Our Latest Travels - Streaky Bay Day Trips

We spent three nights at Streaky Bay, giving us two full days to explore the area.

On the first day we woke up to a red sunrise.

We explored the coast, which was quite different to the bay on which we were camped.

Our first stop was at “Back Beach”, a popular surfing and fishing beach.

There was one lone surfer out there.

Next we drove the “Cape Bauer Loop Drive”.  The Cape is named after an Austrian artist of natural history who accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyage in 1802.

Starting at Hally’s Beach, accessed by stairs.

The sky was now overcast and the wind was picking up a little.  Mick was enjoying standing on his rock, looking out to the wild sea.

And nearly got his feet wet.

Further around the coastline we came to “Whistling rocks and the Blow Holes”.  By pure chance, we timed this rather well, as they are best near high tide and with an on shore wind.

Once again, it is accessed by a large flight of steps.

The “whistle” is generated by the force of water coming into this little cove and being forced up tubes that have eroded over time in the limestone cliffs.  However, the “whistle” is more like a monster’s roar.

Occasionally, there is also water spurted up those holes.

I can’t imagine being there in wild weather, as all the timber railings where you stand have been well and truly water blasted.

You can see in the background how rugged the coastline is.

At the tip of Cape Bauer there was more rugged coastline.

There were some little wildflowers on the coast too.

As we headed back to Streaky Bay the landscape completely changed.

After lunch we did the “Westall Way Loop”.  Our first stop was Tractor Beach.  I wonder how it got its name?

The beach was covered in sea weed.

I like someone’s sense of humour.  The road was no rougher than others we had been on that day.

Smooth Pool was a shoreline of granite boulders and rock pools.

We had fun hopping from rock to rock and seeing if we could find any creatures in the rock pools - no luck.

Just a little few shells.

And that filled in our first day of exploring.

Our second day took us a little south to Surfers Beach, a rather long picturesque beach.

Then onto Sceale Bay.  This is a little village basically inhabited by fisher folk.

As we drove on, you could see sand dunes in the distance.  By all accounts, these are rather spectacular when up close, but we didn’t go over that way.

Following the coast, we came to Point Labatt Conservation Park, which is the home of an Australian Sea Lion Colony,  It is one of the most endangered marine mammals on earth, having not really recovered from the fur hunting of years gone by.

There were quite a few on the beach and rocks.

From there we started to head inland, coming across the little locality of Calca.  By all accounts, it was quite a thriving village in days gone by, but there is little to show for it now.  

A community hall.

A church.

And a derelict house.

We wandered over to have a sticky beak inside.  What a mess.

Then, on the opposite wall was this mural.  Not at all what we expected.

The main tourist attraction we would visit that day was “Murphy’s Haystacks”.  

It is interesting how they acquired their name.

Let’s take a wander around these incredible weathered rocks.

They are quite large.

There were more further over in a grove of trees.  

This is on private property and the grove of trees is obviously a popular spot for sheep to camp, going on all the droppings.

Once again, to get an idea of the scale.

Muscle man Mick.

Then it was back to Streaky Bay to have a bit more of a look around.

Firstly, a better shot of the Streaky Bay Hotel.

And a fun mural. 

That about wraps up our few days based at Streaky Bay.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the area.  I hope you weren’t too bored with all my rambling.