The Western Edge

Today started with a hiccup. When we started our normally very reliable Land Cruiser some warning lights illuminated indicating a possible problem. Mark had a diagnostic tool available that logs into the car OBD system to find out what problem was indicating. A key suspect was that last night the car battery played up requiring a jump start, so we suspected the warnings were spurious caused by the temporary low voltage that had occurred. We rang Toyota service in Port Lincoln who confirmed our thoughts and was happy for us to continue driving the car providing the warning did not re-occur after the fault was cleared. So we cleared the fault and continued our journey and were pleased that the fault did not re-occur. Hopefully the problem will not re-occur for the remainder of our trip. The battery is on its last legs and will need to be replaced.
These problems delayed our departure, but today was a relatively low mileage day anyway.
Streaky Bay was only 40kms away and this is a very nice small country town located in the coast. It is clearly a popular tourist stopover because the place was full of caravans and grey nomads. Lots of small shops and a very nice seaside waterfront area, a number of very attractive well-kept old buildings which were very well preserved, with a nice jetty and a number of cafes and food outlets. It was a very pleasant stopover for our morning coffee.
Then it was off to a famous free camp area at Perlubie Beach, famous because caravans are permitted to drive onto and camp right on the sand in the beach. It has become so popular that a permit is now required to stay there and the number of caravans per night is limited to 30. We were not stying there this time but we wanted to see it for future reference. It is a long white sand beach with good camping facilities, but one of the features we have noticed about many SA beaches is the large amount of seaweed and kelp that piles up on the beach after being washed ashore. This spoils what would otherwise be a lovely long white sand beach.
After a quick look around the Perlubie Beach campground we continued to our final destination for the day at Smoky Bay.
Smoky Bay is the most western edge of our trip where we turn around and each day from now on will have us heading east back towards Noosa. This is also the place where Mark and Sue leave us and continue their journey further west. We checked into the Smoky Bay caravan park and bid farewell to Mark & Sue as they headed off to Ceduna.
Smoky Bay is also famous for its oysters, so after settling in we went to the Oyster outlet area and bought a dozen of the largest and most delicious oysters we have ever tasted! Wow!! A great way to celebrate the western extremity of our trip!
Smoky Bay has a very laid-back atmosphere and is a place that would be great for a relaxing beach holiday and is probably very popular in the summer months. We walked around feeling very much at home, chatting easily with a few of the locals, and thoroughly enjoying this small town. It was one of the nicest small towns we have seen on this trip. The only downside was that the Internet was a bit like the town - very laid back and slow - which was a bit frustrating.
Tomorrow will be an early start with around 500km of driving ahead.Read more