008 & 009 - Lincoln National Park

Every now and then a really special day comes through your life. And I know I’m going to (hopefully) be blessed with many in the next year or so, but it’s nice to “break the duck” and have a really special day. Or should that be days.

Yesterday and this morning we spent a beautiful time out in the Lincoln National Park, a truly magical part of the this amazing country. If you read no further just take this as the take away:

Before you cark it, get there.

Simple as that.

To get the full picture of the adventure let’s start at… the start. Always a good spot I suppose.

As we planned (or didn’t plan…) this trip we decided that so many places we wanted to go were simply to hard to get to for The Big Green Lizard, as awesome as she is. And we have no intention of battering and bruising her by taking her places she simply isn’t designed for. So what to do…

The answer was what we call “satellite” trips. We saved some of our payload for a couple of small tents, which, teamed up with some food and essentials thrown on the roof of The Rock Truck, allow us to get, pretty much anywhere and let us experience the hard to get there.

So a night out truly camping (caravanning isn’t camping in my opinion… glamping definitely) in the Lincoln NP was planned to test out our satellite plans with an ability to go to the shops before and afterwards for ammendments.

James and I had picked up 5 yoga mats at Kmart the day before, which I’m sure raised a few eyebrows with the lady at the self checkout, but we’ve learnt to smile and move on. The yoga mats were an idea I got when doing a workout session with my mate Aaron after work. The mat he had was remarkably soft and light and I said “I reckon I could sleep on one of those”. Last night I did. More on that later though.

Armed with a loaded truck, we took off to the NP and I relished the chance to do a bit of driving without our big reptile friend hanging off the towball.

The Truck giving the Lizard a kiss goodbye before heading off

Our destination for the night was Memory Cove, a spot I spied in my research as just one of those out of the way places, reachable only by 4WD and still in pristine condition.

A welcome sign befitting of such a place

But firstly it was a pit stop at Stamford Hill for a trek to the Matthew Flinders memorial. This was the point when the explorer Flinders came ashore to use the peak to find freshwater in 1802. I can’t imagine the difficultly he and his crew had navigating through the area looking at the scrub, particularly towards the peak. I certainly wasn’t taking our nicely laid out path for granted!

The view from the top was spectacular to say the least. A full view of the NP and across to Port Lincoln was had, and we could even make The Big Green Lizard sitting in the caravan park (probably sulking).

A great little walk and one recommended to do if you are in the area. Get a good idea of the size of the park, as well as the different bodies of water around.

The beach at the foot of Stamford Hill. I don't imagine many things have changed in a quite a few centuries.

Evie reading up about Matthew Flinders landing in the area and what was around at the time.

Sam I think realising just how big this place is....

The view from the top. Should perhaps have taken a landscape shot, but this captures the essence. Beaches, bush and scrub, water and islands. An amazing place.

Me trying to be clever taking a picture of B taking a picture, only to find out...

...she's taking a picture of me taking a picture of her!

So on to the much awaited Memory Cove.

We trekked back the 15km to the turn off, with the sign showing 35km to Memory Cove, all on dirt road. The road was initially pretty good but then turned rough, so we ‘aired down’ to really get into the spirit. We then pressed on, finding another sign saying “Memory Cove, 19km, allow 1hr”. Awesome… I knew this was going to be fun!

"The long and dusty road..."

Might be a tad high for where we are going...

Oh how wrong I was. About 1km from that we were met with a locked gate.

You are freakin’ kidding me. With no choice we had to turn around, we trudged back to where we had reception and B called the Information Centre where we had bought our Park Permits and camping passes.

“Oh I’m so sorry. The girl who served you was supposed to give you a key. Would you like to come back and get it.”

Given the time of the day, that simply wasn’t an option and I reckon she knew it. Or at least didn’t know we didn’t have three young kids in the back.

 Not their most enthusiastic faces when told we were going back the way we came..

B managed to arrange another campsite at a place down the road called September Beach. And here in lies the message and the takeaway for in this trip.

There is always something good to come out of bad experiences. There was no doubt I was fuming. And incredibly disappointed. I had earmarked this as one of the places I really wanted to go, and knowing the logistics of our trip, knew that the chance was gone. No one spoke in the car for a good 10min as I think everyone knew Dad was “in one of those angry, sulky, silent” moods.

But when we reached September Beach and found a beach completely isolated and to ourselves, I knew I had no reason to carry on like a pork chop. And after I’d landed my first (and only) flathead from the beach, I knew I was more than happy.

September Beach is a beautiful spot, sheltered individual campsites back from the beach that are patrolled by kangaroos and emus. One particular roo took a fancy to us, and I think he had unfortunately become accustomed to human interaction as he came pretty close to our dinner before he and I had to shape up and I had to scare him off with my wit and Dad jokes (and a bit of arm waving).

This was quite literally taken from where I was cooking dinner. I think he wanted some snags.

I can't look at an emu these days without thinking of The Giles family from Ballarat and a trip with them to Flinders Ranges last year!

The campsites were pretty solid underfoot and we did send Sam and Evie with the bucket to get a few lots of sand to smooth out the rocks. Not sure it helped but, it got them involved.

Us going "old school". Brought back many memories of early tenting days with the kids.

Forget a nice snazzy kitchen, nothing better than a few camp chairs and some snags in bread.

We spent the hours of the afternoon doing what took our fancy. Sam, James and I fished, B busted out her snorkel and Evie, as she does, floated between all activities collecting an array of mementos, keepsakes and memories.

Did I mention we had the beach to ourselves. This beach. The whole thing! Brilliant.

The kids have the whole beach and yet want to occupy the same 3 square metres???

Didn't worry me, I was happy to go a little further up the way.

Not normally one for filters on shots, B took this one and I reckon it turned out pretty damn snazzy.

As mentioned before, I landed a few fish, including on off Pop’s surf rod he has lent me for the trip, a pretty sizable flathead. Not having any idea how or what to do with a rod so damn long, I took a punt, loaded up a rig and flung it off into the yonder. I certainly need more practice, but I think I have a bit of time up my sleeve.

Probably not time to give up the day job, but it was a reasonable sized bit of fish. And yep, I was stoked. Never caught anything off a beach before so this was kind of special.

We cooked our simple dinner of snags in bread (where’s the sauce B??) and then we were hit with another problem. How do we cook the flatty? B had expertly cleaned it and gutted it (still not sure where that skill came from but I’m a little nervous. Maybe the years watching Masterchef paid off?) Still, I think B had really not expected me to catch anything (understandably) and there was no foil, herbs, lemons or anything really… So we do what we do best. We improvised. And that included throwing the fillets in on the leftover sausage fat and pan searing them. Sounds gross doesn’t it, but I tell you... it was awesome. Bloody awesome. We had posh fish and chips for tea tonight and I reckon it had it covered. Maybe we’ve uncovered a secret recipe… Not sure. But geez it was nice as we ate it off a plate under the light of the canopy of the truck!

"I give it 2 for presentation, but definitely a 9 for taste"

An evening stroll with the kids was a great way to cap off what turned out to be quite the day.

The tents worked well enough but some refinement is required. 3 kids in the one tent was a ridiculous idea and B and I knew as soon as the giggling started we’d made an error. Rookie mistake there and we should have known better. “Girls and Boys” tents already earmarked for the next trip.

I got up early this morning to try my hand again at early light with both big kids promising me they too would get up. When I tapped their tent at 6.30am, all I got was a bunch of grunts and “no, I don’t want to go… “. In return I got to watch the sun rise over the beach in solitude with nothing but the sounds of gentle waves coming in. Amazing.

I think this pic says it all really... 

A few more fish jumped in and I started streaking away in our fish count competition, none of which I kept, but could of. Need to come a bit more prepared I think.

James came down to join me and on my way back from getting the Big Rod, I snapped this pic. Couldn't help but think of "James and the Giant Beach".... See Dad joke.

Eventually I was joined by the family and another hour was spent on ‘our’ beach. With all the dramas of yesterday, we had now made our own “Memory” Cove.

We packed up and headed home to ‘de-sand’ and decide what to do as we had planned to move on today heading westward.

The afternoon included a bit of tidy up, a few loads of washing, another trip down to the jetty for a quick fish where Sam finally broke his duck and caught an impressive “ugly green spikey poisonous fish with sharp teeth”, and a trip into town to fish off the town jetty whilst Mum got some time to herself. Sure it was shopping, but even that is nice if flying solo!

The town jetty proved fruitful with a few herring for me, 4 zebra fish for Evie on the handline and 1 for Sam. James was just happy enough spinning with a lure and “getting so close Dad! That one nearly came up and bit it, and it was huge and brown and silver”.

Sam breaking his duck... He was chuffed and was the only one to catch one from the camp jetty.

The newly crowned "Queen of the Zebra Fish"

"I nearly had him Dad... he was right there". 

James already getting the fishing tall tales sorted early in life.

A great shot of the two big kids fishing with handlines off the pontoon. The water is so clear so you could see them darting around their bait (cheese incidentally).

Posh fish and chips for tea rounded out the day. We’ve decided to hang here in Port Lincoln for another couple of nights as we day trip to Coffin Bay tomorrow, meet up with some family friends tomorrow night and then head Ceduna bound on Friday. At this stage... We're loving the freedom of not having plans is bringing us.

The trip to the Lincoln National Park brought so many memories and great times. But for me, I took more out of it than mental pictures. Lessons that will hopefully prove useful on the trip. You will have disappointment, you will get upset on this trip. It won’t be perfect all the time. But from these moments you get a decision to make. Either hold on to the disappointment, or roll with the punches and look at what’s ahead of you.

Like a giant, yummy, sausage fat covered flathead.