10-11/10/21 Fishy Millionaires: Port Lincoln to Coffin Bay

Dear me, we're becoming soft. We're back in a cabin tonight, having moved all of 45km to Coffin Bay primarily because we couldn't find a cabin anywhere else and Tuesday was rapidly approaching. Several random fellow tourists told us that Coffin Bay is the 'jewel of the Eyre Peninsula' so we shall see about that. Myself, I'm just planning on seeing the seal.

On our last day in Port Lincoln we hiked in the Lincoln National Park and were stopped by a ranger for a random permit check, which was quite exciting. I'd hate to have gone to all the trouble of getting a Parks SA permit and then never been checked.

Lincoln NP is at the bottom of Boston Bay, in which Port Lincoln sits. Google assured me that Boston Bay is at least three times the size of Sydney Harbour, and is therefore one of the biggest natural harbours in the world. We hiked a little bit along one edge of it and were rewarded with dolphin sightings.

They were swimming in circles beating the water with their tails, a behaviour that can stun fish to make them easier to catch.  There was certainly a party going on out there.

Boats heading off to work on our last morning in Port Lincoln.  I don't think these are tuna boats: the tuna season doesn't start until December.

Roger also found out some facts about the tuna industry in Port Lincoln. Did you know that:

1.    Japanese buyers pay around $600/kilo for blue fin tuna. A single fish has sold for $1 million. 

2.    The method of 'ranching' the tuna in the tuna farms was invented in Port Lincoln and is now used all around the world.

3.     The divers who monitor the nets out in the open sea get paid a lot of money.  This is because they are on the outside of the nets out in a wild ocean which includes Great White sharks who are very interested in collections of Blue Fin tuna.

4.    There is lots of money in tuna fishing.  Port Lincoln is rumoured to have more millionaires per capita than any other town in Australia. That explains all those fancy canal houses down near the marina and the inordinate number of sleekly expensive cars in the streets.

Enough about fish.  I'll never look at my tuna sandwiches the same way again.

Off we went to Coffin Bay, which is only 45ish km from Port Lincoln because we're down at the pointy end of the peninsula now. Just to confuse you, Coffin Bay is the town: there are lots of bays all smooshed in together to create a large, sheltered harbour.  There are no tuna boats in Coffin Bay, but there's plenty of oysters and other types of commercial fishing.  Some of the oyster farmers have even managed to convince tourists to pay handsomely for the privilege of going out to the oyster farms to do oyster farming stuff, instead of the other way around.

We took a hike along Oyster walk.

Along the way we watched a Pacific Gull catch and devour a poor little crab.

Pelicans were everywhere, carefully watching anyone who was fishing.

We met a shingleback lizard.  We've seen a lot of these, usually out on the road getting some sun.  We've seen a lot of squashed shinglebacks on the road too.

Walk this way.

Two young boys had trouble protecting their catch from the seagulls.

Oyster walk is 10km long, so we didn't walk all of it today.  Even though it was a beautiful spring day the breeze was cold, and as soon as the sun started going down we very quick and smartly tucked ourselves into our cosy cabin and turned on the heater.

Home for the night: Coffin Bay Caravan Park.