Upper Spencer Gulf and Quorn

We have decided to put the Eyre Peninsula on hold as the weather is getting quite cold so we headed north to Port Pirie and then Port Augusta for a few days in each. These ports are different to the little places we’d passed through before as they are important shipping ports with Pt. Pirie having a big lead and zinc smelter as well as grain shipping and Pt. Augusta at the head of the Spencer Gulf is also an important freight terminal.

We explored Pt. Pirie town where the railway ran down the middle of the main street until the 1970’s and visited some of the small towns in the surrounding area like Gladstone which has a large gaol which was used until the ‘70s and is open to the public to stay overnight in the cells – popular with car club groups etc.

We drove through the hills south east of Pt.Augusta in the Mt Remarkable area which is very popular for mountain biking and there are lots of trails around Melrose township. At their museum we learned about Goyder’s Line, a line which was defined in the 1860’s which designated areas suitable for farming and outside which it was said to be too arid and only suitable for grazing. It is still used as a pretty accurate guide today.



Warren Gorge



This Yellow footed rock wallaby
had never seen a Moke before at
at Warren Gorge





Kanyaka ruins - even big properties were abandoned.
Kanyaka station was 360 sq. miles



We moved on up to Quorn and had a great day on the back roads between there and Hawker visiting Warren Gorge which would be a wonderful quiet bush camp spot with plenty of birds and wildlife and we stopped at several lots of ruins which are typical of the mid north of South Australia which is dotted with the ruins of broken dreams. Little cottages and towns which did not survive the hard drought years and changes of fortune on the land can be seen along every road.

Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas

Crossing the Murray River by ferry at Wellington

We have been slowly exploring the Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas in South Australia for the last month or so and have got as far as Port Pirie.

There were some really picturesque little coastal townships, all with a history as ports when the sailing ships loaded tons of bagged wheat and barley from local areas for shipment to England. What surprised us was that the sailing ships still operated in considerable numbers up until around 1950. The other thing we hadn’t realised was how big they were! The Pamir was 3000 tons and loaded 4000 tons of wheat and none of the models and picture give you a true idea of how tall the tall ships were. At Port Vincent you can get some idea as they have compared the Pamir to the town for example the masts were twice the height of the Norfolk pines in the main street; the spars were the width of the street and the deck the width of the median strip on which the pines are planted. The ships raced to England to get the best prices for the wheat crop – the record was 83 days.



Old horse drawn double decker trams still run on a bridge to this
island at Victor Harbour 



The Fleurieu Peninsula is quite hilly with some dairy farming but the Yorke Peninsula is much flatter with miles and miles of farms growing wheat and barley. The coastal towns are all within reasonable distance of Adelaide nowadays and so they are all growing rows of big holiday homes near the beaches, but the old parts of the towns are full of beautiful old buildings ranging from the old civic buildings to old mansions with tower rooms and verandas all round, to quaint little stone cottages.

We decided not to visit Kangaroo Island as the ferry pricing is too high for a day trip and there would be no question of taking the bus over unless we had a Lotto win!

Copper Mines ruin at Moonta

As we headed north on the Yorke Peninsula we found more mining activity with copper being a big early industry round the Moonta area known as the copper triangle. This lead to the strong Cornish heritage in the area.  Further north at Port Pirie is the biggest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere also producing zinc and some gold and silver. The ore processed here comes from mines further north.



Decorative detail above an old shop in Port Pirie