WEDNESDAY MAY 5 STREAKY BAY
Today a longer drive was on the agenda, to wrap up our sight seeing from the Streaky Bay base.
Again, headed south on the Sceale Bay Road. The roughly 30 kms provided some variety – farmland, low scrubby bush, then the Yanerbie Sand Hills off to the west, and finally, views out to sea.
The settlement at Sceale Bay was similar to Yanerbie.
We didn’t linger, but doubled back a little way then took the Point Labatt road. This route, in part, followed the western side of Baird Bay, a long, narrow inlet. In a few parts, the road was almost in the water of Baird Bay!
The attraction at Point Labatt was, of course, the sea lion colony there – the only such colony on mainland Australia.
A platform has been built at the top of the cliffs, so one can watch the creatures going about their normal lives – which are lived at a pretty slow pace. There are little coves below, where they sleep and sunbake, on the sand and rocks. Some of them were really big, and so ungainly out of the water. The big old males could be pretty bad-tempered too. It occurred to me to wonder if that’s a mammalian characteristic that is common across different species? Decided it might be politic to keep that thought to myself, though.
When we’d watched our fill of sea lions, drove back to Sceale Bay road, then east to Calca, then took a minor road back down the eastern side of Baird Bay, to the township of that name. It resembled Yanerbie, too, only somewhat larger.
We sat in our vehicles, looking across Baird Bay to the far side, where we’d driven earlier, and ate lunch.
Retraced our way, stopping briefly to have a browse around in the Old Calca Cemetery, a small collection of old graves sitting in the middle of a harvested paddock. Bleak, lonely, sad.
Thence to Murphys Haystacks. This stop was more interesting than I’d expected. Like Pildappa Rock, these are inselbergs, but not as big.
There’s a number of them, in clusters, quite close together, with a path that wanders around and through them.
They are a strange and unexpected occurrence in the flat farming land.
Apparently, the original Murphy, who had the farm around these formations, was buried in the Old Calca cemetery.
Arrived back in town mid-afternoon. Checked out a hardware shop and an electrical store – in order to buy M a heater! Suddenly, she’d gone from scoffing at the creature comforts we carry, to being a convert…
I had a quick browse in a craft store. Didn’t see anything I couldn’t resist.
The mousey resident was still keeping M awake at nights, and she had been finding the odd chewed-through items in her stores. But there was a mouse plague in these parts, and not a mouse trap to be had in town!
From camp, we went walking along the track that follows the western shoreline of Blanche Port, out and back. We probably walked about 3kms in all. The flies were really sticky and annoying, and we had a couple of short spells of light rain drizzle, so it wasn’t the best of conditions. Watched a couple of nankeen kestrels hunting and hovering, looking for their dinner, admiring how they could hover in one spot for some time, despite the breeze.
Tea was ham steaks and pineapple, mash, and John had a couple of eggs with that.
This was another chilly night. M christened her new heater.
This Adventurous Age 