Friday, April 04, 2014

The Yorke Peninsula……….Days 11 & 12

4 April 2014:

With our hot water system partially fixed, we all headed for the Yorke Peninsula.  Very obviously a wheat & barley farming area, there were vast tracts of farmland and some sheep. Our first stop was Port Broughton, a very pretty place which also has a commercial fishing industry.

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A lot of the buildings in Port Broughton are made of stone and are beautiful examples of early pioneer buildings. I just loved the old hotel in the town, called the Broughton Hotel.

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After having morning tea, we continued driving down the west coast of the Yorke Penisula until we came to Wallaroo, a former copper mining & smelter town. Remnants of the copper industry are still around. The beaches here are beautiful and remind me of Broome’s Cable Beach in Western Australia. Its not often you can drive a caravan right down to the high tide mark on a beach. The sand was rock hard.

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Also at Walleroo is a ferry that travels across the Spencer Gulf to Lucky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula. It is a 2 hour journey and the ferry takes cars, small trucks, caravan and motorbikes as well as people. I saw this dog going onto the ferry with its owners.

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Cars driving on the ferry.

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After lunch we drive inland a few kilometres to see the town Kardina. Our friends, John & Denise Kennett were keen to see the town as a number of Kennetts lived there and there was even a street called Kennett North Street. Kadina is the largest town on the Yorke Peninsula. The Royal Exchange Hotel was formerly know as the Exchange Hotel until the Duke of Clarence stayed there in 1880. this is the Duke who was a suspect in Jack the Ripper murders in England.

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After passing through Moonta on the west coast, we decided to camp at the Maitland Showgrounds for a couple of days and have a look around the surrounding districts.

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