Not A Mid Life Crisis, Just An Extended Tour (Part XXVII) - The West Coast Exploration

 DAY 39

The alarm went off but it was still dark. WTF? Looking out of my room to the east I could see that it was still quite overcast. 

Bugger. 

I was hoping to get some 'golden hour" shots of the port bit of Port Lincoln. I got up, rugged up and went for a wander, making the best of what I had. I think I did ok....

There were quite a few people out walking this morning and why not? The Port Lincoln foreshore is a gorgeous place to wander around. I strolled out on the jetty. 

An old work mate got a job here in the late 1990's and as a keen swimmer, would jump in and swim out a few hundred metres before turning around and swimming back. After doing this for a few weeks a local met him on his return one day and asked "are you fcuking nuts?" Being a country lad who grew up 400km from the ocean he was a bit perplexed until the local said "there are dozens of tuna farms out in the bay AND this is where they filmed the cage scenes for the Jaws movie". Needless to say, my mate DIDN'T EVER swim in Boston Bay again! 😆

Nope. Read the signs!

There is also quite a bit of street art and sculptures along the foreshore. Explorer Matthew Flinders features heavily. Flinders circumnavigated Australia in 1802/03 and was quite the real world explorer, not some powder puff relying on others experience to save their bacon, then later putting his name to it. No, it seems he was cut from the same mould as Cook and he is appropriately honoured in Port Lincoln.

As I alluded to above, Port Lincoln is famous for it's tuna fishing. It has a large fleet and many tuna farms located out to sea. Apparently in the old days they used to get onto a school of tuna and just jag them into the boat. These are BIG fish and it would have been hard yakka for sure.

Checking out the list of contributors to the above sculpture I noticed at the bottom left Dean Lukin's name. Dean won a gold medal for Australia in weightlifting at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and became a national hero, overnight.

My wandering was coming to an end because Woolworths were now open and I could grab some fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. This beautiful old church was just back from the foreshore, on the way back to the pub.

I soon had the bike loaded up and got some free exercise tramping up and down the stairs of the pub. I had to go down before going up again....several times 😑

Goodbye to Port Lincoln! I'll be back.

Heading west I felt like I was riding in central west New South Wales! The countryside here was so reminiscent of home. Totally NOT what I expected!

I took the turn off to Coffin Bay even though it was a 17 kilometre "dead end". I wouldn't be back here for a long time, if ever, so why not?

The ride in was pleasant enough and the town itself struck me as a bit of a holiday community with kangaroo and emu wandering the main street! 

Of course, Coffin Bay is famous for it's oysters and there were some farms right along the main road into town.

Back out on the Flinders Highway I was beetling along westward again. The tiny hamlet of Wangary was next and I spied a cute little church on a side road. I needed a closer look and wheeled around.

Yeah, it was worth the stop.

A bit further up the road I saw an aircraft spear up into the sky in a steep climb. I again pulled over for a look. An Air Tractor was spreading super over the canola and this sooo could have been somewhere between Grenfell and Young in N.S.W., not here on the Eyre Peninsula.

I could start to smell the super as the wind drift was significant and towards me so it was back on the bike! 

Next stop up the road was Elliston. Again it was a very small community so didn't take long to check out. I spent considerably more time at the bakery, enjoying a pretty decent pie and coffee.

I attracted a small throng of "winged rats" but they wouldn't get a crumb.

They had painted a few murals around the community centre depicting local life over the years. I wonder if people will decorate buildings with images of big John Deere tractors and headers in 100 years time, depicting "the good old days"? I somehow don't think the Chinese will allow that....

Views across to the coast were magnificent. Wheat growing with sand dunes in the background. Photos (or screen grabs from GoPro don't do it justice) Amazing!

A bit further up the road was a track off to the left that was signposted Tahlia Caves. It looked like good dirt, so why not?

Once I got there I couldn't actually be bothered walking down to the caves so I just took a couple of photos up top. It was pretty damn windy here too! (I need a flag to hoist to show the wind in these photos🤔)

Heading back to the highway I droned along again. The countryside was quite flat, being mostly grain growing country with the odd sheep paddock here and there.

Soon enough I was rolling into Streaky Bay. I was interested to see this town as folks I worked with when I lived in S.A. had always spoken in glowing terms of Streaky Bay. As I rolled in on this glorious sunny day I could see why. It was stunning!

That is the pub, looking down across the bay in the photo above. I stayed away, just munching a muesli bar and enjoying the sunshine. Oh, I didn't stay completely away from the pub, wandering into the bottle shop for a bottle of vino - in case I camped tonight.

A quick lap of town revealed a cute little RSL with a cenotaph out the front. When the Empire called, EVERY little nook and cranny of Australia answered. 😟

Out of Streaky I took a left and hugged the coast line. Ceduna was the next stop about 100km up the road. More grain growing country along here. Rolling into Ceduna I wasn't sure what to expect. I stopped at the Shell for fuel and initially my impression wasn't great. That was until the old bird (probably younger than me though 😆) started chatting me up. She was cheeky and certainly brightened my afternoon. I decided to take a look around Ceduna township and do a restock at the supermarket in case I camped out tonight.

I was glad I did. This was the Ceduna foreshore!

It was TOTALLY unexpected but then, I am not sure what I was expecting. Probably not much and certainly nothing like this! I spent the next 20 minutes trying to talk myself into staying in Ceduna for the night. (there is a huge hotel behind me to the right of shot. I could stay and drink beer, watching the sun sink into the bay.....)

While mulling it over I rode over to the port of Ceduna - which was called Thevenard, not Ceduna! I had no idea that there were two parts to Ceduna with Thevenard being it's own seperate community. I was home to some very impressive grain silos. They were so big (and close) that I couldn't get them in frame, even in a panorama.

I rode back to the Ceduna foreshore and munched an apple while looking back to the Thevenard silos. Do I stay or do I press on?

I decided that it was too early to stop for the day. I had a fair ride ahead of me tomoroow and if I could knock off some more distance today, well, that was buying me time tomorrow.

Heading out of Ceduna I got stuck behind a truck for a while. "Big deal" I hear you say! Well, even the blasting powers of the mighty Africa Twin would be tested getting past this "truck". You see, Aussie road trains are long beasties but this one was next level! 

49.7 metres long? That is half a football field! Or an Olympic swimming pool length!

Yes, much flogging of the ponies was going to be needed here....

Wow!!

I buzzed along through more farmland. Somebody told me that the Eyre Peninsula was responsible for 70% of Australia's grain harvest in the 1970s (unverified, latest figure I have) and I can almost believe it. There are just kilometre after kilometre of wheat fields out here. 

After about 45 minutes of droning along I spied another large white wheat silo in the distance. Cresting a small hill I was suddenly looking down on a tiny town, set in a shallow bowl of oh-so green hills. 

This was Penong. I'd never heard of it and wasn't expecting it so decided to fill my tank here.

To do so I needed to swing around at the pumps. When I did the first thing I noticed was the Penong Hotel across the street.....

It was getting late in the afternoon and I hadn't seen any decent options for bush camping so far, what with this area being so heavily cultivated and the road narrowly fenced. The cloud was building from the west too. I didn't want to camp in the rain if I could help it....

Yes sir, I had sufficiently talked myself into staying at the pub! But first, a quick lap of town....

where I spied what must be Penong's big "drawcard", it's windmill collection! These things used to be everywhere in regional Australia but solar powered pumps have really stolen their thunder these days.

Shame. 😶

Good choice with the pub though! I sat out here and nibbled on my snacks while sipping a beer and chatting to Chiller on the phone about the day's events.

The rooms were basic, tired pub rooms, the bar was quiet early on but soon (and surprisingly) filled up.

The food was really basic pub stuff, which was ok.

And the service? Well, it was bloody top notch! The bloke behind the bar was busier than a one legged man at an arse kicking competition but was super helpful and cheerful. It made for a great night and I could happily recommend the Penong pub as a place to spend a night.

Total distance for the day was just over 540 kilometres. This is a nice balance with respect to being able to stop and take a few photos/have a look around and still covering some decent distance.

I wonder how tomorrow will go?

Cheers.