As we left Eucla we made a snap decision to visit a little place called Fowlers Bay that for the next two nights. This lead to a longer day than we had originally planned on, with our first night time arrival. Although we new nothing of Fowlers Bay there was something about its name and positioning that really attracted Liz. From Fowlers Bay we travelled onto Streaky Bays for another 2 nights, much of which I wasted as I had to complete an assignment as part of the Sustainability unit I am currently undertaking. The next three nights were spent in Baird Bay before we moved onto Wudinna and Kimba for a night each.
Until we reached Wudinna all communities fishing focussed.
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Old Telegraph Station - Fowlers Bay |
Fowlers Bay is a community of only about 100 people. It provides limited kiosk facilities and a caravan park, with no other real services. What was really interesting was discovering the old telegraph station, unlike Eucla this one is still being used – these days as a house. Some interpretive signage outside explained that Fowlers Bay had been set up as the station prior to Eucla and then also used as the depot for the construction of the Eucla Station, so we were able to show the kids two structures, built for the same purpose at virtually the same times, one in ruins and one still being used.
Fowlers Bay appears to attract predominantly fairly hard core campers – most people were set-up for off-road, out of the way camping. Some very big set-ups were apparent – one guy with 340 kw of solar in order to power two freezers and an upright fridge freezer was indicative of many of them. We spent a couple of days there and the efforts of the new caravan park and kiosk owners was interesting. They are attempting to increase the limited offerings within the town site, building a small shop area to take over from the existing kiosk, however the major question mark from my perspective is how necessary this will prove to be with most visitors coming fully equipped through the existing expectation that nothing will be available.
Streaky Bay is a decent sized country town, with lovely friendly service in the shops I visited. Mitre 10 provided real local service, loading elderly peoples cars etc, very different from the experience we have become used to at Bunnings!
The bakery produced beautiful goods, including the first Cornish pastie I had had in years. The caravan park was comfortable, however half of it was very rigid in set-up – almost the caravan park version of cookie cutter style suburbia. While many people seemed to really like this layout, it lacked a little soul for my liking. The other half of the park to the area we were staying is had a much nicer feel about it, with trees dotted around and the bays designed around them.
I spent one day there in the Community School library, writing an assignment, a waste of a beautiful day but necessary. I found the dichotomy between travelling the country in a big diesel while writing about sustainability to be interesting. The library offered a free wi-fi service which was fantastic, allowing up to 105MB of download daily. I found out when I entered that this system was actually South Australia wide and the password they set me up with would apply in any library in SA, which I think is a wonderful initiative after having been involved in setting up a free wi-fi service through Bunbury just before we set off.
We left Streaky Bay the next morning with a vague intention to reach Baird Bay that night – although we were quite prepared to change our plans if we came across something that appealed, or if on arriving at Baird bay we decided it wasn’t actually what we were looking for.
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Baird Bay Campsite and outlook over town and bay |
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Ocean Eco Experiences |

Baird Bay turned out to be a tiny fishing village, with no significant facilities apart from a small camping area – $10 a night charge, on an honesty basis – with toilets and water provided and a beautiful outlook over the bay. Sadly from an ED perspective, there was no obvious opportunity or effort for the village to capture any expenditure from visitors past the camping fees as there was nothing else on offer. A large part of the rest of the town appeared to be made up of rental and holiday homes – mainly catering to people looking for a weekend/week away fishing – again though none of this expenditure had any way of being kept in the town. A lot of this is probably due to the town being too small to justify any shopping or similar services, however there was one opportunity for an enterprising local to make an income that was being taken advantage of. Ocean Eco adventures is a business taking people out to swim with Sea Lions and Dolphins. It was through hearing about this that we first heard of Baird Bay. As we moved through the previous towns it was mentioned regularly, however when we first got to Baird Bay we couldn’t find anything about it at all. Luckily on the afternoon of our second day there Liz found a small A-frame sign out and we booked in for the following day. This was a fantastic little trip and definitely the highlight of the trip so far. Max especially just loved it and spent hours in the water with sea lions frolicking around him and nuzzling his hand.
I was discussing the lack of advertising etc within the Bay itself and the owners were talking about the difficulties they experienced with promoting the business. Apparently the local council is not particularly helpful and has gone through periods of trying to get them tom close down, even though they have been operating since 1992! This attitude is almost the reverse of the key to local economic development within small communities that I have come to believe in – supporting the most entrepreneurial and successful locals as everyone else will also benefit from there successes. This was particularly apparent from this experience, with the eco tours obviously assisting other property owners to also attract visitors. In addition, nearby Port Kenny also managed to benefit from our stay as that was the closest point at which we could fill up with fuel, purchase a few necessary groceries and we also picked up a pizza for one night’s dinner. We also visited the Tahlia Caves and Venus Bay while there and really enjoyed the few days there.

While we were at Fowlers Bay a few of the people we met who were travelling in the opposite direction had suggested we visit Pildappa Rock while we were in the area. The suggestion was that we stayed for a night, burt by this stage we were short on water and food, and Liz was really missing access to power to charge up her laptop, so we ended up moving on to Wudinna for the night.


Pildappa Rock is a fantastic experience, best described as a mix between Wave Rock and a small Ayers Rock.

The kids found a couple of caves on top and were having such a good time they came down, got there lunch and took it back up so that they could continue on as cavemen.
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Mike with Max and Harry |
Wudinna was just an average country town, but again the service and experience made the difference. We booked in for the night and while setting up Mike Pauley turned up. Liz had heard Mike on the radio the Sunday before, being interviewed as part of a regular weekly spot while he walks from Melbourne to Fremantle raising funds and awareness fro the Arthritis Foundation. We decided to have dinner that night in the caravan park restaurant (again due to a lack of food and the fact that we had lobbed into town on a Sunday) and Mike was in there so he joined us for the first part of the meal as he finished off with a drink. He sat and talked to the kids for the most part and they seemed fascinated by what he was doing and how he was managing it. Mike is also writing a weekly blog which can be found at
http://thearthritisway.wordpress.com/
The service aspect at the caravan park was proven when I was talking to Peter, the owner about difficulties I was having finishing off fitting my jerrycan holders to the caravan drawbar as I hadn’t got it completed before we left and found I was short a couple of tools once we were underway. armed with a power drill etc of Peter’s the job only took half an hour and freed up a lot of space in other parts of the van.
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Max studying (drafting his blog) at Kimba |
While standing on top of Pildappa Rock, Kimba was suggested to us as a great place to stop. We decided to head on down and have a look. Even though we arrived fairly early and hadn’t travelled very far that day it was too good a spot not to stop. A free van stop has been set up close the centre of the town as a joint venture between the local Apex and Lions clubs. It includes a good sized children’s playground, toilets, barbecue facilities, a couple of lovely pagoda style shelters and a very pleasant aspect. While there the kids and I rode into town to buy a few things and really enjoyed the feel of the town. If it wasn’t for the amount of time we had already spent in the area we would probably have stayed another night, but it is time we headed for Whyalla or Port Augusta (we haven;t decided yet, but I am sure we will sort it before tonight!
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