Sometimes, the best things lie at the margins, which is certainly true of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. Without doubt, the best part is Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park, located on the peninsula's southwestern tip. By sea, it is 78 nautical miles (145km) from Adelaide. By land, it is twice that distance, most of it nondescript farmland until the park is finally reached.
I've sailed past this coast many times, but only stopped at West Cape Bay, which offers excellent protection from winds from the northeast through the southwest (top left on map). On a recent road trip, I decided to explore two other anchorages from terra firma.We camped at Stenhouse Bay, which is within the national park. Today, it is a ghost town but for fifty years it was a thriving community and mining town, exporting gypsum around Australia and beyond. The jetty is a short walk from the campground.
On the way back to our campground we visited a third anchorage, Cable Hut Bay. It is so named because a submarine cable that provided a communications link to Althorpe Island once came ashore here. The cable hut is long gone and has been replaced with a campground. Cable Hut Bay offers good protection with northerly winds. Althorpe Island, which is only five nautical miles away, offers complementary protection from southwest winds. For southeast winds, round the cape and head for West Cape Bay.
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| Stenhouse Bay Jetty |
The anchorage, which is north of the jetty, is an excellent place to shelter from the northwesterly gales that bear down each winter. Alas, some ships did not reach shelter in time. The Ethel, a three-masted iron ship en route from South Africa to Adelaide, met its demise in 1904, just five nautical miles away. The wreck is somewhat unusual because portions are still exposed at low tide.
Summer is kinder and the mirror-flat conditions we observed could not have been more different. An approaching catamaran had their mainsail up in an attempt to catch the fickle wind—or perhaps just for show.
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| Catamaran in calm conditions. |
The following day we ventured further afield. One of our stops was the Cape Spencer lighthouse, which offers stunning coastal views. The views rival those of the Great Ocean Road, but Cape Spencer is evidently too far off the beaten track for most people to notice.
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| View of Wedge Island from Cape Spencer. |
You can learn a lot about anchorages from shore, but of course the ultimate learning experience comes from anchoring.
OVER.
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