We enjoyed Cowell so much that we decided to stay another day to catch up on some home/house work and to pay a visit to the other pub in the town – the ‘Friendly’ Franklin Harbour Hotel.  We’ve not really mention before that one of our daily ‘routines’ wherever we are is to sit in the sun outside a café or bakery and have a late morning cup of coffee – a habit we  picked up from our time staying with Tam – “Two flat whites please” and sometimes a nice bit of cake for Eric.  Our morning cuppa at Cowell Bakery was the friendliest and chattiest we’d encountered so far.  It happened to be lunchtime for some folk in the town and a group of community health workers at the next table soon engaged us in conversation/cheek/banter – a right cheery lot they were.  They were off to sort out some entertainment for the old folks of the town and Eric explored the possibility of giving a talk and slide show of our travels.  This is exactly the sort of thing they would have wanted had we been staying until the following week.  But they gave us some tips on how we might pre-plan a talk in some other similar small town as we travel around. That evening it was off to the ‘Friendly’ Franklin Harbour where we had the ‘best pub food in Australia’.  As at the Commercial, the staff here were lively, responsive, helpful and, naturally, friendly. An exiting element of the evening was the lottery/tombola promising prizes of an array of goodies such as meat parcels, vats of whisky, bottles of wine/sherry etc.  How could we lose?  But lose we did, as did the couple at the next table despite having twice the number of tickets as us.  So the four of us decided to have an inquest and over another couple of bottles of wine we tried to get a better understanding of Australia.  John and Judy (who’d been in local politics at one time) were stimulating company as we covered a range of issues such as Australia’s drought, politics, consumer rights, hair dyeing.  But soon we had to totter home to Annie near closing time.  As we turned the corner Margaret looked into the bar and who should be sitting at the end of the bar but Keith - again!  As we peered through the window we’re sure he gave signs of recognition – it couldn’t have been him, could it?  Or maybe we had just had a bit too much wine. 

Next day we said farewell to Cowell - the friendliest place in Australia - and headed further south down the long, long straight roads of the Eyre Peninsula, calling in at the small coastal towns of Arno Bay, Port Neil, Tumby Bay, where yes - we had a town tour in a horse and cart courtesy of Ross the driver and a Clydesdale called Apollo, and Louth where we had 9 holes on our first golf course with black greens (see photographs). This is where you have to rake the greens/blacks – not the bunkers! Then it was off to Port Lincoln - home to a load of wealthy people mainly due to tuna and abalone fishing – for the night. The site at Kirton is in a lovely setting overlooking Boston Bay.

This part of journey is certainly a breath of fresh Eyre. 

E+M  xx