Eyre Peninsula - west coast

Limestone cliffs at Leo Cumming Lookout

The west coast of the Eyre Peninsula is a lot more rugged than the east coast with high limestone cliffs, often dangerously under-cut by the waves. However the cliffs are broken up by stretches of sandy surf beaches and occasional bays some of which are quite sheltered.

We bypassed Coffin Bay and stayed 2 nights at Mt Dutton Bay where there is an old stone woolshed with a café. Unfortunately the weather was cold and windy so we were happy to move on to Elliston half way up the coast where the weather was better.

The Woolshed cave

Moving north we stopped off to visit the Talia Caves. The Woolshed cave was particularly interesting as the waves had penetrated the limestone which has a loose crumbly structure and had formed a large cave running back into the cliff face. The roof looked relatively thin considering the limestone’s weakness. At the bottom of the cliff the underlying pink sandstone was exposed with a contrasting rounded surface smoothed by the waves.

 From there we moved on to Streaky Bay.

The weather was good and we spent a couple of days exploring the area with a trip down the coast to a sea lion colony. The views were of rugged cliffs again.

Murphy's haystacks

On the way back we stopped off at Murphy’s Haystacks which are pink granite rock structures. They are not boulders sitting on the surface but are actually rising from the bedrock dated at around 1500 million years old and formed by cracking and erosion by wind and weather. They stand on the highest hilltop in the area and only appear in this one spot, some out in the open, others looking like a herd of elephants amongst the trees.

The Streaky Bay National Trust Museum had some interesting exhibits including a fine old wattle and dawb house still with the clay and straw “dawb” between the upright posts, not concrete which is the usual replacement. It is a credit to the staff there as the clay fill has to be replaced about 4 times a year. They also had an old car which was the only transport from the area to Adelaide in the 1930s. The lady owner/driver did her own repairs and at times strapped herself to the roof rack to sleep while her co-driver took over. It took several days to reach Adelaide over

Whale and calf

very rough roads.

After Streaky Bay we spent a night at Ceduna, then did a 600km round trip to the Head of the Bight to see the Southern Right Whales which come right up to the Bunda Cliffs to have their calves and spend the winter in the warm current that flows along the coast.