Finer Points for Fleurieu Frolickers

The Fleurieu Peninsula, just south of Adelaide, has quiet beaches on the east coast and surf beaches on the south and west.  The middle is all hilly and green with narrow, rugged gullies running down to the sea. We are now car-seat experts on the Fleurieu Peninsula, having spent two whole days exploring its east coast.

For all you folks who will possibly be footloose on the Fleurieu in the future, here's a little taste of what you can experience (starting from Sellick's Beach, because that's where we left off last time).  Pop on your hats/raincoats/puffer jackets and off we go!

Sellick's Beach

The sun shone, small waves sparkled as they curled onto the pebbled beach, and if the temperature had been 20C higher we might have been tempted to paddle. We debated having First Morning Tea here, but decided not to because we had only just started the trip and if we have consecutive Morning Tea at every stop we would die of old age before we reached Jervis Bay at the bottom of the Fleurieu and that would be very sad indeed.

 There was lots to see in Sellick's Beach: the red cliffs stretching into the distance; the beach with scallops of pebbles on the sand; the house that someone had transformed by sticking thousands of beach pebbles to the walls...

Sellick's Beach was also home to Cactus Canyon, which we couldn't see because the viewing platform was under construction and closed to people like us. We had to make do with the view from the car park, which just wasn't the same.

I think these are the 'cactus' of Cactus Canyon, but I couldn't see into the canyon to be sure. 

If we were not fearlessly focused on reaching the bottom of the Fleurieu, we could have gotten down to the beach and then hiked up the Canyon, thereby seeing the alleged cacti.  Maybe another day...

Myponga Reservoir

From Sellick's Beach we high-tailed into the hills for a quick look at Myponga Reservoir, accessed via the imaginatively named Reservoir Road.  Reservoir viewing was encouraged by a convenient lookout, which was a big deal: South Australia is sadly lacking in lookouts, condemning tourists to gasping 'oh that's nice!' in dangerously distracted moments while zooming along winding narrow roads guarded by terrorist trees.

The Myponga Reservoir had pretty reflections and was very attractive to engineers who had a predilection for concrete and Things That Tame Nature.  Not to mention commemoration boards designed to give engineers delusions of grandeur and inflated ideas of self importance.

"Aah the good old days when all the important people were on the plaque!" 

Alas, no venue for First Morning Tea.

 The very picturesque Samson Road bounced along the ridge before dropping us back to the sea.

Myponga Beach

An egret waded in quiet waters at the mouth of the Myponga River, Myponga Beach.

Empty mansions dotted the hills, waiting for summer.  Fishing shacks clustered along the beach.  We looked for somewhere sheltered enough for First Morning Tea, but nowhere had the required combination of no wind, sunshine, and a view. Before we knew it,  First Morning Tea time had passed and the window for Second Morning Tea was closing rapidly.

With no consideration of Morning Tea tribulations, the local Myponga Beach denizens puttered about in the shallows with tractors and boats.

We crossed the Myponga River on a rickety wooden bridge and, aware that Roger was in danger of No Morning Tea At All, carried on (via the ridge with more dangerously distracting views) to Carrickalinga,

 Carrickalinga/Normanville 

Carrickalinga snuggled so closely to Normanville that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began, although the locals may have disputed that statement.  Normanville hummed with markets, traffic, and tourists: there were three cafes and a bakery in the tiny main street. I suffered an anxiety of choice when it came to lunch, and we finally had Lunch Cup of Coffee in the park beside a grassy creek masquerading as the Bungala River.

HMAS Hobart

The anchor points to where the Hobart II lies in Yankalilla Bay, providing a home for lots of sea life, and another place for scuba divers to frequent.  Not that there were any of them here mind you, because there was no convenient jetty out to the site.

 

Three fishing shacks asserted their right to occupy the shoreline.

Second Valley Beach

"I saw them!" exclaimed an excited, if shivering, scuba diver on the jetty at Second Valley Beach.

He was talking, of course, about these little critters.

Which explained all the scuba divers squeezing themselves in and out of wetsuits, jumping off the Second Valley jetty into the cold water, and risking hypothermia while sloshing around in the seagrass beds.

Above the waterline Second Valley boasted rugged rocks with dramatic coloured patterns, and the remnants of a concrete tramway, part of the infrastructure for wheat shipping back when the Fleurieu didn't have many roads.

 

Rapid Bay

The abandoned industrial theme continued at Rapid Bay, with cliffs of tailings tumbling down to the sea courtesy of the now-closed limestone mine.  We walked out on the 'new' jetty and watched more scuba divers jumping in to look for the sea dragons.  "And large cuttlefish!" they said.  "And blue-ringed octopus!"

Little Pied Cormorant gymnastics.

 

Jervis Bay

When we reached Jervis Bay there was no more South to go unless we wanted to catch the (expensive) ferry over to Kangaroo island, which was disappearing and reappearing between squalls of rain out to sea.

Jervis Bay lighthouse.

Having run out of South (and with no hot water left in the thermos) we took ourselves home through pine forests and paddocks dressed in their best winter green.  We counted ourselves most fortunate to have survived the great Morning Tea deprivation and there was just time to boil the kettle for a quick compensatory Afternoon Cup of Tea when we got home.