Moonta Bay

Sunday 20 March - We drove into Kadina to fill the car up with fuel and then visited the Mine Museum, it took ages as there so much to see. It was really interesting displaying information on the copper mining as well as memorabilia from World War 1 and World War 2, as well as a room set up as an old school room as the museum is set up in the old Moonta school. There was a shop front that had been placed in the museum and an old shoe maker shop that had every tool that they would have ever used as well as every size shoe sole cut outs. I could go on forever about all the interesting things they had in there.
So after that it was time to go back to camp for cheese and wine time, and get prepared for our move to Nuriootpa tomorrow.

Saturday 19 March - Had a phone call with some bad news so today is a right off. We ended going down to the Cornish Bakery and had our Cornish Pasty which was delicious.

Friday 18 March - Well I rang Rhonda for her birthday and then we had a real veg day where we just sat around and did some reading and walking around the camp. In the afternoon we decided to try and catch some more crabs, but the crabs had other ideas we only caught one so we gave it to a young couple to add to their collection of 2.

Thursday 17 March - St Pat's day the day before my sisters birthday, it is blowing even harder today, what's new for South Australia, fair dinkum it is always windy. So after sitting here updating the blog we are off for more site seeing this afternoon so until then, ciao
Well we are back, this afternoon we headed down to Maitland which is a very old township, there was a sign saying markets today so we went in to the old tin shed where they had lots and lots of craft. John was excited as he picked up yet another Ruth Rendell book for $5, I thought that he would have had the whole set by now.
After Maitland we headed down to Port Victoria which had another long jetty, we bought an icecream and walked down the jetty to see what everyone was catching, they catch tommies which are the smallest fish I have ever seen but they are of legal size. I couldn't help but take a photo of I think was an italian woman fishing in her scarf and apron, I will upload the photo but it might be hard to make out. We saw the funniest thing they have a golf course right alongside the water, the photos I have added show the tee off is a piece of synthetic grass on top of the dirt and the green is black fine stones with out of bound poles right alongside the beach. We had a nice chat with a couple from England that come out here for 6 months of the year every year at this time and drove around looking at the place before heading back to camp.
We have a young couple camped right behind us from Bendigo who have two young children and this afternoon Kaitlan who is 4 and her brother 2years drew a beautiful picture of me and gave it to me as a gift as they head off tomorrow, the parents have taken 12 months off work to travel around Australia before Kaitlan goes to school. We have found a lot of couples doing this or some with older kids that are doing home schooling.

Wednesday 16 March - It is a bit windy today so we went sightseeing today, first we headed to Port Hughes and looked around, it is just down the road from Moonta so very similar with another large jetty and nice beach. I hope John will book a trip on a fishing charter, but all depends on the winds dying down. We then headed towards Kadina taking in the sights and walking around the old township. All around here it is listed as Heritage so lots and lots of old buildings and homes. We stopped and had lunch at a nice little cafe and then John found "Cheap as Chips" which he discovered last time he was down here, he just loves the junk shop. After that we headed back to Moonta which is called "Australia's Little Cornwall" and apparently they have the best cornish pasties out, so hopefully I will get to try one before we leave, the little bakery is gorgeous. The top section of the Yorke Peninsula which we are on is called the "Copper Coast" where a lot of copper has been discovered. We took a trip on an old train from the Wheal Munta station through the historic landmarks of former mining operations with the driver explaining workings of the ore sorting floors, reservoir and the tunnel through Ryan's tailing heap. Apparently in the early days of the mining there was limited fresh water and they had various epidemics that caused children to die at around 100 per week for a period of time, when we went into the Moonta cemetary you could see all these small gravesites it was so sad. The commentary was very interesting and later on we will go through the Moonta Mines Museum.
Once we got back to camp we decided to both go crabbing, it was a bit slower today but finally John caught 3 crabs and I got 2, one of my blue swimmers was huge, very sweet. The only part is the shelling, it takes ages for little return.

Tuesday 15 March - We are now in Moonta which is a lovely place to stop, we will be here until next Monday.
Today we just set up camp and went for a walk down along the jetty which is really long, people were fishing and crabbing, they tend to be there all day. Along one side of the jetty nearly half way down is a netted off area for swimming.
John decided after dinner to go crabbing, it got the better of him so less than 2 hours later he arrived back with 4 crabs, yum, yum.