Day 32 - Sunday 29 January - East coast of the Eyre Peninsula

DAY 32

SUNDAY

29 January 2017

Tumby Bay – Port Neill – Arno Bay – Cowell (Camps 8 SA#489)

Well we must have needed that sleep, not waking until 8am. Once up, there was nothing stopping us. I checked my phone for the cats result. A win! Will have to see if we can watch a replay at some stage.

We were on the road by 8.30am and by 9am we pulled into Port Neill, a gorgeous little beach spot. We found a place to park then checked out the anchor of the Lady Kinnaird ship that went down in the 1800’s. As with these places there is always a jetty, so w wandered out. I was taken by the patterns being thrown up by the sand and dancing water below.

Once we had traversed the jetty we wandered along the white sand of the swimming beach. We could feel it was going to be a warm one today, beating down upon us already. We watched a dog looking for his master on the horizon, obviously fishing and didn’t take him along.

We returned to the van and continued a trek north, this time pulling in to Arno Bay 20 min further on. Another picturesque spot with holiday-makers making the most of it. We didn’t hang around for long opting to make our way to Cowell on the Franklin Harbour.

We checked out the free camp area before returning to the town centre, parking at the front and waking up the main street. We stopped in at the loo and found it full of Crap Art. The walls were lined with paintings that you could purchase. It was a great touch. We wondered what the crap stood for. Was it literally bad art? Didn’t seem to be that bad. Was is because the art was on the walls of the public loos? Or did it stand for Cowell Regional Art Project?

We continued up the road admiring the old buildings, that unlike Tumby Bay were well preserved. We stopped in at Collections and antique shop. What a find. This place was like a museum, full of everything you could imagine and there were just rooms of all this STUFF. Paul said it was like wandering into his Nan’s house, with many pieces reminiscent of what they had in their home.

Being lunch time, the smell of the bakery had our mouths watering, so we grabbed a couple of chicken pies and sat on the park bench outside. The pies were delicious.

We then went to the tourist info centre and picked up an enormous amount of brochures for the rest of SA. We stopped to chat to a lady manning the craft store who was happy to fill us in on everything Cowell. Turns out the paintings in the loo are what the artists consider their rubbish attempts and therefore crap!

We checking out the painting studio and gallery housed in the building before returning to the van for a drink and to change into our bathers.

We made our way out on the jetty, passing the mangroves first of all. Unfortunately, unlike Port Neill and Arno Bay, this wasn’t really a swimming beach. After walking the full length of the jetty, I did walk down a set of stairs and plunged my feet into the water. It was so refreshing.

We returned to the van and made our way out to the free RV campsite and made ourselves comfy for the afternoon. It has become the regular routine, set up, load the photos and fill out the blog.

The breeze was coming in through the windows, but it was still warm and there were no trees here to shade the van.  I chose to sit outside and read more of The Four Legendary Kingdoms, watching the two other campers, one with an Alsatian pup. By 6.30pm though, my stomach was growling and it was time for dinner.

At 8pm we decided to go for a walk into town. The clouds were coming in and we could see places where it was trying to rain, but was evaporating before it hit the ground. It was warm and sticky outside and we didn’t see any relief in sight. It was going to be a balmy night in the van.

When we returned I stayed up reading for as long as I could, feeling far more awake than yesterday. By 930pm I joined Paul laying on the bed. We had the windows open, but the bugs were coming in, so we had no choice but to close up the van. Urgh it was going to be a long night.