There was much chewing of the fat today, as the wind blew away any chance of a good surf. Or any surf, actually.
Surf Patrol
Here at Cactus, they say you come for a day and stay for a week, or you come for a week and stay for a day. The thing that makes Cactus different to the others is the set of rules that Ron uses to run his place. There are no surfing contests held here, no commercial tours, no professional photography or video, and nothing to be published about the surf here on the internet – or anywhere else. This means that over the past couple of decades, Cactus is much less spoken of, and perhaps much less visited. I think the locals like it that way.
We moved on today, in search of more fun. We passed through the Quarantine Station at Ceduna where we had the remains of our fruit and vegetables confiscated. At least we knew it was coming this time. Although there’s not many opportunities for fresh food shopping on the Nullabor, so we didn’t have much left anyway. Ceduna marks the end, or the beginning – depending on your personal compass, of the crossing of the Nullabor. We then headed south down the Eyre Peninsula to Streaky Bay. This is about 110km from Ceduna where the landscape is primarily rural cropping.
There’s just the one caravan park in Streaky Bay, so we picked that one. By the time we had our lunch, the Grand Final had started, and by half time it was not very interesting. I think all those expensive flights and all those cars full of Western Australians will have a rather quiet journey home. So we jumped in the car to explore the region.
Smooth Pool – looking not very smooth
We drove around the area, including Cape Bauer, The Granites (where there was no surf), Point Westall, and Yanerbie Beach.
From Yanabie Beach towards Cape Blanche
We made our way back to Streaky Bay where the local fishermen were cleaning their fish on the beach. I should mention that the politically correct term is ‘fishers’ not fishermen. It might take me a while to get used to that.
Pelican’s dinner time at Streaky Bay
The pelicans were well fed on fish guts and scraps today. They wanted to eat Harry too.