MONDAY MAY 3     STREAKY BAY

We had a fine day, blue sky for most of it, very pleasant.

Set out to drive the Cape Bauer Loop tourist drive. This would not be too onerous for John, but would give a good sampling of the spectacular coastal scenery to be found around here.

First stop was Hallys Beach. A long but well graduated boardwalk took us down to the beach, which stretched into the distance.

We walked for some distance along the beach, and back.

John was standing near the water’s edge and wave watching, when a big one suddenly reared up and “chased” him. His efforts to get going in the sand were hilarious – cartoon worthy. The waves were certainly impressive.

Back up the boardwalk, which didn’t seem nearly such an easy gradient going uphill.

Drove on to Whistling Rocks and the Blowholes.

The Whistling Rocks were great. Waves forced air and water through fissures in the rocks and this made an impressively loud noise. There were steps built to these and to lookout platforms.

We spent some time at each platform, trying to get good photos of waves crashing onto the rocks, blowholes blowing, and rainbows in the sea spray.

Then more driving – on to Cape Bauer itself. This was the southern head of the Streaky Bay, so named by explorer Matthew Flinders, because the water surface in the bay was – streaky! As it still is.

The rugged Cape scenery was impressive. We watched a pod of dolphins playing about in the surf.

Continued on the loop road, following the coastline around, back towards town. We stopped at the boat ramp area – inside the small Blanche Port inlet bay at the head of which the town is built. Ate lunch there, watching two dolphins swimming around just in front of us.

Rather than go back to camp, took the track to Back Beach. The tide was in, and there was no beach to speak of, so we didn’t try to walk down onto it.

Back in town, refuelled Truck. Went to the seafood outlet shop and bought six large whiting fillets. These cost $25 but would do us for two meals.

Tea was whiting, fries and salad.

John phoned one of his bowls acquaintances at home. Ever since our time with the dingoes at Pungalina in 2005, we had kept revisiting the idea of getting a dog. Now, we were to get a cattle dog pup from this bowls family. The news was that the pups had been born: four females amongst them, which was good, because that was what we wanted. The mother dog was part stumpy-tail cattle dog (yes, it is a distinct breed), part blue heeler, and it appeared that only one of the pups had a proper tail. We might have to get used to having a “tail-less” dog. All very exciting – but an event that would certainly cause change to how and where we travelled in the future.

For once, a reason to look forward to going home!