Now we were starting the Yorke Peninsula proper. The Eyre Peninsula is a big wide triangle with a road running down one coast and up the other. The Yorke Peninsula on the other hand is long and narrow and shaped a bit like a boot (like Italy). Setting out from Adelaide it is very easy to go straight over the top of the Yorke and not even notice it, so we had never been here before. However because it is closer to Adelaide it was fairly popular with the locals, especially now in the school holidays.

First stop was Port Broughton, a small but charming little beach town. It had a wide main street, a pleasant foreshore, and a T shaped jetty. It was crowded with holiday makers in the cafés and ice cream shops, and children on the jetty with fishing rods and nets. There were even a fair few in bathers trying to make the most of the holiday, although it was quite cool. Although the town and the jetty were nice, there was no beach to speak of. Certainly no white sandy shores that we had been told about.

The next stop was the Copper Triangle. This consisted of Kadina, Wallaroo, and Moonta and it was called the Copper Triangles as copper had been discovered here in the late 1800s, and the whole area developed to mine and process this. All the mining had stopped in the 1920s when the copper ran out, but by that time wheat farming and tourism had taken over.

Kadina is a large service town with a Woolies and a large shopping centre. It is inland, not on the coast, but is the biggest commercial area on the Yorke Peninsula. It also had a nice art gallery with interesting artwork and great local crafts at very reasonable prices. We stopped and stocked up, but moved on fairly quickly.

Wallaroo is about 10 kms from Kadina out on the coast. It has a nice wide main street with cafés and restaurants on one side, and open gardens with picnic areas on the other. At the end of the main street you hit the coast. First thing you see is large silos and a big port where the wheat is shipped out. Just down from this is a long jetty with lots of holiday makers fishing, and a large swimming enclosure full of children. At the foot of the jetty is one large café and a fish and chips shop - both full to bursting, and a grassed area with wall to wall picnic rugs.

So we drove on - a bit further down the shore is a long beach with the white sands we were promised. So much sand, as the tide was out - a very long way out. It would have been a lovely beach, except that it was jam packed with cars driving and parking on the sand.

At one point there was a channel leading in, and this led to a network of estuaries and a whole gated community of fancy houses with their own private jetties and the yacht parked out the back.

A bit further down the beach we passed through an area of scrub, then another development called North Beach. This was a very different community of shacks and beach houses, lined by 4x4s and boat trailers. Even the streets were poorly made, half sand. The Esplanade was broken up in dead-end bits, and when we tried to approach the beach we were almost bogged in the sand. Wallaroo really does have something for everyone.

The next day we checked out Moonta, the third town in the triangle. This was the main area where the copper had been found and had a long and interesting history. The town was basically divided onto three parts - Moonta Mines was the historical precinct and had the museum, housed in the old mines school - a beautiful old building. There were also many ruins of old mines and the buildings that were used to process the copper. An old steam train did the rounds of this whole area and told the story.

The second part was Moonta Town, the commercial precinct. This was a lovely town built in the basic square format so common in South Australia. It had wide streets bordered by gardens with lush green lawns. The shops were interesting and there were several nice cafés and restaurants.

The third part was Moonta Bay, just a few kms out of Moonta Town on the beach. And it was a beautiful long white sandy beach, again with a very long tide, but no cars to be seen on the sand. If the weather was better and we had more time, this is definitely where we would have stayed a while.

While checking out this area we stayed in a little town called Alford, about 20 kms from Kadina. This is a town of 40 people, and had once been a thriving hub. Now it had nothing. The pub was for sale, and the primary school had closed down thirteen years ago. But they had opened up the primary school grounds for free camping for self-contained vehicles for a $5 donation. With flushing toilets and a barbecue and playground, this was great value.

GeorgeY"s Bit

Yorke Peninsula is closer to Adelaide so it was busy during the holidays. Beach towns can be classified in two categories based on how the streets, and especially the beach front part, is set. The good ones like Moonta and Port Broughton have wide streets with nice buildings. The waterfront, with its open tree lined esplanade, provides a welcoming feel to all visitors. The bad ones reflect a selfish approach. The posh side is usually next to a marina with man-made estuaries providing water front access to mansions in the gated communities. The bogan side has a front row of shacks competing for a sea front, followed by a row of double storeys desperate for a glimpse of beach. Variations do exist but that is a typical design of a bumpy unsealed shacksplanade. For both the posh and bogan, their success in being exclusive is mostly due to the fact that they are not worth a second visit.