Step 37 Cowell - Tumby Bay 125 km's

Tuesday 8th February.


Quick stop before leaving Cowell - The Aqa (that's how they spell it)  Oyster Farm/Factory to check out world famous Cowell Oysters Unfortunately they only do tours of the operation in the afternoons but the lady running the place kindly set us up in front of a video to show what goes on. Apparently the brothers who own/run this place have developed a system of baskets and catches that they are now exporting to the world. The system is specifically designed for the open water farming that they do here (as opposed to the estuary farming they do up in NSW). They have quite a thriving export business going and some of their systems in use in the USA survived Hurricane Katrina.

Before putting the hard sell on to buy some oysters the lady did give us a free taster. Given Steve's track record with sharp implements Di quickly declined the offer to take the oysters unopened and we watched, in awe, as the expert shucked away. (That's the correct terminology - it's not rude honest).

The oysters were tryploids of course. What do you mean what are tryploids? That's non-spawning oysters. They are specifically bred as non-spawning because there is no meat on an oyster during spawning season, so if they didn't have a non-spawning variety there would be no oysters to eat at this time of the year. Yep the oysters are spawning their little hearts out at the moment.
Am I fascinating and informative  or what ?

Looks like the Monopoly guy has retired too

Not far to Tumby Bay but we stopped at Arno Bay to check it out and have an Iced Coffee (supermarket variety, self serve in MM). While we were there we bumped into a cloggy couple that we had met in Gladstone a couple of nights ago, they too are heading for Perth but on a shorter schedule. They are really not happy with their Autobarn Campervan that they rented (for a start it wasn't clean when they picked it up and then the fridge broke down in the first week and they were told they would have to drive back over 300 km's to Melbourne to get it fixed). Not a good customer reference.

But for us, the scenery is improving, the beach at Arno Bay has white sand and the water is looking bluer.

Arrived in Tumby Bay before lunch so we ducked into the bakery before checking in to the Top Tourist Caravan Park.

Would you buy a used caravan park from this guy?

Now to be honest it was an interesting introduction to the town. The shop was quite crowded (a good sign) and when it was our turn to be served we were greeted by the lady behind the counter with
 "Hello ladies, what can I get you?"
What the?
Either the women visitors they get in here are EXTREMELY unattractive
or the size of my man boobs has got so large it distracted her from my face.
Anyway she quickly recovered, although I'm not sure I will.
I did ask whether the facial hair was any sort of give away, but she moved the conversation along. Quite quickly.
But she redeemed herself, as the blueberry scroll was worth the embarrassment. Not sure they are going to help with reducing the size of the man boobs but we did just share one between us. (Me and Di, not me and the bakery lady).

The beach is not quite as nice as Arno Bay (lot of seaweed around) but it's a nice outlook from the park and a nice jetty. Town is relatively big in a small seaside village kind of scale and the pubs look good.

Quiet afternoon for Steve but Di spent most of the afternoon on the phone because Wagstaff St has sprung a leak. Apparently the storm over the weekend caused a leak in Georgia's bedroom (previously known as our bedroom). Fair amount of water got in but it's in a limited area and much to Georgias relief it didn't affect the wardrobe and her clothes. Di had to liaise with the insurance company and estate agent to get things organised. Steve was very supportive, in a "not actually doing anything" sort of way.

Ever the supportive husband I left Di to polish off the majority the oysters ( 9 to Steve's 3 to be precise). Yep to be honest , I'm afraid I am still not that sure about the whole oyster thing but as oysters go they were very good. I think the tryploid thing must have upset their other alleged side effects though. Enough said.

Mmm, which one will I have next?

Weather very pleasant although being right on the beach the breeze is getting up every now and then.

Given we have the Nullabor and WA coming up we decided that now would be a good idea to test the capability of the batteries on MM. There has been some conjecture that the salesman's assurance that "oh yeah, you'll get a couple of days off road with no power" may be a little suspect. The main problem being that we need the battery to keep the fridge going. Anyway in a blinding flash of logic it occurred to me that if we test the capability in a caravan park on a powered site, even if both the battery in the van part and the battery that starts the engine go flat we will be able to recharge. Amazing. So the good news (well for me and Di anyway) is that we ran the fridge and the lights for over 28 hours without any problems. If we were staying "off road" we would turn the fridge off overnight so that should be enough
 to keep us going for a couple of days easily.
See, it wasn't just a sales job - have faith people.

In an effort to work off the blueberry scroll (and crusty bread) we walked along the beach front into town and back after tea.


















Wednesday 9th Feb - Day 100


Yep, hard to believe but today is day 100 on the road. Might even be time to take the L plates off and move on up to P's

Beach views again

Straight after breakfast walked into town for another visit to the bakery and managed to pick up the scroll and a baguette without anymore "lady boy incidents".

I didn't know that - how many other fish wear shoes?

Another quiet day for Steve and in further proof that "a woman's work is never done" Di did 4 loads of washing and some Kaplan study. To be fair I have been encouraging Di to keep up to date with her work so she doesn't have these big days but sometimes she is just very hard to help. As always it's hard to sit around and just watch Di work, so I went out for a walk. Surprisingly just around the corner from the van park and after walking past a number of real old-fashioned beach shacks, discovered a new "suburb" with flash houses all with their own boat jetties. I ask again, who lives in these places????

Tumby Bay's version of Patterson Lakes

In the spirit of partnership that is our marriage, I did cook my award winning Penne Amatriciana for tea though.