Beaches, Bays and Sea Lions on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

As the sun rose over the sea at Point Lowly, we packed up our camper van to hit the road again, heading south-west to continue our exploration of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. There was hardly a cloud in the sky as we headed into Whyalla, which was no surprise since the town receives three hundred days of sunshine every year. Whyalla certainly appears to be a working town with its busy port and steel works, and the appeal of the town seems to reflect this.

After doing a load of washing at a laundromat in town, we continued on our journey along the coast. The scraggly vegetation of this dry land eventually gave way to harvested wheat fields where sheep grazed happily, and the odd towns along the way seemed to all have large wheat silos. We turned off the highway at Cowell on Franklin Harbour, taking the dirt road along the coast to the small sea side village of Port Gibbon, where we set up camp for the night.

Port Gibbon used to have a jetty where boats could dock, but all that remains of it now is a small section that is used as a beach shelter. The village itself seems to consist of a few beach shacks and a small free camping area. The flies here were terrible, so we spent most of our time down on the seaweed covered beach with picturesque cliffs towering over it.

The beach at Port Gibbon

The following day we were happy to get back on the road to escape the flies and take the highway down to Port Lincoln, situated near the very tip of the Eyre Peninsula. This decent sized port city is quite nice to look around and a good spot to stop for supplies. We treated ourselves to some fish n chips for lunch and sat on the foreshore overlooking the harbour.

Leaving Port Lincoln, it was now time to begin heading north-west along the other side of the peninsula, driving past Coffin Bay to camp for the night at Farm Beach. The caravan park here was packed but we managed to find ourselves a spot for $5 per night. The beach here isn’t anything to write home about, but it was a great place for Mindy to have a run around. The coastline near here is also where they filmed the landing scenes in the “Gallipoli” movie, and there is a 4km trail that leads to the site.

Limestone rocks at the end of Farm Beach

Since there wasn’t a lot to do at Farm Beach, we continued on the next day to the town of Eliston and then stopped just north of here for lunch at Walker’s Rock Beach, a lovely secluded white stretch of sand. You can bush camp here for $10 per night, but since we had plenty of the time in the day we decided to continue on to Sceale Bay.

Walker’s Rock Beach

Walker’s Rock Beach panorama

Turning off the highway, the dirt road took us to another privately owned bush camping area just outside of town which costs $7 per person per night. The camping area and facilities are nice enough and there is plenty to see in the area if you wanted to stay for a couple of days.

We left the following morning and headed out to Point Labatt where there is a fairly large Sea Lion colony. Our van rattled and bounced as we drove along the rough, corrugated dirt road, trying to avoid the pot holes. The 17 kilometre journey seemed to take forever and it felt as though the van was going to rattle itself to pieces. Eventually we came to the end of the road which sits on top of some quite spectacular cliffs near the end of Point Labatt. There is a viewing platform that allows you to view the Sea Lions lazing around on the rocks and sand below. This appeared to be a female colony as there were a few little pups among them. It was quite fascinating to see.

A group of seal lions at Point Labatt Sea Lion Colony

Sea lions playing in the water

Two sea lions sleeping on the beach

Driving back along the corrugated road, we headed north to the picturesque little town of Streaky Bay, the perfect spot to stop for some lunch and a cup of coffee.

The jetty and foreshore in Streaky Bay

Finishing off our exploration of the Eyre Peninsula, we made our final journey for the day to the “Frontier town” of Ceduna, where we camped for the night. Tomorrow we would tackle the Nullarbor Plain.

A jetty in Ceduna