Our Latest Travels - Port Lincoln Day Trips

We had a couple of day trips from Port Lincoln.

The first one, on the Friday, took us north a little on the eastern side of the peninsula and then inland.  Our first stop was the small locality of Koppio, which is home to “The Koppio Smithy Museum”.

It has been established on the site of the blacksmith’s shop and home of the Brennan family.  

Tom Brennan set up his home and business in 1903.

The cottage is a little cutie.

The interior was lovely.  It would have been rather cosy, especially if they had a few kids.

There is a second cottage, which had been relocated to this site.

All other buildings were either built later or relocated there, including what is reportedly the smallest bank in South Australia.

One pavilion housed a large collection from the Jericho family.  Many were everyday small items that would normally get chucked out.  Don’t you love the letter holder made from paper plates.

Mick would love to have had this Meccano set when he was a kid.  It is in such perfect condition.

I loved these little pincushions and bits and bobs.  I actually had the identical 4711 perfume bottle, gifted to me by an old neighbour when I was quite small.

Another pavilion housed an extensive collection of barbed wire and associated fencing items.

The southern area of the Eyre Peninsula was ravaged by a severe bushfire in January 2005, known as “Black Tuesday”.  

Koppio was in that area and the black stump at the front of the property is a reminder of how close the flames came to the museum.

It seems fitting that there are relics from that event included in the museum as well as a tribute to the firefighters.

After we finished exploring the museum, we continued on our way to the regional town of Cummins.  As we drove into town we came up behind this huge tractor driven on tracks rather than wheels. This was a timely reminder that agriculture is the main industry in the area.

Our first stop was the bakery for lunch.  It was a surprisingly good venue and we enjoyed a delicious lunch, complete with sweets at the end.  Yum!

We then called in next door to the local butchery to get something for tea.  We forgot to take a photo.  It turns out that this is a very popular shop, with much of the meat sourced locally.  Our beef schnitzel was delicious.

In the past, this was a prominent railway town and there is a little park paying homage to that past.  The toilet block has won awards for its artwork.  Let’s see some close ups.

There were even mosaics inside.

Outside, there were some passengers waiting for a train.  Hopefully, Mick wasn’t going to join them.

There was also a statue to commemorate the Wheat Lumpers, from the time before bulk grain handling.

This is the size of the bags they were carrying and throwing.

Finally, I wanted to visit the Cummins Mill.  This has been operating for about 80 years and is rare in that it produces stock feed as well as products for human consumption.  They do tours on Tuesdays, but we were there on Friday, so we missed out.

I did make a purchase of flour.  Yes, I will now have to make some bread.

We popped into the community op shop and I found a little treasure for the princely sum of $1.  My guess is that she would have been worked between the 1920s and 1940s.  I will find somewhere for her on the wall of my sewing room.

That filled in our day very nicely.

On the Sunday, we had another day trip, this time to Coffin Bay.  We had been told by many people that it was a truly beautiful place, so we had to go and see for ourselves.  How did a town get such an unusual name?  Another place named by Matthew Flinders, this time after Sir Isaac Coffin, who was the Resident Naval Commissioner at the time.

Coffin Bay has been made famous for its oysters, so we wanted to try them.

There were a few murals.  Rather appropriate to have oyster catchers depicted.

We enjoyed fish and chips and oysters for lunch.  A nice casual lunch.  Yes, the oysters were very good and so fresh.

There were lots of oyster fishing boats in the area.

We had been told that there are lots of emus throughout the town and we did see quite a few.  How many towns have emus wandering along the main street.     

There were also more wild freesias growing around the place. Such a lovely fragrance.

So, the scenery….

After all the hype we had heard, we were a little underwhelmed.  Like so many other places in the area this is a place very popular for fishing.  There isn’t a great deal else there.  We still very much enjoyed our visit.

That finishes our time based at Port Lincoln.  It was time to then start heading north and do some more exploring.