Port Augusta To Tumby Bay

Tumby Bay, dosn't it sound like a sweet little village.  More of Tumby Bay later......

This morning we visited the Wadlata Centre, actually we visted the centre yeaterday and didnt quite have a enough time to see it all so we got a pass out and where told we could revisite any time in the next 12 months.  What is the Wadlata centre.  It gives a history of the Port Augusta/Eyre/Flinders region from when the Dinosaurs roamed to the indigenous time down through history to the present day.It was multi sensory so suited the junior Red Elephants.  It covered the explorers and telegraph track , rail, coal,  drovers, pastoralists, dreamtime, and the outback both in the wet season and the dry. There where things to read, listen to and watch and hands on exhibits.  It was very good although I think we still wizzed through it and need another visit.  The Wadlata Centre was attached to the visitors centre who seem to cover a wide area.

http://www.wadlata.sa.gov.au/

We then set of south down the eastern side of the Eyre Peninsula.  To start with it was all flat, flat country and road as straight as a ruler.  The ground was covered in saltbush, scrubby and some wildflowers.

Whyalla was the next major town.  Famous for its steelworks, you can actually do a tour of the stell works but that was at 9.30am and of course we where to late.  Instead we did a tour of the HMAS Whyalla.  It was dry docked 2 km inland from the sea.  She was used in the WW1 as a anti mine ship.  She had a crew of 80 who worked in very hot, cramped conditions.  Although standing uner the Wyalla she looked big, by todays standards she is only little.  The Junior Red Elephants enjoyed the tour and clambering all over the ship.  They liked tooting her horn especially and steering the big ships wheel.

We shared our lunch with the flies of Wyalla then continued or journey south.  The town we thought we would stop in turned out to be not much chop and the van parks looked like Canberra sand and gravel, so we all agreed to continue on.  By this time we where looking at wheat farms out the car windows.

So Tumby Bay is where we have stopped arriving at around 4pm.  Its a lovely little seaside village.  We have stretched our legs with a seaside stroll and and a walk out onto Tumby Bays very long jetty.  It had railings out along most of the way so I felt safe unitl there was none and of course that was where the water was the deepest.