Yorke Peninsula

Hopefully this map of Yorke Peninsula will give you an idea of where we are, bearing in mind that there are more roads than are shown on the map.

Minlaton is fairly central to the lower part of the peninsula and therefore convenient for trips to the other towns.

It is the quietest town that we have experienced with only one car passing through at a time, with an age between each one. The main street has two lanes in each direction plus room for angle parking and the mandatory wide tree lined median strip although the trees are native gums rather Norfolk pines.

The town was originally known as Gum Flat because of the gum trees but became Minlaton when it was politically correct to rename towns with aboriginal content (Minla meaning ‘sweet’ and ton being old English for town). We haven’t seen any aborigines here yet.

We took a hike along the town’s walk trail that took about 1.5 hours but like everywhere in SA, it is so drought ridden that there wasn’t anything of significance to see other than a nicely constructed bird hide but unfortunately the lake that used to attract the birds is totally dried out.

The town is home to a World War One, Bristol monoplane (Red Devil) flown by Captain Harry Butler from Yorketown as a fighter pilot and later on the Minlaton/Adelaide mail run across the Gulf St Vincent.

On Saturday 14th we drove to Stansbury to check out the market that happens once a month and uses a road along the sea front that is closed off to traffic for the occasion. Being on the East coast it has the low cliffs on each side of it, and once again we arrived when the tide was out so it wasn’t looking its best.

The following Tuesday we drove to Port Rickaby to check out the beach on the western coast line and strangely the tide was out, so beyond the initial narrow sandy strip of beach was a lot of exposed rock. The sandy beach was only long enough to walk for ten minutes and then became rocks again.

However, on Thursday 19th we found Parson’s beach but was disappointed as there was a lot of it, but covered in seaweed.

On the way home we turned off and found a very pleasant and clean Bluff beach which allowed us to walk with Foxy for as far as we could manage and still had plenty to go. There was a very small township of about six houses along the beachfront and several two storey mansions on the bluff but there didn’t appear to be anybody living in them, so assume they must be holiday homes.

The beach had the remains of an old structure below the bluff and some of the old machinery at the top, presumably for winching something up from the beach many moons ago.

Friday 20th we drove about 100 kilometres on a circuit that took in Yorketown, Edithburgh, Port Giles, Wool Bay, Stansbury and back to Minlaton.

Yorketown was very disappointing with little to offer, and the only worthwhile photo taken was of a church.

Edithburgh was better with its wind farm (55 towers) and attractive main street leading to the jetty that is reputed to have been the third busiest in SA during its peak, but like most small town jetty, only used for fishing now.

The beach was good and allowed us to give Foxy her mandatory walk to keep her in good shape, even if it doesn’t work quite so well for us.

Port Giles was only a grain terminal with ship loading facilities but a short distance away at Wool Bay is another jetty (of course) and an old lime kiln built into the cliff face. This apparently was a failure due to the variable wind conditions. Maybe they could use it to produce large pizzas.

The return trip via Stansbury managed to coincide with the tide being almost completely in which improves the appearance to almost postcard quality, and looked a little bare without the market stalls along the seafront.

We drove round to the small boat harbour and jetty but didn’t stop as the car park had a parking ticket machine. Too bad when you need to park your car and trailer whilst you use your boat. Maybe this is where Westfield got the idea to put parking ticket machines in their shopping car parks.