The Yorke Peninsula
Feeling more confident to manage the terrain after our Bendleby experience, we travelled South towards the boot-shaped Yorke Peninsula on the coast of South Australia. Just round the corner from the Yorke, looking out over a fairly sheltered bay we set up what felt like our first proper camp at Port Broughton Tourist Park. The beach was a few paces from our door and looked beautiful but the wind was really chilly and increased from a still start to a strong blast by the afternoon so this photo was taken wearing 4 layers and a wooly hat!
Moving round into The Yorke proper, we had a couple of days at Port Wakefield Caravan Park. This site fronted onto a tidal pool which was clearly a favourite spot for swimming on warmer days. Some years back, the locals had banded together to form a restoration working party to build a bridge from old railway tracks and sleepers. A simple but rather beautiful structure which had brought the community together during its construction and since as a place to meet play on and, although against the rules, jump off too. The temperature in the sunshine got into the upper 20s and the water was only about 15C, but really rather nice once you’re in, as they say.
Both these sites had electric hook-up and cost $30-40 a night so we felt the need to go off grid and put ourselves and the Kimberley to the test as well as keep to our budget. Bush camps can be found all over Australia, many are free or request a donation into an honesty box but some can be booked on-line in advance for a $10-15 fee that provide an income for rural councils, National Parks or farmers. Sites (pitches in the UK) are not marked out but are visible by the warn spot amongst the trees and are generally pretty spacious. There are bush camps along the coast too, on cliff tops, amongst dunes and on beaches. Some have no facilities at all or maybe just fire pits or picnic tables and others have long-drop toilets or maybe a shower cubicle where you can use your own black-bag shower that has been heating up in the sun on your roof all day. There are more commercial bush camps where you are paying $25-35 for a spectacular view or some other feature but they still idon’thave much in the way of facilities so I’m yet to be convinced.
We stopped at a few rural council bush camps on the East Coast of the Yorke that were nestled between a wind farm and the shoreline. The turbines were stunningly majestic and their rhythmic swooshing may well have lulled us to sleep but we chose a camp just beyond the end of the row called Goldsmiths Beach, No.17 on this map. The area had been devastated by a ferocious bush fire in 2019 and, although many of the trees had not recovered, there were healthy new shrubs, grasses and wild flowers. We got a fire going in time to watch the sunset that turned the sea an iridescent pink then baked our potatoes and warmed up a bean chilli for dinner. The rock pools revealed at low tide in the morning were apparently devoid of all life. I’d like to think all the creatures were just skilfully hiding but they didn’t do that when I was a kid when similar spots would be teaming with all manner of swimming wriggly things and I was sad they weren’t there.
A little further South, the next camp was of the pricey-nice-view-few-facilities variety at Hillocks Drive where you have to pay $15 just to get in for a look or pay $34 without viewing. The whole site covers about 15km of rocky coast punctuated by tiny sandy coves offering secluded swimming and sunbathing to the relatively small number of campers plus day visitors at busier times. Only one Treasure Cove has steps to the beach installed as part of a conservation research project, the others to the East of reception are a sandy scramble and some are quite tricky to reach. The sites further west provide easier access to the beach and have more sites grouped together.
We got tempted in because one of the sites was called Annie’s Camp so we had to stay. We were sheltered by the cliff top dunes where there were lots of low growing wild flowers but, at his time of year, it was still pretty chilly so we didn’t explore as we perhaps would have done in warmer weather.
There had been several reports of brown snakes so we stomped around the undergrowth which gives them a chance to scarper. We saw several lizards basking in the sun or crossing the tracks, it seemed perfectly reasonable to wait as really we were crossing their track not the other way around.
It’s a well documented phenomena that, the closer you are to the source of your food and water, the more precious it feels. Although we are not that close to the original source of our water, as so far it has come from a tap on the campsites, we are carrying it with us and it does feel precious. We have a 70 litre tank of drinking water, which has to come from a ‘potable’ source, and 120 litre tank for everything else, which could be filled from a river, rain water tank or bore hole. When we are in bush camps this is our only source of water and in some areas may need to last a few weeks. Depending on the site, you may be allowed to just drain grey water (all non-toilet waste water) directly onto the ground or pipe it to a nearby grateful tree but on busier camps you have to collect it for proper disposal. Our Kimberley doesn’t have a grey water tank so we collect ours in a 20 litre jerry can which also helps us monitor our water usage.
I’ve always thought I was fairly frugal with water but it is uncomfortable to see what is essentially drinking water very visibly collecting in a jerry can just because it’s been used to wash dishes; something that it’s easy not to consider when it goes down a dark drain. Over the past few days my dishwashing technique has markedly changed from what my Mum taught me as a young child standing on a stool at the sink which involved rinsing every dish under the tap. We now finish a meal with bread to clean the plates, use the largest dirty dish to wash everything else in rather than the whole sink, only using a couple of tiny drops of plant-based washing-up liquid and no rinsing. This has reduced water usage by 80% allowing us to sustain bush life for more time and save Ian’s back carrying the can.
On the subject of disposal (skip this paragraph if you don’t like poo info) our Kimberley has a vacuum toilet system, similar to an aeroplane loo, it uses about 0.4 litres of water per flush but no nasty chemicals. The tank holds about four days worth of waste and can be put down one of the dump stations available in most towns or, unlike its chemical cousin, down a long-drop or a well dug hole off the beaten track. You have to sparingly use special quick dissolving totally biodegradable loo paper which takes a bit of getting used to but, by the time the tank is emptied, has magically vanished.
We ended our time on the Yorke at Marion Bay Caravan Park, a small but well equipped council camp ground with beach access. This is at the gateway to the Dhilba Guuranda-Innes Nation Park, a category II IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) area of 94km2 where the natural ecosystem is protected and allowed to evolve with minimal interruption from people. The coast is spectacular with several lookouts and several islands, including the descriptively named Chinaman’s Hat Island (below left) located in a sanctuary zone within the boundaries of the South Spencer Gulf Marine Park. From West Cape point, where Ian is looking out to sea, five lighthouses are visible. Within the Park, there are seven really good bush camps and four day camps along with many bush walking tracks and beaches with excellent surfing that attract 200,000 visitors a year. I have to say, that seems quite a lot of people to me for a place that is protected from human intervention.
Again it was chilly, especially at night, which meant that we either had to stay on sites with electric hook-up so we could have some heating or head further North to warmer climes. The big question was which way to go; just further North in SA and do the Oodnadatta Track, up to Queensland via Birdsville or over to Western Australia. So when we reached the sign in Port Augusta saying left to Perth or right to Darwin, we had to choose. For those unfamiliar with the distances involved, this is a bit like being in London and looking at a sign with Moscow or Istanbul on it!
