Last week we left the Flinders Rangers for the Yorke Peninsula. On our way to the Yorke Peninsula we spent a night in a town with the greatest name “Laura” which is home to the Laura Folk town fair that is held annually, we had just missed it the weekend before. The town was named Laura after Herbert Bristow Hughes who surveyed the town and named it after his wife Laura Hughes. It is also home to the Golden North ice cream.

Leaving here the next morning we started travelling down the Yorke Peninsula and spent the night in Alford which was once a happening town. We could stay at the local grounds here for just a donation which had flushing toilets. There was nothing left in this town, besides a couple of locals, whom were very friendly bringing us over some grapes and they also maintain the camp ground. There once was a pub, general store and other small businesses here but had sadly all closed. With there not much to do in Alford, we left the next morning and drove down the coast  passing through coastal towns.

We decided to take Doris off road to a campground called the Gap situated right on the beach behind a sand dune. We had a lovely after noon here, swimming, laying on the beach and fishing with no luck. We were the only ones camping here even though there was a lot of vacant caravans and buses parked up.  After we found out that they were all saving their spots for the long Easter weekend.

We soon left here before the rush arrived and we parked up at the showgrounds in the small inland town, Maitland. We based our selves here for the next week to avoid the inflated prices of caravan parks and overcrowded national parks. Here we paid $15 a night for power, water, toilets and showers. It was a great central spot for us to spend the rest of the week doing day trips to explore the rest of the Peninsula. We visited towns Port Pirie, Port Broughtoun Kadina, Moonta, Balgowan, Port Victoria, Ardrossan, Minlaton, Warooka, Edithburgh and Corny point.

The biggest town on the Peninsula was Kadina. Copper was discovered here in 1859 which created a mining boom on the Peninsula with mines in Moonta and Wallaroo also. This attracted many workers from Britain and Cornwall and the area was known as “Australia’s little Cornwall”. At many of the bakeries along the York Peninsula they claim to be “Home of the Cornish Pasty”. The mines closed in 1923 and it wasn’t until 1960 when a successful wheat crop started the agriculture industry on the peninsula and the towns came alive again.

We spent a day at the Innes national park driving around and going on small walks. We walked around the ruins of the Inneston village which was established in 1913 for the Gypsum mining period and then spent most our day at the surf beach swimming with Dolphins.

As the Easter weekend ended we were ready to make our way to Adelaide, after 2 months on the road, 10,193kms driven, we were ready to see our first  Capital city. Read next week about what we get up to in our time in Adelaide.