Gypsum Works At Stenson Bay

Having an Afternoon Nap

Our Lunchtime View Over Stenson Bay Jetty

Wild Stocks Grow Over The Cliffs

Barry Strolling The Boardwalk

Albatross

The Boardwalk

A Walk In The Park

Following lunch we continued on down towards Marion Bay passing Annie's point Lighthouse which over look some strange shaped little islands, including this one called Chinaman's Hat.  Further along is the Haystacks, but it is interesting to see the unusual shape of the light house.

Chinaman's Cap Island

Annie's Point Lighthouse

First time we have seen a square lighthouse.  it over looks these other islands and the two light houses face off against each other.

So many little side tracks along the way, so many little coves with their white sandy beaches and crystal clear water, no wonder so many find it such a wonderful place to visit.  Would be easy to spend many days just sauntering along the byways of Yorke Peninsula, but time was getting on and we needed to get back to the bus.

Before returning to Maitland we called in to Ardrossan, another grain handling town with its huge silo's over shadowing the town, as most Yorke Peninsula towns are.  Also known for its mining of copper and worth a stop over at the town lookout, put there by BHP.  Still a vibrant little town, which, like many of these towns have maintained so much of their heritage in the form of the  wonderful architecture and stone work of the wonderful old homes.

The Rugged Ochre Cliffs of Ardrossan

Ardrossan Silos contrast Against The Cliffs

Moonta

Copper was first discovered in the 1860's and the mine soon became the richest copper mine in Australia.  An influx or Cornish miners, affectionately known as 'Cousin Jacks'  invaded the town and have long since left their mark on the town, and bi annually they celebrate their heritage in the form of the Kernewek Lowender.  

Barry And His Cornish Pastie

Barry was very keen to try their famous Cornish Pasties and have to say neither of us was disappointed.

Who could believe that we would arrive in this lovely little town, only to find that the world Championships of Lawn Bowls was on, between Australia and South Africa - Australia was winning by the time we left.....

Always amazed by the wonderful architecture, whilst in Moonta we found this wonderful Uniting Church.

Uniting Church- Moonta

Old Railway Shed - Moonta

Walleroo

Walleroo is obviously the place to be here on the Peninsula - the number of new housing developments is something like I have never seen before - unbelievable.

The ocean is still that wonderful crystal blue, and the town hosts yet another of these long, long jetties, which cater for the grain ships pulled up along side, filling their bellies with grain.

Walleroo never captured my imagination like some of the other towns we have seen, just seems like it is over developed, and just hate to think what it is going to be like in a few years time.  Seems sad to see the old stone architecture being over shadowed by huge multi storey houses all struggling to get that little inch of water views, and Kadina, the major town of the Peninsula is not a lot different, and almost seems like they have forgotten their history.

Sea Baths At Walleroo

So that my friends is our whistle stop tour of Yorke Peninsula.  It has been a wonderful year for the farmers down here, and the crops just look amazing, between the barley and the canola, but I have to say, that I am starting to see green, and am looking forward to heading further west and seeing some of those wonderful outback colors.

Grain Conveyer At Walleroo

Canola Growing On The Peninsula

One of the other sights you will see is salt mining, an there are still considerable amounts of salt mined in the area.

Salt Mining

Huge Piles Of Salt That End Up On Your Dinner Table

So until next time, when we will join you from the Eyre Peninsula, where we have been offered our first house sitting job.  Looking after an historic station of 8,000 acres - Middlecamp Station - all heritage listed and from all reports a photographers paradise.  Just have to look after two spoilt kelpies - one of which has only three legs.  We have a old land rover at our disposal to explore the property to our hearts content.  We leave here tomorrow and headed for Port Augusta, where we will over night it, before heading onto Cowell and seeing what it has in store for us.  We are looking forward to a new experience.

This has been more a photographic blog, more so than informative, but hope you have enjoyed it.

This part of South Australia has so much to offer the tourism market, but in so many ways is so far behind even just other areas of the state that we have already visited, but they don't seem to know how to capitalise on it.  In so many ways there is so much lacking, in just the simple things ie signage is very, very poor, and the tourist informations centres, which are usually our first stop in any town, have been less than helpful.  We pulled into a rest stop today, and I suddenly realised that this was the first rest stop we had seen in the last three days.  A beautiful rest stop, but no toilets, no rubbish bins...and rubbish just blowing around everywhere.  The roads are in a dreadful state, after us saying how good South Australian roads were, but here...no.  They have a long way to go, hence my comment at the beginning of the blog, which follows on from an article in the local paper than ran along a similar vein, so it is obvious to some, not just us

THE END