013 - Ceduna to Fowlers Bay

And so it was with little regret that we decided to move on from Ceduna. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough town but really I’m not sure it can shake it’s “stop over” tag without some significant face lifting and enthusiasm injection. In what should be a thriving tourist hub, to find nothing open on a Saturday afternoon and absolutely nothing other than the Foodland, Servo and Bottleshop drive-thru open on a Sunday, it was very ghost town like.

So we fuelled, stocked up and casually hooked up and rolled out of town with not too much of a fuss.

It was only a short (relatively speaking) jaunt down the road to our next stop. With Easter now booked in at Kalgoorlie we are now in not too much of a hurry to cross the Nullabor before Saturday. Hopefully this means we can break it up into a number of smaller “chunks” and fully appreciate one of the more unique driving experiences in Australia.

Evie was practically cart-wheeling out of Ceduna...

So mere 150km down the road we end up in Fowlers Bay, a small sea shanty town first established with pastoral grazing and land development in mind. Now, it’s another small fishing alcove and an area where whale watching (season dependant) launches from.

First impressions weren’t overwhelming and our initial booking of two nights was coming into question early on. This was particularly related to our neighbour who was “overly chatty” (definitely alcohol induced) and was booted out shortly for bad language and attitude issues to the park owner. One redeeming feature was the lack of reception, which is why, if you hadn’t guessed already, is why this post is coming a little late.

The road in to Fowlers Bay was a pretty good quality dirt track. Still, it didn't stop the Truck adding to the Lizard's war wounds on the front lid.

But once set up in a bit of a dusty park, we went exploring Fowlers Bay two immediate features. It’s sizeable jetty and its enormous sand dunes, which loom over the town with a seemingly constant threat by Mother Nature to get it right or risk being engulfed Atlantis-style. It should be noted that the park we are staying in as apparently “eco-friendly” which means it has little to no carbon footprint. Solar panels everywhere charge a huge battery bank, whilst water is piped from a ground water bore offsite. Suffice to say, we’re drinking the van’s tank water due to lack of inlet water filter (for now).

The sand dunes were a huge hit with the kids, but probably more so with B. The boogie boards had their first use of the trip, ironically not in water. With a bit of practice they got going but not before a plethora of nose dives and mouthfuls of sand. Still, so many laughs were had, I reckon we could have filled an episode of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos without too much trouble.

The dunes do really encroach on the town!

 

A good shot down from dunes to the jetty

I eventually climbed the dunes. Somehow those of us with slightly stronger ties with gravity have to work a little harder.

Unlike those with mountain goat legs and youthful enthusiasm who simply scampered up them.

A quick trip out on to the jetty for a quick fish was also had, with only James coming up trumps, for use of a better word with his Trumper. He was pretty stoked about it, and when all others called it quits due to a building squall, James borrowed B’s jumper, dressed like a Thneed from the Lorax, and said “can we stay a little longer Dad?”. How can one resist that? So we toughed it out until the chattering of James teeth became overwhelming and we called it an afternoon.

James, Sam and I left the girls up there. I think we could hear them laughing from where I took this shot. They were enjoying it!

James and his sizeable Trumper. You can see the shivers in his teeth.

The park boasts a nightly campfire which we attended happily and where we made some great new friends, particularly through the kids. Evie’s new “Best Friend Forever”, Bailey was travelling with her grandparents Derick and Christine, and the two girls were almost inseparable. Absolute peas in a pod, they also adopted Gracie from another travelling family and an enthusiastic trio they were.

And based on that, we decided that Fowlers Bay deserved at least a second night.