We have finally made it to the Yorke Peninsula South Australia and are now camped at Marion Bay

This is a very small fishing/holiday village with one general store, a tavern, cafe and heaps of small holiday shacks.

Following are bits and bobs from our travels over the last few weeks:

Moorook

- camped a couple of nights beside the lake and enjoyed a walk around the town. We were very happy not to have any rain for a couple of days, even made friends with the local ducks:

Camp site at Moorook with duck

We walked for miles (becoming a theme) looking for the historic primary school, passing by orange orchids, and vineyards along the way. We finally found the historic school, looked at it and turned around and went back.

Barmera

Barmera which holds South Australia's country Music Festival also has a museum in honour of Dean 'Rocky' Page, and has the largest guitar in Australia (a non-playable outside landscape creation). Rocky was involved in a lot of things including running a music school and hosting a radio program. His studio is reconstructed at the museum as shown in the following photo:

Photo of recreated radio studio of 'Rocky' Page

Barmera also has Lake Bonny - a pretty little lake which hosts water-skiing and also an attempt at the waterspeed record. Robyn currently attempting a 'lakeside sitting record':

Photo of robyn enjoying the Lake Bonney banks

Truro Hotel

A viscious wind kicked up on our journey from Barmera through Blanchetown heading west, and so we decided to seek shelter at Truro. The Hotel offers free camping. It was an unusual experience for us. The camp area was small and up a steep slope. We thought we better have a drink in the hotel to show our appreciation of the camp site (and recover from the windy drive). The bar owner was an interesting character with a full bodied, beautiful head of white hair, and a face that could tell a thousand stories. He wasn't in the mood for talking today. One of the locals, in fact the only other patron in the bar, entertained us with stories of the towns history and hotel patrons exploits over the years.

Photo of camp site at Truro

Eudunda

We headed north the next day, and camped at the bottom of the lookout in Eudunda. It was cold and windy at the top of the hill where the lookout was.

Photo of Robyn at the lookout

Burra

Lovely historic town where we spent a few days. Walked to the historic copper mine. We are trying to get used to the cold. Still question the decision to head to the Yorke Peninsula in winter - surely there is better weather up north?

Photo of lake at mine site

Some of the remains of the old buildings:

Photo of lake at mine site

Bowman Park

Bowman Park is an old sheep property that has been preserved for public use, including the homestead, about 5klm out of the town of Cyrstal Brook. Free camping is allowed and they have conference facilities in the renovated old buildings. It's a nice bushy area, and the Heysen Walking Trail goes through the property. The following photo shows the lovely big gum trees in the camping area:

Photo of camp site Bowman Park

After spending a few days with friends at Port Germein we continued on our way to Yorke Peninsula.

Lawrie Park near Port Pirie

The weather turned fairly nasty with forecasts of strong winds, hailstones and snow in some parts of SA, so we sat it out at Lawrie Park where we were protected from the very bad weather.
We were lucky to have a camp fire, not big enough:

Photo of camp fire at Lawrie Park

Corney Point

On the way south we stopped overnight at a couple of towns - Alford and Arthurton. At Corney Point we stopped to look at the lighthouse and beach.

Photo of lighthouse

The view back over the bay taken from the lighthouse:

Photo from Corney Point lighthouse over the bay

They have tractors to get their boats down to the water - not enough boat ramps. A lot of the holiday shacks had their own tractors parked in the front yard at the ready.

Photo of tractors on the beach

The camping areas were all down long dirt roads and so we decided to stick to the bitumen and go across to Marion Bay and stay at the caravan park there.

Walk the Yorke

There is a great walk all around the Yorke Peninsula, we kept doing little fragments of it. The total walk is about 500klm, we think we've done about 3klm in total so far.

Photo of Robyn at a Yorke walk sign

Marion Bay

Here is the lovely peaceful, quiet bay of Marion Bay, no waves today:

Photo of Marion Bay

There are also a couple of nice swimming beaches, and a jetty for fishing and boating activities, along with the rocky areas shown in the photos.

Photo of rock face

We have heard news of bad weather all the way up NSW and Queensland and have realised we have been better off by not heading north yet.
And, there is something tranquil about the Yorke Peninsula which I can't quite put my finger on yet. When I've had a bit of a rest it might come to me.
The coin toss decision has worked to our favour again.

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