Day 117: Last Day in Streaky Bay

 It is a much colder day today, with a fairly brisk breeze. First thought was to see if there are any protected areas where I could have a fish in the early afternoon air high tide. The most likely candidate is back Beach which about 7 km away, so we take a drive there to have a look. It is the nearest open ocean beach to Streaky Bay, and looks pretty rocky, and the wind is still with us.




Back in town we get some fuel, as we are leaving tomorrow. Diesel here is $2.70/litre.

We try out a different coffee shop in town, before deciding to do the Historic Walking Tour of town using a map collected from the tourist information centre. It is one way of keeping out of the wind and getting a bit of exercise. Like many parts of SA there are lots of old historic buildings and plenty of history.

The tourist information centre is located in one such building.

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Once the Criterion Hotel, the old building below now house a number of shops including the Knife Shop Distillery which was not open, despite its' advertised opening hours being 9am to 5 pm Monday to Saturday. The coffee shop we visited was in the same building.


The Beck family have been prominent in Streaky Bay since 1901 and now owns the IGA Supermarket, Beck's Sip and Save cellars and the local Mitre 10 store. The building below was their first store in Streaky Bay.


Food trucks / coffee vans are also popping up in town. This fairly flash one, serving coffee and Mexican food, next to Beck's original store was not open today.


The walk takes us past a few more prominent old buildings that are all very close to the town centre.


The Cenotaph


The Museum


Anglican Church




Powerhouse museum (only open for a few hours in the afternoon)


The Council Chambers

There were many others including this one which the Old Council Chambers and is now the Dragon Boat Club.


It is now lunch time and we head back to the van to get some relief from the cold wind and have lunch.

Fishing has been abandoned, son our focus turns to procuring seafood. Our research tells us there is an outlet called Seafood on Stanley, located about 6 km out of town, near Moore's Boa tramp. They claim to sell a range of fresh seafood including oysters and King George whiting, We need no further encouragement.

On arrival, it was not quite what we expected. There was no retail outlet, but a couple go shipping containers that container refrigerators full of fresh and frozen seafood, a price list and any honesty box. There was even an eftpos machine with instructions on how to use it. Two large St Bernard dogs lay around the entrance looking not at all threatening.

We bought 500 gm of fresh King George whiting fillets, inserted our cash in the tin and took change from the change box. As we were leaving a guy did poker his head out of a nearby hut and asked if we needed any help. We said no, we had sorted it out and he went back to having his lunch.

Oysters are still on our purchase list and there is a sign just near our caravan park to Evans Oysters a couple of km away. Once again it is not quite what we expected. The only sell raw unshucked oysters, but for $14 / dozen for these monsters, we quickly buy 2 dozen and I am glad I packed the oyster knife.


One dozen shucked for dinner tonight and another dozen still in the fridge to her opened later

Another peculiar item that seems popular here for both eating and for bait, is the Razor Fish, which is actually a mollusc. We saw this notice at the entrance to the caravan park, and subsequently found out from our neighbour that the beach in front of us, has heaps of them.



He decided to collect some to see how they tasted. The claim is that the abductor muscle tastes very much like a scallop. His view was that they are pretty bland, and by the look of the pile of empty shells, the taste test was comprehensive.

The oysters were exceptional for entree. In wish we had bought more, nevertheless, we are in oyster country for the next 3 days so I am hopeful similar great deals will be similar along our journey.

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