SATURDAY 9 DECEMBER     COFFIN BAY

It was a hot day.

I walked to get the papers and then we read them and had an early lunch.

After lunch, we went driving. Skirted around Kellidie Bay, the upper part of the large inlet system, and went around that and onto The Ledge – a narrow promontory of land that juts into the inlet, opposite Coffin Bay.

John tried fishing at a couple of locations along The Ledge, but, again, no luck.

We saw a couple of really large stingrays that came right close to where we were on the rocks, and hovered in the water, looking at us. I’ve never seen them so close in the wild.

Backtracked a little and then went through Wangary to Farm Beach. This fronts onto the open part of Coffin Bay and is another lovely, long, sandy beach. A few kms to its north is Gallipoli Beach, used in the film of that name.

Farm Beach was different in that there was a long line of caravans parked at the back of the beach. Presumably, these had been brought in by owners and set up for the summer; we doubted they would be left there all year, in the sometimes wild winter weather. As a setting it was superb, but we wondered about practical matters, like toilets, of which there were none! It was my guess that the low dune area behind the line of caravans, would not be all that pleasant at summer’s end!

Another novelty at Farm Beach was a large tractor “farm” – a collection of older tractors used to tow boats across the sand to launch them, and also to tow the caravans up the beach to their summer spots.

We enjoyed a long walk along the really attractive beach.

Then it was back to Coffin Bay, having driven some 80kms.

We bought another dozen oysters each – indulging in these local delicacies while we can! They are so much nicer having been gathered fresh the same day.

This morning, I bought some mince for the magpies – there are four regularly visit us now. They turn up and carroll and warble until they are rewarded with blobs of mince.

For tea we had the oysters, done as yesterday, followed by steak, potato and vegies.