Coffin Bay National Park
with Keith ConlonIt is postcard perfect. The idyllic little fishing town and port of Coffin Bay is tucked into one corner of a whole handful of protected bays. They are sheltered by a long peninsula of sand and limestone that stretches as a spur into the Great Australian Bight.
All of that forty kilometre finger is Coffin Bay National Park. For our Postcards feature, I began at the new Templetonia Lookout, not far in from the township, which itself is about forty-five kilometres west of Pt. Lincoln.
From the high sandy vegetated hill, you get a sense of this very different wilderness. Way out west is Port Sir Isaac. The Nao aboriginal people knew it as the place where their dreaming warrior, Pullyallana, took to the sky to become the thunder and lightning man.
Coffin Bay proper is in the distance, too. Despite what the wags tell you, it has nothing to do with pine boxes for expired colonials. Captain Matthew Flinders came by in 1802 in the "Investigator" charting the coast, and he named it after a helpful Naval Commissioner who became Sir Isaac Coffin.
The first station owners here ran thousands of sheep in this semi-arid territory. Despite the sheep, Timor ponies, rabbits and foxes, however, there is still a sense of the remote here. There are inner bays and coves to share with Nature. A four-wheel drive (4WD) track leads to walking trials and campsites in surrounds only Coffin Bay can offer.
What do the pundits say? "It's not the destination, but the journey that counts". About twenty kilometres along the jolting track into the Park peninsula, the three quarter hour journey had revealed a great variety of terrain. And the destination, the uniquely attractive Black Springs beach, definitely counted, too, as a memorable spot.
The low headland's craggy limestone cliffs are topped with coastal mallee. On the sandy curving beach, ancient and gnarled melaleuca trees cling to limestone slabs that reach the waterline. Away in the distance to the north, unexpected peaks and ranges at the bottom of Eyre Peninsula provide perspective beyond the blue of Pt Douglas, the vast inner bay.
I'd read about a turn-of-the-century eccentric, Wallaby Sam, and wondered whether he camped here. He once wheeled a wheelbarrowful of low grade "seaweed coal" from the ocean end of the area, all the way to Pt Lincoln. Black Springs is a designated camping ground in the National Park, but it is a case of BYO everything!
It is one of many favourite nooks for dedicated Friends of the Park, Barney and Sally Williams. They helped our short Postcards expedition with their intimate knowledge of this wilderness. They've retired into a very active program of foxbaiting, revegetation and camping here in all the declared sites (and a few more).
We saw Victorians and Territorians gathered for a fishing camp at the dewdrop shaped inlet, Little Yangie Bay, and there was an incongruous line of washing strung up at Black Springs.
Near there we spotted an osprey high in a mallee branch over the water. It flapped sparingly as it launched skyward again and soared away over a beautiful cove. Barney recounted one of his magic moments with the Park fauna. He has seen kangaroos wade into the seawater at Seven Mile Beach, and he told us they could smell the fresh water rising to the surface from soaks below the tide line.
Sally Williams' longstanding commitment to a botanic survey has produced one rare specimen to date. Many of us grow the red bell-flowered correa in our gardens, but she's come across a variegated form in the Park. It doesn't even have a name yet.
On the trip back, 4WD veteran, Barney, tried out the new Postcards Pajero on a test track with the lot! A summer downfall had filled some mudholes. "You can easily end up going sideways in winter", he warned. It is strictly walking pace over the pockmarked plates of limestone that regularly mar the trail.
But the bump and grind over the outcrops is worth it, with long smooth sand paths in between. Close to the beaches or sandhills though, the sand can become very soft, but the views of the curving inner coast through sheoaks and mallee are captivating.
We also saw emus and grey kangaroos close to the track. As Barney observed, they're quite casual about passing visitors, and it's a good sign that we're only shooting with a long lens these days. A twisted, grotesque stand of old tea-trees gave way to a hugging tunnel of coastal mallee as we drove towards another panoramic bay. Barney and Sally's love affair with the Coffin Bay National Park is still burning.
"It is just a special place".
There are two distinct sides to the Park literally. In the lee of the long peninsula, it is all sheltered sands with soft cliffs capped with graceful mallee. Out on the Southern Ocean side, however, the craggy high limestone cliffs fend off the full force of the south-westerly gales. The coastal wattle here crouch to the ground.
Captain Flinders called this defiant edge, Point Avoid. In the late sun, however, several cray boats had anchored for protection just inside. Even on a quiet day, the swell turned into a powerful surf below us.
Yachties like to call close to the islands at the beginning of the Bight here. There are almost twenty of them between both sides of the Park, and they are all protected too. Price Island looms large out to the West, and seemingly close across a reef break, Golden Island earned its name as the dying sun tinted its limestone cliffs.
This part of the Park is easily accessible in the family jalopy, and it's close to Coffin Bay township. The four-wheel drive adventure was a first for me, but it was also a welcome return to the "good road" end, too.
It is a regenerating wilderness with its own unique moods and seascapes. I hope you get a change to experience it, and take the rangers' advice .Take great memories and leave no trace.. in Coffin Bay National Park.
For more information email: info@postcards.sa.com.au
