YORKE PENINSULA

 What, you may ask, is a diversion to the Yorke Peninsula doing in a blog about moving to Perth?

Susan and I decided to have Christmas with Sebastian in Adelaide and to explore a part of the South Australia that we hadn't visited. You won't be surprised to know that I googled 'best country beaches in SA' and came up with Port Hughes, a tiny hamlet near the old copper mining town Moonta. I found an AirBnb big enough for all of us and one that was willing to house pets. Although Sebastian's frogs can live happily by themselves for 3 or 4 days, his cat Chaos can't.

We hired a car big enough for suitcases and cat accessories and ended up with a huge hybrid Haval. It had cameras everywhere which was just as well because I could barely see the front of the car from the driver's seat. 

For those who haven't explored this part of the world, in summer you are driving through flat dusty red/orange plains for most of the trip.

The house was large and comfortable and within walking distance of a couple of lovely, calm white sand beaches. Chaos loved the freedom of a place that was probably four times as big as his usual home and spent most of the time running from one end of building to the other. 

While Susan and I swam at various beaches, Sebastian went for hikes, always on the lookout for reptiles.

Moonta is a charming town full of historic golden sandstone buildings.




The origin story of the discovery of copper in this region goes like this. A poor man spotted copper near a wombat hole; a rich man spotted green flames when local timber was burnt - both[1] ended up on the same day at the titles office to lay claim but the rich man had 'connections' and won the lease.

The early miners were from Cornwall and there was a long history of Cornish traditions being upheld until the mine closed and people moved away. There is an informative small museum at the old mine site and I learnt something new: some Cornish pasties were made with sweet flavours at one end and savoury at the other. Who would have thought? Needless to say there was a shop in town that specialised in Cornish pasties but as a sign of Australia's continuing waves of immigration and integration, it was run by a family of Indian sub-continent heritage.

The indigenous story in the Copper Coast is a familiar one - waterholes fenced off, people pushed off their lands as the pastoralists moved in. A mission was established which seems to have been fairly self- sufficient. On Google maps, the land around the mission area in Port Pearce is marked as indigenous and there’s an Aboriginal school there. The most fascinating story of the area was that the Narungga people used to wade to Green Island and then swim a kilometre to Wardang Island with people on the beach singing songs and waving branches to distract the sharks. Braver people than I will every be...although swim we did. In the shallow waters near our house. In the choppy waters of Rifle Butt Beach. And in the limid green water of South Beach.






It was a delightful couple of days. Spotting blue swimmer crabs at Ardrosson. Exploring part of the Volcanic Coast. Buying a home-made Christmas cake. Checking the art on the stobie poles at the delightfully named Tiddy Widdy beach. The glow of the sandstone buildings. The sense of history.

[1] Not quite – the rich man sent one of his empolyees who rode non-stop wearing out 8 horses along the way.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FARWELL TO THE PINK HOUSE

Image
Susan and I decided to say 'goodbye' to 14 Ward Grove, Pascoe Vale South by sharing the moment with friends. Although the house was full of packed boxes, we invited people over to say farewell...and take a momento. We both made bold decisions about art and craft that had been part of our lives for years. For example, I'd had a Gustav Klimt print hanging on various bedroom walls since the 1970s. A tea pot I'd bought from a ceramist in Canberra last century. A Boda vase that I'd been given. There were smaller pieces from ceramic pots to glassware, vases, both antique and modern, knick knacks from all over the world, and even hats. And in contemplating a new home, we needed to leave some space for new acquisitions. This was a clean out where we knew each piece was going to bring pleasure to someone else and so it was much easier to let it go. Debora, Glenda, Jesse, Murray & Loretta Kath, Susan & Julie Gemma, Pam, Dale & David
Read more

PACKING UP

Image
How do you sort out a house you've been in for 24 years? I should confess upfront that Susan and I are not Kondo afficiondos nor did we watch all the episodes of Swedish Death Cleaning series so we had a lot of stuff to sort through. For what seemed like months, I was making twice weekly visits to St Vinnies to drop off everything from clothes to kitchenware. We hired a 12 metre skip and recruited our wonderful neighbour Mike to smash up furntiture that was no good to anyone.  I even threw out Livia, the polystyrene statue that had starred in a production of "Women Beware Women" back in the 1980s. Poor thing. Her head had falled off a number of times only be stuck back on with jewel encrusted gaffer tape.But being outside for nearly twenty years meant that she had lost her charm.  Mike, our helpful neighbour Goodbye to Livia Another cultural challenge was books. Susan is a re-reader of books and I always claim that I'm going to so between us, we had 16 or was it 17 fu...
Read more

CHECKING THE IDEA

Image
In July 2024, on my return from a (wonderful) couple of months in Europe, I called into Perth to check the validity of my spreadsheets. Was it possible to buy a home with all the requirements that Susan and I needed for a home: - a pool - 3 to 4 bedrooms (so Sebastian & our Eastern States friends could come to visit)  - 2 living areas (because we have such different tastes in television) - single story (Susan in particular is over stairs) - close to a good beach...and to Perth friends. I enlisted my real estate researcher friend Stephanie and we drove all over the city looking at suburbs - north as far as Gwelup and south as far as Hamilton Hill. What had looked good on paper was starting to look dodgy because the Perth real estate market took off in 2024. By the end of the year prices had increased by 25% while the Melbourne market had sunk by 5%. What we could afford was looking further and further away from ideal locations. However, traipsing around the town with Stephanie w...
Read more