Ceduna

Ceduna is one of those little towns that you could quite easily miss as you travel across Oz. Highway 1 pretty much bypasses the town. If you do take the trouble to stop and have a look it is a really nice place.

The first thing that greets you when approaching Ceduna from WA, is the Quarantine Station. Just as there are Quarantine Stations just inside WA on the major border crossings, South Australia also has stations set up to try and intercept pests and diseases before they can get to the prime agricultural and horticultural areas of their state. The guys that work there were really nice and even helped carry the container of stuff that we had to throw out. We had to chuck out all fresh fruit and vegetables except a carrot!

Welcome to Ceduna. Now, hand over your goodies. Quarantine Station.

                 

 The staff at the Quarantine Station check the produce for critters. 

           

If you don't deviate from the road in from the Quarantine Station, you find that you are actually on the main street of the town. The street is a divided carriageway that has Norfolk Island Pines growing down the median strip in the middle. It is very clean and in six days here I've seen just one piece of litter. The majority of the shops line the main street with just a few on the side-streets. It certainly isn't a shopping mecca, but you can get most things that you need. Prices are about what you would expect for a town so far away from the capital city.

 Typical Town Centre street of Ceduna, with Norfolk Island Pines. 

                           
The main street runs parallel with, and one street back, from the bay on which the town is situated. The Visitor Centre is also in the main street, with ample parking for big rigs like ours in a close-by side-street. The lady there was very helpful and gave us information about five different caravan parks. We chose one that also happened to be off the main street.

 Our site at the caravan park. 

                                                       

 Ocean Views from the door of the van. Shame about the fence.

                     

Within easy walking distance of the centre of town and our caravan park are the beach, jetty (or "pier" as they call it here), the yacht club, boat launching ramps, shops and pub. There is a path that runs about three kilometres along the edge of the bay from the Yacht Club to the Port. Near the Port is another residential area known as Thevenard. So there you go! Ceduna is big enough to actually have suburbs.

  The Pier

                                                                 

There is a group of islands straddling the entrance to the bay and these make the waters very protected. There is no surf here as the swells simply don't make it to the coast. Don't be fooled though. I was out in the kayak for two of the six days we were here and had to head for the shore on each occasion due to a pretty messy chop springing up with the increasing wind.

Ceduna is a commodity exporting Port, with grain, gypsum, mineral sands and a couple of other items making up the exports. The output of the Port is just over two million tonnes - small when compared with the regional Ports in WA, but enough to be a major employer of people. Ceduna also has a thriving fishing fleet and today I availed myself of some lovely fresh scallops (that they shucked right in front of me) and some fresh flathead.

Looking across the bay to the Port.

I have been fishing, chasing the elusive King George Whiting, and did actually catch one - but it was too small and I let it go. I got us a nice feed of Blue Swimmer crabs, though, and we had them for lunch yesterday. The crabs are thick here. I only had one net and I was pulling it every five minutes, for at least one crab every pull. While I wasn't on to the whiting, this isn't unusual for this time of year and it is due to an influx of Trumpeter Fish, who basically give the whiting a fair bump and play on when there is food around. I was pulling up double headers of these little buggers on just about every cast.

Ceduna beaches are average, at best. The beaches slope very gradually and with a tidal range of up to two metres there can be occasions where there just isn't enough water to swim in. The sand is not white, but not dirty either and has a slightly binding, without being muddy, nature. Because of the predominance of limestone cliffs in the area, lumps of limestone also end up on the beaches so you do have to watch where you are walking.

Typical Ceduna Beach

The Pier is about 300 metres long and gets out to the deeper water. many people fish from it, but as the bottom is weedy all the way along the length of the Pier it is unlikely that they catch any of the prized King George Whiting. Many of the locals also jump off the Pier and swim around at the far end of it. Not for this little black duck - this is White Pointer country.

Ceduna handles its isolation from the major centres in the way that many small towns do. The people are very friendly and very supportive of each other. They play a lot of sport here and seem to be very proud of how their town looks. The town also has a reasonably large population of  Blackfellas, who were all friendly enough when I came in contact with them, but have the same unfortunate issue with alcohol and drugs as seems to be the case in many places around Australia. There is a Liquor Accord here at Ceduna which regulates the time that alcohol may be sold. There is also a rigidly enforced policy of no street drinking, or drinking in any public place. This is sad because it would be nice to be able to go and sit on the foreshore and down a bevvy or two as the Sun sets, but it is necessary in order to combat public drunkenness

Our caravan park is small and neat. There is no grass anywhere due to the limits on the water supply, but the owners have topped the ground with a form of crushed gravel that looks tidy enough and isn't too dusty. The trees at the park are mostly hardy conifers that don't shed too many needles. There is enough shade, which is just as well because we had a 46.2 degree day on New Years Day. Those people in camper trailers and tents were very happy to be under what shade there is. Our caravan air conditioner struggled a bit, keeping the van just on the cusp of being uncomfortable. At 4:00 PM the power failed, but as if by some sort of divine intervention, the sea breeze blew in no more than 30 seconds after the power went off.

In summary, Ceduna is an easy place to spend a few days. It is very tidy, friendly and has adequate shopping available. I'm sure the fishing is as good as the locals tell me, once the Trumpeter have buggered off. I rate Ceduna as a 7.5/10 when compared to other similar sized places that we have visited.

Our caravan park charges $27.00 per night. Diesel is currently $1.52 per litre. The "Point One" long-life milk that we use is about 30 cents per litre more expensive than we pay at home, making it about 20% dearer. This seems to prevail across a range of foods. Non-food products appear to be about 10% dearer than City prices (not bad when freight costs are taken into account.) We didn't buy grog here so we don't know how it compares with other places.

We used 250.2 litres of diesel to cross from Norseman to Ceduna at a total cost of  $413.50

Tomorrow we are starting our journey down the west coast of the Eyre peninsula. We don't know when we will next be in range of a mobile phone tower, so the blog might not be updated for few days.