Escorted Holidays with Shirley Tamm

Our last stop before we departed Port Lincoln, was an extremely interesting visit to the renowned Axel Strenross Maritime Museum.

Our guided tour took us through this historic collection of maritime information, artifacts, photos and exhibits of Axel Strenross’s early days of boat building in Pt Lincoln. 

As you can see by the photos, our passengers very much enjoyed interacting with many of the exhibits on display. We all had a laugh at the ladies who wanted to get a picture of themselves by the big pot (The Blubber Pot)!!

Pt Lincoln and the surrounding areas and bays has so much to offer, make sure you give yourself a good length of time to stay there, especially in the summer time. 

We stayed at the Hilton for 2 nights in Port Lincoln which is well positioned right on the beachfront right in the town. Beautiful views right around Boston Bay, the town jetty and grain jetty which is lit up at night. Many of our passengers enjoyed a walk along the beach front into town enjoying a welcomed sunny day. 

Lovely meals were enjoyed by all and once again, being entertained by our great driver Peter. 

Our second day in Port Lincoln took us on a tour of this lovely town, beautiful bay, picturesque white sandy beaches and home to a very large fishing industry.

To get a 360 degree view of Pt Lincoln and the surrounding areas we drove up to Winter’s Hill (top picture) and then around to the Marina which now houses all of the fishing boats, many of which are docked throughout the winter season. 

We then had a fascinating behind the scenes tour of The Fish Place where they handle all of the local seafood catches of the day to be processed and sent off to their various industries and restaurants, intra, interstate and overseas.The tour was topped off by a delicious seafood lunch which was enjoyed by all of our passengers.

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.