The Best Laid Plans

Port Clinton to Ardrossan

Our house owners made it home in time to rescue their disgruntled cats from our tender mercies: we were quite proud that we had kept a 17-year-old cat alive even if it had entailed several very expensive (for the owners) visits to the vet.

We visited them for morning coffee where they proudly showed off their brand new Turkish carpet (not a flying one unfortunately) and told us all about their adventures. They were remarkably bright eyed and bushy tailed for two mature-aged people who had just spent 48 hours sitting in aeroplanes, interspersed with bouts of panic in airports.

Full of tea and coffee, we waved them goodbye and rolled out of town. We intentionally didn't fill the two-week gap between house sits, deciding instead to go explore the Yorke Peninsula.

The Yorke Peninsula is the middle one of three peninsulas. To the east, across the Gulf St Vincent, is Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula. To the west across the Spencer Gulf is the Eyre Peninsula and beyond that the Great Australian Bight and the nullarbor. Walk the Yorke is a hiking (and biking) track which follows the coastline of the Yorke from Port Wakefield to Moonta, and we had originally intended to complete this as a self-supported tour.

Alas the best laid tour plans of mice and (wo)man went astray, and Roger's back wasn't up to the demands of riding bicycles and crawling in and out of tents, so we had to segue to a more sedate car-supported tour of bits of the Walk the Yorke. In short, I would ride as much of the Walk the Yorke as I could while Roger lolled about in cabins, did his back exercises, and worked (poor soul). I started at Port Clinton, riding south into a stiffening breeze.

The Walk The Yorke has impressive but sporadic signage. Conceived as a hiking trail, it sometimes struggled to accommodate a cycling frame of mind.

The tide was out. Swimming was not an option.

I met two cycle tourists who were going the same way as me, but faster because although fully loaded they had electric bikes. "Pedal assist!" he corrected me. "We still pedal!" He was very concerned that I understand that he still put in a pedaling effort.

Off they went lickety split, but then I met them at the end of the road, standing in confusion at the bottom of a flight of steps up which the Walk the Yorke sign pointed. None of us had realised yet that although the Walk the Yorke (let's call it the WTY from here in) advertised itself as both a walking and cycling path, it didn't quite deliver when it came to cycle-friendly infrastructure. Added to which the signage for the WTY was both erratic and sometimes ambiguous. I went up the hill anyway, just because the sign told me to, and was rewarded with a sweet little path that wandered along the top of the cliffs, through shrubs that sheltered me from the wind. It was all very pleasant apart from a keyhole entry onto a little bridge. I had to stand the bike up on its back wheel to get through that one and I think my touring friends turned round there and went back to the pub at Clinton, because that was the last I saw of them.

The first of many cliff-top paths along the WTY.

Always look on the bright side of life. At least I wasn't fully loaded, and I was going down, not up. And it did give me an opportunity for epic bicycle posing.

Down by the sea I passed wombat holes and saw the tracks where a wombat had wandered happily through the mud. Alas, not a wombat did I see.

In no time at all I was hanging out in the park in Price, eating my banana and filling my water bottles. Heading out of Price, the Cheetham Salt works distracted me from the battering head wind. Mountains of white salt glittered in the sun, surrounded by pink crystalisation ponds.

Past the salt it was just me and the wind and the wheat. While WTY hikers got to gambol along deserted beaches and clamber over precarious headlands I battled the wind down Black Swan Rd and didn't see any swans. Then I battled the wind down Tiddy Widdy Beach Road, but not a Tiddy Widdy did I see.

My son rang. We walked and talked for a while. The wind didn't feel as strong while walking.

Finally the road deposited me back on the cliff top where the wind, disrupted by the cliffs, blew up, down, sideways, and every which way with such strength that at the first opportunity I bailed to the bitumen and left the stunning views behind in favour of traveling in a straight line.

Finally the silos of Ardrossan came into view, and about time too. The wind had quite worn me out.

I called my lift, who had checked into our cabin at Port Vincent and was having a quick lie down. While I waited for him I ate takeaway Chinese at the Anzac memorial at the top of the cliffs above the jetty. The wind howled and tried to blow my dinner away, and some random teenagers got a fright when they slouched into my picnic shelter and found me there. How they managed not to notice a generously built woman in high visibility orange until they tripped over her was quite beyond me but they were, after all, teenagers.

The Port Vincent cabin, while old, met all our needs. We overlooked both the ocean and a very tired mini golf course, and we were the only occupied cabin. "Make sure to park in your spot only," said the Caravan Park manager. So we did.

It was difficult in the crowded car park, but we managed it.

The sun set over the Yorke Peninsula, and the lights of Adelaide glittered across the waters of the Gulf St Vincent. The wind howled and rattled the windows. We had to walk to the ablutions blocks for all our ablution needs, so I skipped my night time cup of tea in favour of not wandering out in the cold night to the loo.

Much as I like camping, it's nice to be in a cabin when the wind blows hard.

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Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 995 km (618 miles)

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