THURSDAY MAY 6     STREAKY BAY TO COFFIN BAY     280kms

Packing up again took a long time – for all of us.

The gear was wet too, which didn’t help. As the sites were fine gravel, trying to clean off and fold up the wet awning roof, without picking up lots of little stones too, was a challenge.

M really needed a different “living” arrangement, in my opinion. That current tent was a fool of an arrangement.

After all the trials of the pack up, we had only gone a couple of kms from Streaky Bay when John noticed that the temperature gauge was rising too much. Pulled over. When he checked under the bonnet, saw that the coolant expansion tank was almost empty. That was a worry. He added some water to that, then we did an about turn and drove back to Streaky Bay and bought a container of coolant. We always used to carry a spare container of this, in our general travels, because we were often in remote areas. Never needed it. Of course, this time, when we did, the spare coolant was at home!

Started out again, somewhat tense about what might be going on under the bonnet.

Stopped at the next town down the coast, Venus Bay, for a little explore. Walked out along the unusually curved jetty to where there were some fishing boats tied up. A dinky little “railway”, with manually pushed trolleys made it easier to move the catch, and provisions, back and forth along the jetty, which was really too narrow  and decrepit for car or truck transport.

On our wanders, kept a very wary eye on pelicans perched on top of the – substantial – light poles. A “splat” from one of those would not have been at all pleasant!

We drove up to the Lookout, behind the town. Well worth the effort of doing so – great views.

While we were parked up at the Lookout, I noticed coolant leaking from under the heater on my passenger side. The accounted for the acrid sort of smell I’d been noticing for the past three days or so, and not been able to find a source for. John and M had a fiddle with the pipes but without any apparent effect.

We stopped at Elliston to buy lunch. We’d read good things about the bakery there, so bought a selection of pies, pasties and sausage rolls. Lunch cost us $23! Not something we’d do too often, at those prices. The food was alright, without being awesome. I tend to find the thought of sausage rolls much nicer than the reality, anyway.

There was a Scenic Drive, from Elliston, which followed the coast around in a loop. M went off to do that. John did not want to do it with the van on, and what we could see from the town didn’t look all that scenic, so we continued on to Coffin Bay alone.

On previous passes through these parts, John and I had not been attracted to either Elliston or Venus Bay as potential places to camp for a while. We still weren’t.

A little way past the hamlet of Wangary, we turned onto Airport Lane, which we knew would take us through to the Coffin Bay Road.

Booked into the Coffin Bay Caravan Park for a week. $26 a night, with the seventh night free. We had stayed here a couple of times before, so knew we would want to spend that time here.

The Park had expanded since the last time we were here, with a very nice new amenities block built.

We were put onto one of the older sites at the top of a gradual rise, not one of the newer, drive-through van sites. This was because of M’s outfit being a vehicle and tent – and we wanted adjacent sites.

We had a goodly amount of space around us – sites in this park were pretty spacious. And grass underfoot again! Kangaroos grazed around the sites at night – there was plenty of evidence of that around!

M arrived not long after us. She had missed the short cut turn off, so had done some extra kms.

Set up, then relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

After the big lunch, tea was small – chicken noodle soup thickened up with a tin of creamed corn.