19 March-Scott’s Bay

After a good quick pack up we got going early and headed into Ceduna in time to have good mobile reception for our Monday morning school lessons. Afterwards we did some shopping, browsed the visitor information centre and got directions to a water filling station – one dollar for 150litres of town water – pretty reasonable. We filled every jerry can and the bladder as well so we were loaded for the Nullabor – not quite sure how long we’d take to drive across (plenty do it in a day – but there’s lots to see and do along the way).

We headed for Fowlers Bay to the west of Ceduna. The little town of Penong is great for a brief stopover with a park dedicated to all sorts, sizes and brands of windmills – including the biggest windmill in Australia. Even a playground swing has been modified by some bright spark so that kids can see how the mechanics work and the piston pumps the water as the swing goes back and forth.

After a quick loop around the little coastal village of Fowlers Bay, we kept driving out hoping to find a track into Scott’s Bay which had been recommended to us for camping by a man we met about five days ago. He had lived and worked as a shearer out this way (Coorabee) for many many years and we took his advice. The track was found and – at the end of the worst corrugations we had experienced so far – we got out – very rattled – and checked to see if the roof rack was still there.

It was and we realised we were in a beautiful place. We pulled up in a good camping area with only one other caravan set up a good distance away where we couldn’t see them. A 30 metre walk over the dune popped us out onto Scott’s Bay beach – spectacular in every direction – dunes one way, cliffs the other. A reef being pounded by angry surf but dissipating the waves so the beach was sheltered and calm. White sand and turquoise water. We went for a walk taking a fishing rod along for the trip. Some 4WDs were stopped along the beach fishing – one had caught a large salmon and we tried our luck with a soft plastic lure. Not much happening but then another 4WD came along with a family we’d been passing over the past couple of weeks – Shane, Jess, Mason and the crew. They’d had success already with the salmon and got us onto a school. Our lure wasn’t getting out the distance so Shane lent us a metal lure that had good weight to get out further. Straightaway the fish were on and what fun they were – good size fish grabbing the lure as it hit the water – and then jumping out of the water like barra. If the one you’d hooked dropped the lure, five others were following ready to grab it. We probably pulled in ten fish over an hour or so. All were released although the boys were keen to keep one and cook it up.

We got back over the dune to our sheltered camp and heated up some water for showers to wash off the saltwater we’d been splashing in while fishing. It’s nice to get into the tent nice and clean! Another spot you could spend a month at!