Our Latest Travels - Streaky Bay to Port Lincoln

Another day another cloudy sunrise.

The plan for the day was to drive down the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula to Port Lincoln, the main town in the region.

Most of the day was driving through rural countryside. There were not many towns along the way, just localities and lots of stone ruins.

As we drove along, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, we saw a sign beside the road “Wood Fire Baked Bread 1km”. What!!!  We bought bread the previous day, but how could you drive past that?  Obviously, we couldn’t.

1km down the road we came to the Colton Bakehouse.

We made our selection.  As we didn’t need or have room for more bread, we chose Sticky Fruit Buns.

As we were about to pay, a lady came out to see if we needed change.  Then her hubby came out too and we got chatting.  Meet Mark and Corina. 

They told us a bit of the back story behind the bakery and gave us a guided tour.

Apparently, in the early 1990s a couple of fellows came to the area to go surfing.  (There is a surf beach very close by.) They set up camp in the ruins of the old school for quite a while.  Eventually, the powers that be told them to either move on or buy the place, so that is what one of them did.  It turns out that as well as being a surfer, he was a baker.  He got wind of an old scotch oven in the ruins of another building in the district and transferred it to this location.  Firstly, he built the oven and then the stone bakehouse, using reclaimed stone from ruins in the area. If you look closely, there is the date 1995 scratched in a stone above the door.  That fellow started selling bread at the roadside stall. Obviously, he restored the old schoolhouse as well.

Move forward to just a few years ago and that fellow moved on and sold the property to Mark and Corina.  He took all the fittings out of the bakehouse, leaving just the oven.  Mark and Corina were farmers further north in the Eyre Peninsula and moved here for a sea change.  They knew nothing about baking.

Eventually, they decided they should do something with it, so Mark headed off and volunteered as a Baker’s Assistant at the Farina Bakehouse.  That is another interesting story.  Farina is a ghost town north of the Flinders Ranges and a group of people are trying to preserve it.  Someone stumbled upon some stairs going down into the ground and eventually, an underground bakery, complete with scotch oven were excavated.  

For eight weeks each year volunteers run the bakery, supplying all sorts of goodies to the passing tourists.  By volunteering, Mark learnt how to operated the oven.

With this new knowledge and by being mentored by some old retired bakers, they have kitted out the bakery to once again be fully functional.

We feel very privileged to have been given their time.  This ended up being one of the highlights of our trip, partly because it was so unexpected.

While there, I also walked up to take a photo of the old church next door.

There was a drift of freesias out the front of their house, with their gorgeous fragrance.  I thought they just had freesias in the garden, but as the day progresssed, we soon learned that freesias grow wild, like weeds in this part of the world.  Mind you, they were very pretty and smelled lovely.

And those sticky fruit buns?  They were soooo good, warmed slightly for afternoon tea.

As we headed further south, we came to the little town of Elliston.  Back in the early 80s Mick did some work on a property near here, when he and his mates were travelling around Australia on a working holiday.

We called in to get a coffee and I couldn’t help notice the Suffolk puff mats that the cake stands were sitting on.  So cute.

Elliston is home to a large collection of sculptures.  One is in the park in town.  Sadly, it is starting to show its age.

The majority are on the Great Ocean Tourist Drive.  We did visit here back in 2010 on our way to Western Australia, and wanted to see them again.  Here are just a few.

It was a good opportunity to get a photo of the ute and van as well.

The scenery was lovely and quite varied.  During the course of the day we saw various crops, sheep, coastal heath, paperbarks, cypress pine, sheoaks, mallee, river red gums, grass trees and loads of wild freesias.

One place we came to had a really long dry stone wall.  Some sections were in pretty good nick, while other parts were falling down.  Apparently, they were often built by prisoners as hard labour.

Another Mount Hope.  No bigger that the one in western NSW.

As we neared our destination, there were more and more crops.  Such a pretty scene.

Finally, we arrived in Port Lincoln and set up in the caravan park.  We had opted for a waterfront site and what a beauty it was.  This would be our base for the next four nights.

Another wonderful day of exploring.