Travelling West 2021

  We woke to a very calm morning, typical! Today would have been perfect for both fishing and kayaking. We made an early start and had an uneventful trip back to West Lakes arriving home before 4PM. Rick called us later to say that they had “bagged out” with whiting and were back at the caravan by 9AM! They called again on Saturday to say that they had the same result and that the weather was again perfect. 0 Tees Some numbers Put fuel in 25 times Used 1,513 litres diesel Covered 7,535km Fuel consumption 19.3L/100km A note left for Henry (who we know), he was taking our spot in the caravan park later that day. PS he is a port supporter if you hadn't guessed.

  Rob was up early as he was going out fishing with Rick and Kerry (surname Fisher). I thought I might go kayaking as when it’s clam, Venus Bay is a good place to explore by kayak. Unfortunately the wind was up and it was enough for me to say I would go out walking instead. Kerry, Rick and Rob came back in around 11.30 AM with about 1 dozen king George Whiting. Apparently they had caught many undersized whiting that had to be thrown back. I enjoyed my stroll around the south head of the bay and watched a pod of dolphins fishing together as well as taking some photos of the coastline and ocean outside the calm bay. We spent the afternoon relaxing and preparing the van for our homeward journey. 2 Tees

Last night’s dinner was excellent! Once again we had a very short journey from Streaky Bay to Venus Bay so we called into the very trendy coffee shop at Streaky Bay for a coffee before leaving the town. We arrived at the Venus Bay Caravan Park around 11am and saw our friends, Rick and Kerry at the fish cleaning station, cleaning the morning’s catch of King George Whiting. We set up the van and caught up with Rick and Kerry as well as some of the other people we knew from the fishing club that they belong to. (We had met them before during our previous visits to Venus Bay and also during our trip to Waikerie, last year.) It was still relatively calm and I had thought about putting the kayak in but the wind soon put paid to those plans. A quiet afternoon was spent, reading, strolling and Rob playing with the TV……again. Later in the afternoon we sat over at Rick and Kerry’s van enjoying happy hour with others from the fishing club. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is calm in the morning bec...

  We decided to rise early today and drive about 50km south to Baird Bay. We were hoping an early start would mean that the constant winds we’ve had may not be quite so strong but unfortunately it was still windy. Part of Baird Bay is an aquatic park and Sea-lion pups swim and play in the area. You can do a guided tour and swim with the sea-lions and dolphins but we were reluctant to book this because it has been so cool and windy. May be next time the weather will be kind to us! Rob drove along the beach as far as we could and we put kayak in. I saw the boat go out that accompanies the swim boat and it travelled a long way out into the wind and stopped a few kilometres from me on the lee side of an island. I made an attempt to kayak into the wind but with waves breaking into the kayak it was far too difficult. Instead I kayaked back to the town of Baird Bay and met Rob there. It was much easier. To be honest, to kayak to where the sea-lion pups swim would require a warm, perfect d...

  Before I write todays blog it would be remiss of me not to mention Smokey Bay and Smokey Bay Oysters! I have to admit that while writing the blog last night, I was chatting to a friend and watching the tennis which may have led to me totally forgetting to write about the main industry in Smokey Bay….which of course is aquaculture and the production of the famous Smokey Bay Oysters.   A huge area of the town has buildings and sheds dedicated to the production of oysters and while walking along the jetty, we saw at least 2 oyster boats returning back to shore. Anyway back to today. We again made the short journey to Streaky Bay in less than an hour. In fact we arrived so early that we stopped in town for a coffee before checking in to the Foreshore caravan park. We have booked in here for 2 nights. We set up and I made some lunch to take with us and headed out to do some of the wonderful drives. The first drive we went on was the Westall Way Loop Drive. Again the coastal sce...