Van Morrison: Bit by Bit

Where are all the people. 
If you can get past South Australia's reputation for breeding serial killers and boasting the most deaths by shark attack in the country - facts that do wonders for keeping awful tourists away - you can pretty much make your way around visiting pristine beaches and bays via a series of amazing vineyard epicentres.

Win.

After a week away from Van Morrison we're back on the road, fast-tracking our way round the coastline of the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia to get to the start of the Nullarbor.

Leaving Adelaide on Tuesday morning - we headed straight to the top tip of the peninsula at Port Augusta, stayed a night and headed on down to the bottom tip of the peninsula - to Port Lincoln.

Now I'm going to put it out there and say that I just don't think I am a fan of destinations beginning with 'Port'. They've so far not been our friend - bringing only wind, overcast skies and a chill that has caused me to bring out the winter pj's in the evening.

This is clearly not island living.

There was a lovely national park with beautiful views just out of Port Lincoln however - a worthy visit.

The journey to both these Port's were each about 4 hours or so and it allowed us to get back into the whole caravanning thing again.

Towing Van Morrison instantly gets us into this weird hand waving club.
It's expected that you wave to anyone towing a van on the opposite side of the road.

To begin with (and largely in the eastern states) it appeared that one must wave to all towing a caravan.
Buses, campervans and winebago type rigs do not count - you be hatin on them.

There are many types of wave.

Most just do the 'Raise 4' - 4 fingers raised, keeping thumb on the steering wheel.
The cool cats do the 'Point' - raising only 1 or two fingers and a few kind of point at you with their index finger.

There's alot of nodding.

And very rarely you'll get a full - 'hand free' full hand off the wheel wave.

How there aren't more caravan swervy crashes while everyone reviews the type of wave going on, I don't know.

But as we've progressed into SA, all folk are now included in the waving.

This permission sent us into a waving frenzy and Husband man has even introduced his own new wave to the line-up, the 'Jazz Hands' - all fingers waving about, only thumbs on the wheel.
It has so far not been returned by the drivers passing by. Rude.

So after much waving and car journeys, we found oursleves another idyllic little spot called Elliston.
It's on the eastern side of the Great Australian Bight about a halfway up the Eyre Peninsula.

There's all the holiday town essentials - a bakery, corner store overpriced petrol station, a few houses scattered about and a pub where you get change from $10 for 2 drinks and the old local men are tracked down by phoning the pub's landline.

Nearby is a place called Locks Well.

It's a beach that is at the bottom of a cliff -to get down, there are 300 steps. And loads of people do it which makes for an amazing daily artwork of footprints along the beach.

It's the most reliable place to fish for salmon as it travels along the beach - and we saw a shark chasing them along when we first arrived at the cliff top.
Not for swimming, clearly.

We went down at sunset and Husband man found himself running along the beach with all the other keen fishermen, chasing the salmon as it swam along and fighting them into the beach.

And Husband man successfully caught us dinner!

Delicious.

Time now to head west and embark on 1,200 kilometres of Nullarbor.