The bottom end of Yorke Peninsula

Totally relaxed at Port Hughes

Our Monday overnight at Port Hughes, just out of Moonta, was very pleasant. We were parked up at the local beach car park, beside the beach and only a two-minute walk to the Port Hughes Seaside Bar.  This was fortuitous as we had some great news on Monday afternoon. We received an email to let us know that Australia Customs had approved the extension of our Carnet document to give us our second year of travel in Australia.  We decided to adjourn to the Seaside Bar to celebrate our victory.

Tuesday morning we drove out of Port Hughes not really knowing where we were heading. We had decided not to visit the little fishing hamlets between Moonta and Hardwicke Bay on the Peninsulas’ west coast as the access roads to the hamlets are unsealed i.e. dirt, dust and corrugated. Instead, we drove to the centre of the Peninsula and spent Tuesday night in the township of Maitland and Wednesday night further south at Minlaton. Our Minlaton visit was most productive, as we had been experiencing a couple of onboard ‘IT’ problems that have now been resolved by an IT expert in the town.

Thursday morning we learned that it is a long weekend in South Australia this weekend so we decided we would stop for a few days and keep out of the traffic. We made the Innes National Park our destination.

Driving into the Innes National Park at the bottom of Yorke Peninsula

The Innes National Park is on the southern tip of the Yorke Peninsula and comprises some 9415 hectares of spectacular coastal landscapes, natural coastal vegetation and a diverse range of wildlife. The Park takes it name from William Innes who discovered commercial quantities of gypsum in the area in the early 1900’s. The area was originally colonized in 1847 with land occupied for sheep grazing and cropping.

Our emu encounter on the way to our parkup in the Innes National Park

The Australia National Park code is very similar to our National Parks in New Zealand i.e. no pets, take out your own rubbish, do not feed wildlife and so on.  We find it very difficult sometimes to obey all the rules, – especially the ‘don’t feed the animals’ bit as they come right up to the van looking for a bit of attention. The magpies and parrots sit at your feet waiting for the crumbs to drop and the ‘roos and emus’ are just plain nosy.The wildlife over here still amazes us.

Cellphone coverage in the Park is very poor so if anyone needs to get hold of us, please try texting first and if it is urgent, we will then drive out of the Park.

A pristine place to stay – we have decided to stay here until Monday.