The not so Foul Bay
March 2021
Dolphins on our first morning at Foul Bay.
Up until I was about 13 my family lived in South Australia. Often our holidays were spent at a holiday shack a friend of the family would allow us to use. This shack was located at Foul Bay on the Yorke Peninsula.
The shacks at Foul Bay by law all had to be replaced some time ago and some very nice holiday homes have taken their place. One of those houses is owned by my Aunt and Uncle and they very kindly let Yumi and myself stay there. So very very grateful :)
The house viewed from the ocean.
To my knowledge Foul Bay is the only place along the Yorke Peninsula where the houses are right on the beachfront. The access road runs behind them.
Looking out to the sea from the house late afternoon.
The views to the sea are unrestricted and the walk to the ocean less than 50 metres I would guess. I took all this for granted as a child but now feel so blessed to be able to stay there.
Plants in front of the shack in late afternoon light.
Before you get to the waters edge you pass through a sandy area covered with a variety of vegetation.
Some daisy like flowers growing in the sand
As a child I remember none of the colour that was all too clear to me during this visit as an adult. The main thing I remembered as a child was the seaweed.
The seaweed shore edge and a sunrise I dragged my wife to :)
As you get to the shore edge you come to the large piles of seaweed that have been washed up. When a high tide recedes sometimes it takes islands of seaweed from the shore out to sea like icebergs. As children we used to enjoy jumping on them.
A pelican arriving in the bay.
This area is full of bird life and much of that birdlife thinks that a human on the beach means scraps from a fishing expedition for them.
A disappointed Pelican.
When I was a child visiting here it was all about the fishing. Back then we used to put nets out in the bay and feed off the fish we caught during out stay. I am pretty sure you are no longer allowed to net there and to be honest, fishing with rods is not something I enjoy much. This Pelican would get no fishing scraps from me.
A dolphin swimming straight at me.
That morning the dolphins stayed around longer than the colour in that sunrise. At times they were less than 20 feet away from me. I felt like I could touch them as they swam along the edge of the seaweed shore line.
The bush behind the house.
Behind the house is a thin strip if bush and then behind that cleared farmland. As a child I would roam this bush turning over rocks and branches searching for snakes and lizards. Yep, I was dumb and wild.
Stumpy Tail Lizard.
As an adult I no longer search for snakes and lizards but do enjoy them when I run across them. I was not long in the bush behind the house when I ran into a Stumpy Tail lizard which is actually a skink. The Blue Tongued Lizard (skink) is also common to this area but I saw none on the visit.
As you go further back from the beach the scrub thins out and you get to see some very colourful wild flowers. Here are just two that I took the time to take photos of. Saw the Stumpy Tail, got distracted and forgot to resume taking photos of the flowers sorry.
The last of the vegetation before the farmland.
Continuing to walk away from the beach and the vegetation gets very dry and thin. Eventually you reach cleared farmland that whenever I have visited always looks arid.
So much more to share from our time on Yorke Peninsulas. We spent very little of our total time at Foul Bay. We were usually out exploring other areas until we dropped.