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Our first stop after leaving Ceduna and travelling down the west coast of SA's Eyre Peninsula was the small holiday/fishing town of Smokey Bay. We pulled up on the water front and were all immediately walking around with big smiles on our faces! After the long days of not much at all along the Nullarbor we were all glad to be back on the coast. While admiring the view and checking out the waterfront caravan park, we ran into a bloke that Luke and Megan had met before on the west coast. After a yarn with him we were sure we were close to the right spot. We decided to move on down the coast to a camp spot in Haslam. Before this though we had to stock up on fuel and grab a few more fishing supplies. Any excuse for a browse through the local tackle shop! Although we would have liked a few less holes in our brand new crab nets we bought!?
Pulling into Haslam it was a bit of a shock as we may have been expecting a little more then we actually got! However for $5 a night with a toilet and water tap as well as being only a few metres to the beach we were all set up in no time. After checking out the beach access, Kev and I were giving Luke a hand to unload his boat and set it up ready for an attack on SA's number one sports fish, the King George Whiting. With the boat on the trailer and ready to go we headed to the water for our first crack at the monster whiting. With a howling wind blowing our first assault lasted about one half of a very wet hour!
We were able to have a quick chat to one local fisho and with a few tips under our belt we set off the next morning earlier and keen as ever. This time success was ours! We managed a pretty respectable catch of about a dozen King George before the wind chased us home just about lunch time. Let me tell you returning back with a fair catch was a relief to all of us as we would have copped plenty of stick from the girls if we had come back empty handed again! With the wind still howling through the night our plans to get a few squid of the jetty at night were cancelled also. We managed to catch one of the oyster fisherman on their way back to their shed and were able to buy some beautiful fresh oysters from them for only $6 a dozen! My amateur shucking took me 25min to shuck and clean one dozen, but Carol and the girls managed to cook up some of the best Oyster Kilpatrick we had all eaten. With only three of us wanting to eat them raw, most were cooked this way. They went like hotcakes once they had a bit of bacon and sauce put on them!
With the days pretty windy and not a real lot of man-made distractions available in Haslam for the girls, they were all pretty keen for any sort of game or jobs we could all organise for them. While we were enjoying a few beers and waiting for our oysters to cook, I took it upon myself to take the girls riding round the close streets of Haslam. Now being a pretty small place it was easy going really for me, or so I thought!? With only one kid's bike and the road too rough for scooters I had managed to load two kids onto my own bike and set off for our tour. Well returning to camp with bark off Chelsea's foot and a broken spoke on my front wheel you can probably guess what happened. Chels had managed to try to get off while we were moving and before I could stop the bike or her she had slipped her foot into the wheel and bought us to a halt herself! So much for father of the year that day!? A couple of lolly-pops, a few concerned looks from the other girls, some warm water and a clean-up and she was as good as new. It was, touch wood!, our biggest injury of the year.
A phone call from Phil and Jo told us that they had decided to set up in Streaky Bay. Being only about 40km down the coast and with Luke and Meagan needing to send a couple of faxes off, we all loaded up for a drive. The more sheltered Streaky Bay was very calm and the van park had a fair load of holiday makers set up there. It was a very pretty little town with enough shops to get nearly one of everything if you needed it. Even a plastic model of the largest Great White Shark ever caught on a line! After a quick catch up and a look around we were headed back to Haslam. We would meet Phil and Jo again further down the coast, as we were still going the same direction.
With plenty more to see and the promise of some even more famous Coffin Bay oysters and even bigger King George, we were on the road south the next day. We managed a couple of short stops for the day and saw some spectacular coast line and caves. Making it to Farm Beach on a pretty windy and sometimes rainy day we were glad to find a very nice little camp area. Once again it was only $5 a night and had toilets and water and simple access to the very clean beach. Being only 50km to Port Lincoln we set up and decided we would need a few extra days in a spot with so much to see.
Gallipoli Beach is only a few km's up the coast and was the site of some of the filming for the movie of the same name. We were even lucky enough to meet a local bloke who played an extra in the movie when he was in high school. It was here that a small little accident came back to bite Luke on the foot, so to speak!? Having been spiked in the foot by a small fish back in Haslam he had been unaware that some of the spine was stuck in his foot and become infected after a day or two. With his bad luck and a trip to the doctor, who dug about half 10mm of spine out of his foot, Kev and I took the opportunity to catch a few fish in his boat for him. Just to cheer him up off course!?
With Luke back on deck we managed a couple of days of fishing and landed a fair few good catches of Whiting. With a legal size of 31cm we could not believe we were catching such huge whiting! Certainly a change from the ones we see back in QLD. Also as a table fish they would be pretty hard to beat, especially served as fresh as we were getting them! Our luck with the squid was still up to s*** and Luke and I were both keen to bag a feed of them as they are something neither of us have ever caught before.
A day trip into Port Lincoln for our supplies and a look around was also organised for all of us. After our lunch spent on the water front we managed a look around and a bit of shopping. Port Lincoln has plenty of everything you would expect from a major regional centre. Grain trucks were busily carting this year's crop to the huge silos for loading into the huge ships waiting to cart it away. Grain is a massive industry in this area and you can't drive anywhere along the roads without seeing miles and miles of grain growing. The other huge industry for Lincoln is the Tuna fish farms. Using huge ring nets floating in the ocean the fish are bread and fed for market in the open ocean. You can even take tours where you can dive and snorkel in the nets with the fish!
Carol and Kev took a detour into Coffin Bay and came back to camp with a bag full of beautiful oysters. Apparently the best of the best those Coffin Bay oysters were definitely the best I have ever eaten! Another trip to Coffin Bay saw us catch up with Phil and Jo for the last time. After travelling with them for a few days we had all enjoyed their company and especially Phil's sharp observations and sense of humour.
Spending a few days at Farm Beach the time came when we were all starting to look for clean undies!? Meaning that we all needed some washing done. Carol and Megan were both travelling with small twin tub washing machines and with no shortage of generators we were able to set up a laundry of sorts at the back of the toilet block. With plenty of sun shining and wind blowing, by the time we all took turns manning the tubs and taps and Luke limping around it took no time at all for us all to have clean undies again!
Our next destination was Cowell, about 120km north of Port Lincoln. With only a short two night stay planned we were surprised when we finally found some good luck fishing from a jetty!? After setting up and looking around Kev headed off to the Jetty with a handful of crab nets and his squid jig. Luke and I followed him down and by the time we arrived the old fella was already filling his bucket with beautiful Blue Swimmer crabs! (sandies) We were able to score a good feed of crab both afternoons we were there. Add the crab to the oysters we were still getting fresh there in Cowell for only $8/dozen and some fresh prawns we bought we were all getting pretty well fed! All the girls were also keen to be on the jetty and were very excited to see the crabs come up in the nets. They all spent some time practising their casting using the squid jigs and generally running up and down the jetty yelling at Kev to hurry up and check the drop nets. One of the hardest jobs we had there was dragging Kev off the jetty and back to camp!
Being only a day away from the opening of SA's snapper season, a fair few bigger boats started rolling into the area. Looking at these beautiful big boats was making Luke, Kev and I pretty keen to tick an SA Snapper off our list for this year. Our chance was going to come as our next stop was going to be Point Lowly, just north of Whyalla, known as the Snapper capital of SA!
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