Murray River at Moorook Game Reserve

So after our windy day at Whyalla we decided to ditch the coast & head inland for a bit. We aimed to try to find a camp on the Murray River for New Year. We left early & grabbed some fuel & swapped our gas bottle in Port Augusta. It has been months since we were in Port Augusta & it was our official starting point on the way over. We cut down through Willmington & Peterborough & it was overcast as we started but the land was really dry, the fires had just started in the Adelaide Hills so we wanted to get a bit further out. 

We then went directly South down to Burra & grabbed some bread & a pie for lunch from the bakery on the way through. We then headed out towards Waikerie & had to get our first ferry across the river. It was a novelty we never got sick of & they are run really well & are free & operate 24 hours a day.

 We then followed the road towards Barmera calling into all of the free campsites on the way. We looked at about 4 campsites & they were all packed to the rafters with families & people jet skiing on the river. There were a couple of spots that we could of camped in that we're okay, but they didn't have great river access & were close to the neighbours, so we decided to keep looking, but there are heaps of fantastic free campsites on this stretch of river. In the end we ended up in the Moorook Conservation Reserve, run by SA parks & wildlife for $10 a night. We got a site right on the water, that had access for us to go swimming, away from any neighbours & with enough shade but also a good spot for the solar panels. By this time is was close to 4pm so we were very glad we found it & were more than happy to pay $10 a night. Once we had set up & were sitting having a drink overlooking the river, it made the long day well worth it. 

Camp at Moorook

Our Murray a River view

The next day was New Year's Eve, so we decided to hang around camp. The temperature was heating up & it was about 40 degrees, so very hot for us compared to what we have had for the last 3 months!  We even went swimming, the first time in ages. The day was spent staying out of the sun, enjoying the views & relaxing. That night we cooked up a nice feed & listened to some music to celebrate the end of 2014 & the amazing time we have had. We only made it to about 10.30pm, but it was a great night. 

The next day, January 1st 2015 we decided to stay around camp, as we figured it would be really busy in any of the towns. It was also another scorcher & we did plenty more swimming. Mat also did some fishing, but only managed to get a few carp, big sized ones though & as per the rules we didn't return them to the water. There are no facilities at all at Moorook, so we had the bush Dunny set up, but didn't bother with the shower as we were swimming so much & just had a quick swish with the soap in a bucket at night. We had enough shade, so we didn't have the big trailer awning up, but we did have the back car awning up to help keep the fridges cool. The poor old fridges & especially the freezer worked very hard for those few days that were above 40 degrees. We found putting towels up across the windscreen & windows really helped to keep Ruby cooler. We had phone reception at camp. We had some great sunsets over the river, saw heaps of water birds & had fun watching the kids stack it while water skiing in front of camp. 

The next day we decided to go for a drive & have a look around the local area. We made our way into Moorook town which is tiny, but has a pub, general store & some camping with nice green grass right on the river. We kept on heading down towards Loxton. 

River at Loxton

These river towns are really lovely, right on the water, with that quintessentially SA stone houses & lovely gardens. As you drive down towards the river the surrounding areas go from almost desert country, to wheat fields, to the lovely irrigated farm land with acres & acres of fruit trees & vineyards. A really lovely spot. There are also houseboats everywhere & we reckon that would be a great way to have a holiday, the fact you can pull up & tie your houseboat to the front of a lot of the pubs, made it more attractive to Mat! 

Another ferry ride

We were surprised to find Loxton had a Woolies, so we grabbed a few groceries & then headed towards Renmark. Another fantastic town. We filled up our drinking water drums at the visitors centre & then had a look around town. There are some fantastic caravan parks on the river with excellent water parks for the kids, great for families. We ended up going to the club for lunch overlooking the river, it was lovely. We decided we should get moving again & made our way towards Berri. Another lovely town, with more irrigated farmland, an oasis in the dry landscape. Berri had heaps of services as well & we are supprised at how big these towns are. By this stage we were keen to get back to camp for a swim as it was really hot, so we decided to check out the rest of the area the next day, so we went back to camp. 

Lunch view

It was really really hot. We were listening to the radio about the fires & just hoping one didn't start near us. The next day we finished our tourist circuit & went towards Waikerie & across the river again & along the northern side. We found a pub along the way called the Overland Corner Hotel, a historic pub & we called in for a beer. It reminded us of some of the pubs in Tasmania. A cool little place. 

Overland Corner Pub

We then kept moving & then crossed the river back near Barmera. It was hot again & started to get windy so we decided to go back to camp just in case a fire started. It was the hottest afternoon we have had & we spent most of our time in the water. We would go swimming & then get out. We would literally be dry in 10 minutes & the metal frames on our camping chairs were burning us, even though they were in the shade. To also cool us down we had bought some Zooper Doopers at the shops, so had a few of them in the freezer each day, I may have eaten about 4 that afternoon! The poor old car fridges were working to the max again, but did a great job, gotta love the Engels. There was a bit of a cool change coming through the next day, it was only supposed to be 35 degrees so we decided we should move camp before the temperatures got hot again as was forecast. That afternoon a severe wind warning was issued for our area & it built up quickly. There was plenty of thunder & lightning & we were convinced we were going to get a big storm. We got plenty of wind, a few drops of rain but that was about it, luckily. So that was the first part of our stay on the Murray River. We loved it. It really cheered us up & even though it was hot, to be honest we much prefer that weather. Camping on a river like the Murray is one of the best types of camping you can do & it was great. We decided to try to find another spot on the Murray further south for a few more days of champagne camping! More to come soon. 

Doughnuts

These are proper "dough" nuts made of a  sweet dough instead of the cake like mixes of most doughnuts you buy today. These are really yummy & the mixture made about 12 doughnuts. You need to be really careful with the temperature of your oil. These doughnuts are quite thick so they take some cooking & if your oil is to hot they will burn. The cooked ones in the photos are a bit over browned but still tasted great. I only cut a couple of real shaped doughnuts the rest I just did as flat circles as I didn't have any proper circle cutters & couldn't be bothered cutting out all the holes with a knife. 

Doughnuts 

Ingredients

5 cups of bread flour

1 cup of caster sugar

1 sachet of yeast

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of milk

3/4 cup of warm water

1 beaten egg

75g of melted butter

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

Canola oil for cooking

Directions

- place the water, milk & 1/4 cup of the sugar in a bowl & add the yeast & stir. Set aside for 10 mins till frothy. 

- in a separate big mixing bowl place the melted butter & egg & mix. 

- add in the yeast milk mixture & stir well. 

- add in the salt & 4 1/2 cups of the flour, reserving 1/2 cup for flouring your work surface. 

- mix with a butter knife to form a soft dough

- then using clean hands need the dough until smooth & springy, about 7-10 minutes. The dough should only just be a little sticky. Add more flour to get the right consistency. 

- cover your bowl with some plastic wrap & allow dough to rise for about 30-40 mins. 

- once risen knock back the dough & kneed lightly. 

- cut the dough into 3 pieces & with the first roll it out on a floured work surface until it is about 2cm thick. 

- cut circles from your dough & if you have a small circle cutter you can also cut out the doughnut hole in the middle. You can also carefully do this with a knife like I did. If you don't have any cutters you can just pinch off pieces to the dough & flatten them into rounds. Repeat with remaining dough. 

- allow the doughnuts to rise again for about 15 mins before cooking. 

- heat your oil in a frying pan to a medium temperature, we are going to shallow fry the doughnuts so you need about a 1-2cm layer of oil in the pan. 

- place about 3-4 doughnuts in the hot oil, be careful not to over crowd the pan. 

- cook for about 10-12 minutes, flipping sides every 2 minutes. Keep an eye on them they will easily burn.

- while they are cooking prepare a bowl with the remaining sugar & cinnamon mixed together for coating the doughnuts. 

- once cooked, drain the doughnuts on paper towel & while still hot dredge in the cinnamon sugar mix

- enjoy!

Best eaten while warm, but we had way to many for us to eat at one time & they were still pretty tasty the next day as well. 

Whyalla

On the 27th of December it was time to move on from our 10 nights camped at Lincoln NP, we had a great time around Port Lincoln including our day trip to Coffin Bay but it was time to get going again. As normal on moving day we were up early on moving day. We had no real destination in mind but figured we would move north up the eastern coast of the Eyre Peninsula & see what we could find. We hoped to get a fishing charter out of somewhere up the coast, but unfortunately they were booked out in every town or they just didn't get back to us. In the end we ended up at Whyalla. We had read about  a free camp not far out of town & so thought we would have a look.

What we found was a really lovely spot overlooking the green water of Fitzgerald Bay. We can't believe this is free. Right on the water but there are no facilities. It was a great spot & was pretty busy. It had no shelter from the wind & no shade though. 

The first afternoon we set up & went for a walk down to the water. It seems it is the place to catch blue swimmer crabs & most of the other campers walked in the shallow water all afternoon looking for them, with their rakes & floating buckets tied to their waists. 

Fitzgerald Bay above & below

The next day we headed back into Whyalla for a look around. It is set overlooking the greenest water we have ever seen. Although highly industrialised with steel mills & iron ore coming in by train & getting exported by ships out, it was actually a pretty nice town. They have done a good job of making it welcoming to tourists. 

Whyalla above & 2 photos below

There is a large shopping centre hidden out the back of town with Coles & Woolies & most bits & pieces, so we grabbed a bit of fresh food. We also went to the local caravan park to pay for a shower. After not having a decent one for a while, it was definitely nice. Of course this then meant we were clean enough to go the pub for lunch & took advantage of the Sunday $10 pizza special. Back to camp & it was starting to get a bit windy but not to bad. We spent the afternoon curiously watching the crabbing action again, although old mate that had his dog helping didn't seem to be getting to many. 

We decided that it was such a nice spot & free so we should stay for another quiet day. That's where we made our mistake. The wind picked up & blew a gale. We almost packed up at about 1pm & left but figured it would probably be just as bad anywhere close by & we didn't know if we would be able to get the tent down. So after not much sleep that night due to the lovely wind we packed up the next morning. We weren't sure exactly where we were going, but planned to try to out run the wind for a bit & maybe take a break from the beach & head back inland for a while for New Years. 

Coffin Bay National Park - Day Trip

While we were camped at Lincoln NP we did a day trip to Coffin Bay town & national park on the 23rd of December. We started out a bit late which is unusual for us so didn't arrive in Coffin Bay until about 10am we had some breakfast at the local store & admired the scenery. You can see Coffin Bay is a very popular tourist town, although when we were there it was getting busy but not hectic.

We soon headed out towards the National Park, at the entrance we paid our $10 vehicle access & started into the park. The first piece is bitumen all the way into Yangie Bay. There is a camping area here on both sides of the road, but the one at Little Yangie on the right is much nicer. It has toilets & a rainwater tank. It is nice to see SA parks actually put rainwater tanks on all of their toilets blocks, WA parks could learn a bit from them. Yangie Bay camping areas are ok for an overnighter or may be 2 days but not somewhere we would stay for longer than that, unless you were using it as a base to explore the rest of the park. 

Yangie Bay

Once your at Yangie the track then turns to proper 4WD track. We reduced our tyre pressures & headed towards Black Springs. This 14km stretch took us an hour. It had soft sand, salt lakes, lots of rocky hills & jump ups & rough tracks. None of its was particularly hard but very slow. 

Lots of different track conditions in the photos above

With a trailer we reckon it would take about 1.5 hours to Black Springs. It's not the sort of place that you should tow a trailer if you don't have any experience towing a trailer in sand, especially if you are by yourself. After much fun bouncing around we drove into the campground to check it out. Wow, the photos won't do it justice as it was a cloudy day again, but it was beautiful. Up on one end the campsites were cut into the bush on a hill overlooking the water & on the other end it had less trees & was more open & closer to the water. Nearly every site was full so it is obviously popular & was mostly filled with camper trailers. If you are willing to take the time to tow your trailer in, it looks like a great spot to spend a few days. 

Black Springs, imagine this on a sunny day!

Next up we headed further north & this meant tackling the Seven Mile Beach stretch. This is where you have to drive on the beach as there is no inland track & you need to be mindful of the tide. The entry & exits were soft sand, but the beach itself was pretty firm except for a few patches. There were also large areas of seaweed on the beach that needed to be negotiated but there was a pretty firm track above it, but of course this would change with conditions & tides. Once off the beach you head inland for a couple of kms & then you get to a crossroads with tracks to all of the other destinations. 

Seven Mile Beach above & below

We decided to check out Morgan's Landing another camping area. Again a lovely spot, but this one was set back from the beach with only about 3 campsites. It had a toilets & rain water tank as well. The beach was lovely & a great spot to launch a boat. It took us another hour to reach Morgan's Landing from Black Springs. So at least a 2-3 hour drive with a trailer from the park entrance. Not for the faint hearted. There were 2 camps set up in here on our visit. I expect outside of school holidays though you would probably get it all to yourselves. 

Beach at Morgans Landing

Camping area at Morgan's Landing

Next up we decided to head out to Sensation Beach. We could of also went to Sir Isaac Point, but as we had left our run late in the day, we decided we should probably leave it till next time, as we still had to drive all the way back & being conscious of the incoming tide on the Seven Mile Beach stretch. So we headed out to Sensation beach & sensational it was. This has to be one of the remotest & most beautiful beaches we have seen anywhere is Australia. We both commented that it felt like this might be the last time we felt that we were actually somewhere really remote for the rest of the trip. We had the beach to ourselves & we had to drag ourselves away. You can camp here behind the huge sand dune at the beach but it wasn't a very good camping spot, although the beach itself was amazing. The 4WD track from the crossroads to Sensation Beach was the easiest track we did all day, not super fast but much less rough. 

Sensation Beach above & below

By this stage it was after 2pm & we had to do the long trip back out, so we decided we had better leave. The sun had come out at this stage & dried out the sand tracks so it was much softer going home. We tackled Seven Mile Beach again & came across a pretty amazing sight. A emu father was wandering up the beach with his 11 half grown chicks, we slowed right down & came up really close to them before they darted of the track. One of the coolest wildlife sightings we have had on our trip. 

We made it back to Yangie & re inflated our tyres. On the way out we followed the bitumen road to the southern side of Coffin Bay NP to Point Avoid & once again found one of the best ocean outlooks we have seen anywhere is Australia. Even if you don't have a 4WD you can get to this point & we would definitely recommend it. We weren't sure we were ever going to see those amazing blue & green water colours that we were spoilt with in WA, but this one might even beat some of those in WA. 

Point Avoid

The only thing that made it better was heading a little further up the road to Golden Island lookout, which was even better. You had a beautiful island on one side & the magnificent sand dunes on the other, we had never seen sand dunes like these. When you look on google earth you can see the scale of how big they are. This topped off any amazing day. 

Golden Island 

Gunyah Beach near Golden Island & Dunes below

Coffin Bay is definitely worth a visit, whether it is a day trip or to camp. Getting to the campgrounds is an adventure in itself & you feel like you get swept away by the pristine environment & the feeling like you are the only ones there. This was one of the best day trips of our holiday. We can't wait to go back & camp & explore further up the peninsula towards Sir Isaac Point. If you decided to camp make sure you are fully prepared & self sufficient, it's a long way back out to get supplies or in an emergency. Lots of drinking water, food & a first aid kit are a must. Phone reception was very patchy & mostly non existent in most places we travelled on the day. Make sure you take enough beer as well, it's a long way to the bottle-o!!!

Map courtesy of HEMA

Image courtesy of Google Earth

December Round Up

December Round Up

On the 1st of December we were at Albany on the 31st of December 2014 we were at the Moorook Reserve camped on the Murray River near Loxton in SA. We left WA on the 12th of December after almost 8 months of travel. 

Total kilometres travelled 4535km for the month. 

Total diesel bought 844.78L total cost $1259.21 dearest diesel $1.84 at Eucla, cheapest diesel $1.32 at Ceduna.  

Camping. Camped 31 nights in December. 5 free camp nights, 26 paid. Total cost $371 average of $14.26 per night for paid camping. Cheapest camp $10 a night for 2 people at Walkers Rocks, Lincoln NP & Murray a River at Moorook & Dearest camp fees $35 at Albany. 

Best campsite - St Mary's in the Fitzgerald River NP, Richardson Shack at Port Lincoln NP. 

Worst campsite - 4 Mile Beach at Fitzgerald River NP. 

Best experiences - Coast around Albany area, 10 days camped at Port Lincoln, day trip to Coffin Bay NP. 

Worst experiences - Wind!!! Cold weather. 

Best camp cooked meal - Spring Rolls, Doughnuts, Christmas dessert. 

Best bought meal - we didn't really eat out much this month. Probably pizzas at the pub in Whyalla. 

Things we are missing

Our dogs Milly & Robbo, the family, sunshine, shower, a lounge, Christmas with the family, an oven to cook Christmas treats, weirdly craft (just Jess on this as you would expect, Mats motto is "Craft is Crap"), growing our own veggies. 

Things we are not missing 

Work, Christmas shoppers & shopping. 

December is over & we are into the new year. Can you believe it? Time is flying. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & that some of you got to get out there camping! December saw the end to our WA stay for us which was sad but still so much to see. Some more touring in SA & VIC for us before we have to unfortunately go home some time in March. We have lots more adventures still to come your way so keep reading & we would love if you could leave us any comments you have on our travels. We are almost up to 20000 page views & we would love you to keep following us. 

Goodbye WA