Escorted Holidays with Shirley Tamm

After the sea air, good walks and experiencing the wonderful sea lions,morning tea at Raptor Domain - Birds of Prey,  was well appreciated,  prior to seeing the bird show. 

We did start off outside but unfortunately as the weather came over rainy, they moved the bird show undercover. All of our passengers just love this show as the staff are all so passionate about the birds that they train and the welfare of rehabilitating the birds, if they are able. 

Lunch was beckoning us, so we traveled on to Vivonne Bay Lodge for a well deserved delicious lunch.

Before leaving Ceduna, we drove out to Pink Point lookout to view the port and jetty at Thevenard which handles bulk grain, gypsum, salt and zircon.

Barbara stands straight and tall in front of the mosaic tower and Carolyn and Geoff at the memorial stone at the lookout at Pinky Point. 

We travelled on from Ceduna to the lovely seaside town of Streaky Bay for lunch and then drove about 20 minutes south east, down the coast to a virtually unknown but amazing spot, called Murphy’s Haystacks. 

Local legend says that Murphy’s Hay stacks acquired its name from an Irish agricultural expert who saw this landmark in the distance whilst travelling on a coach. This Irish gentleman informed his fellow passengers that the farmer must have harrowed this land to produce such a great abundance of hay! The original farmer of the land was a Mr Murphy and to this day the landmark is known as Murphy’s Hay stacks. 

Murphy’s Hay Stacks were weathered and sculpted into their present forms about 100,000 years ago Geologists say the hay stacks are composed of pink granite from the Hiltaba suits of rocks which were laid down some 1500 million years ago. 

A $2 honor donation is required to enter the gate of this private land showcasing these fascinating rock formations. Although the weather was very cold, windy and a light rain, we enjoyed the wonderful views over the land beyond and discovering all of the wonderful formations of these extraordinary, beautiful rock formations. 

A must see visit when you are in the area.

We parked at the seafront at Elliston to watch the wild weather whip up the waves crashing against the foreshore wall whilst we ate our picnic lunch in the comfort of our coach. 

A short tour of the town of Elliston to view the lovely murals and art works depicting the early days of the town which are scattered throughout the town on various buildings and open areas. 

The murals shown here are absolutely fantastic and are featured on all of the walls and public toilets at the Visitor Centre. 

We had a picnic lunch prepared for us from the Ceduna Foreshore Hotel which was enjoyed under the covered area at the Visitors Center where we were entertained by our driver extraordinaire, Peter. 

The Visitor Center does have some information on the whales and also much to our passengers delight - makes good coffee! It is a very good set up there catering for parking of coaches, caravans and cars, good toilet facilities and the undercover area if required. 

We did stop on the way back to Ceduna to take a pic of the sign telling us that this was the start of the Nullarbor Plains - I’m pictured here with Peter.

All of our passengers said they had a wonderful day and a truly memorable lifetime experience seeing the whales in such a unique natural area.

The day we have all been waiting for - to travel to Head of Bight, from Ceduna, to see the Southern Right Whales. This is one of the most spectacular whale watching sites in South Australia, offering fantastic views with Bunda Cliffs and pristine beaches as a backdrop.  

We were excited to read on the sign at the entrance to the Visitor Center that 141 whales had been spotted! 

We had had grey skies, cold weather and a bit of rain up until this day which greeted us with lovely blue skies, no rain, still cool but very thankful for a lovely day. A short walk down to the viewing platforms from the Visitor Centre with 2 choices of viewing platforms to choose from. If you didn’t want to walk to the viewing platforms, there are small covered areas that you can sit and watch the magnificent views and of course the whales passing by. We saw aprox 20 whales however unfortunately they didn’t get the message that “we” were coming that day and didn’t perform with any breaches or tail slapping. The whales and their calves were swimming by our platforms but further out to sea and just under the water, so they were a bit difficult to see. Never the less, we were all mesmerized by such a memorable experience and to be witnessing such a spectacle in great surroundings. 

From Pt August we travelled west across the top of Eyre Peninsula with a short coffee stop at the Big Galah in Kimba. This stop is right on the highway and has a great little cafe and gift shop which our passengers really enjoyed. 

From Kimba we had our lunch stop at the Wudinna. This region is known as The granite country for its deposits of granite in the area. This granite was employed in the construction of The Australian Farmer, an 8-metre (26 ft) high statute (shown above) that was carved in the town as a community project to commemorate the early settlers.

My grandparents (Woodrup) were one of the many first settlers in the area and have been recognized with their names featured under this statue.  

We were very fortunate to meet Tim Scholz, former Mayor of Wudinna who was tending the garden at the statue, with some other volunteers and offered to give our group a short talk about the Granite Farmer statue - before the rain headed us back to the coach. 

We continued west past small townships of Poochera and Wirrulla before arriving in Ceduna in the afternoon. We will spend 2 nights in Ceduna at the Ceduna Foreshore Hotel. 

Before we moved on from Pt Augusta we had a fantastic visit to the Wadlata Outback Centre.

Everyone was thrilled with the quality of the exhibits (static and interactive), history and cultural information etc that was on display. An hour is just not enough time to spend there if you want to sit and enjoy some of the interactive exhibits, everyone really enjoyed the whole experience and would have liked to have had more time there - unfortunately because of the distances we had to travel that day, we did have to move on. 

There is a great Gift, book and information shop there and a lovely coffee lounge - but make sure you allow more time than you expected to spend there.  

Our first nights stop was at the Acacia Ridge Motel in Port Augusta. Owners Andrew and Maria were wonderfully welcoming to our group and looked after us all extremely well. The food was great and plentiful and, catered for some passengers dietary needs without fuss. Nothing was too much trouble.

As the weather had been very cold, we delighted in our rooms being warm (heaters were on) and cosy to move into to. 

Maria bought Diesel their dog to say goodbye and thank you to us before our departure which we loved.

A great stay, we would all thoroughly recommend you stay here whilst in Pt Augusta.

We of course had to have a Cornish pastie for lunch at the Cornish Kitchen (in the town of Moonta) before travelling on via the towns Kadina, Wallaroo and a short stop for an ice cream on the beach at Port Broughton before heading onto Pt Augusta for our first night’s stop.

23rd July, 2016 we departed Adelaide on our fantastic 7 day Whales & West Coast SA Tour. 

Our first stop  was in the town of Moonta which is one of the three ‘copper triangle’ towns on the Yorke Peninsula. Here we had a great guided tour of the Moonta Mines Museum to learn about the early mining history of this region.All of our passengers enjoyed our time there and found the exhibits and information extremely interesting. 

Make sure you visit this Museum when you travel over to this region and also ensure that you stop across the road from the Museum, at the Moonta Mine Sweets Shop were they sell all of the yummy, old fashioned sweets - our passengers stocked up on these sweets for the trip!