Coffin Bay 19 – 20 February 2007

What an incredible day – we drove about 200km from north of Elliston to Coffin Bay and we seemed to go through a number of geographic regions. We started off from Venus Bay and encountered hot dry conditions with treeless plains covered in limestone rocks, interspersed with salt lakes. After a while, we came across small stone farms, surrounded by mature trees planted in a much earlier time.We stopped for lunch at Lake Hamilton (which actually had water in it), and then headed up a hill to a lookout and were knocked out by the spectacular views from a cliff overlooking crashing waves breaking 500m from the shore. We parked close enough to have full ocean views and could feel the ocean spray! Would have loved to stay but it was the wrong time.
After lunch we walked up to a memorial for a local fisherman drowned in the 50’s and saw more amazing scenery with massive waves crashing into a limestone cave.
Early in the day we stopped in Elliston to buy groceries and there was a 1970’s newspaper clipping about the nurse that drowned at the 20 mile beach saying her ghost was seen on the water. Heather laughed and said we had been there and the local said the gossip was always that she was pregnant to the local married Dr and he had pushed her in!
Coming into Coffin Bay was a surprise, with green pastures and multiple inlets – very picturesque however as the town didn’t impress us, we continued onto the National Park on the Peninsula.
In the morning, we went for a hike along the foreshore This is rugged, hard country with tough vegetation. We stumbled across a few mobs of kangaroos resting in the shade of low shrubs. There were joeys in the mobs and they jumped out quickly giving away the hide. The adults were very subdued and tolerated us walking by very closely! In the afternoon we decided to go for a drive to explore the park. Unfortunately the track was a narrow sandy one and when we came head to head with another 4wd, unable to pass, we both became trapped or bogged in the sand. We all had to dig both vehicles out of the sand. Luckily another 4wd came along with a winch, just when we were getting no where with the digging, and was able to pull out the other car. Then, after more digging, we were dug out! Of course, the reward for helping for the rescuer was that he too became bogged. All hands on deck, including 2 kids, freed them too! After that we thought that we had better call it a day and we all headed back to Jimmy for a cold drink!