Friday 8th April 2022
We left Port Lincoln this morning for a little town called Arno Bay. It is on the Eastern side of the Eyre Pennisula.
We stopped for morning tea at a quaint seaside town of Tumby Bay. It is known for its farming of cereal crops and sheep as well as fishing and tourism.
After a quick bite and drink and a short walk to and from the beach, we hit the road again.
We arrived at Arno Bay Tourist Park and checked in. The staff were lovely and we got a cracker of a caravan site.
We spent the day outside playing and fishing for squid. We were only successful in the afternoon with 3 medium to small sized squid. Jason lost his whiting rig to a stingray.
It was a beautiful day on the beach but we were tired so retired for an early night.
Saturday 9th April 2022
Today we woke early and before both our girls. The sunrise from inside the van was amazing!
We sat outside for breakfast and enjoyed the morning sun. We did 5 loads of laundry this morning as well.
We went for a walk mid morning to the boat ramp to check out the viewing platform.
Madeline wanted to scooter so it took us twice as long to get there. Charlotte feel asleep in her pram just as we got to the boat ramp.
We hired some crab pots in the afternoon and went crabbing. We didn’t catch anything unfortunately.
Babcia and Dziadzio had put squid for dinner in the form of salt and pepper calamari.
It was another lovely day on the beach today.
Arno Bay
The area which is now known as Arno Bay was opened up by pastoralists in 1863, with the area being named ‘Salt Creek Cove’ in these early days.
Of the variety of ventures that occurred before the town was built, the sinking of ‘The Arno Bay Mine’ was possibly the least successful, with water halting all operations.
The small town was initially proclaimed in 1882 by G. H. Ayliffe under the name of ‘Bligh’, after Captain William Bligh, although locals resisted the name change, continually referring to the town as ‘Arno Bay’ until the official name chabge in 1940.
The town was expected to become a port and a jetty was built in 1880 in anticipation of this. The port was not huge, but nonetheless continued importing fertilisers and exporting cereal crops that were being grown in the district.
By 1911, the town had grown substantially, with a school, post office, hotel and new hall established in this period.
The town continued to grow as a port until the point where it was exporting 11,000 tonnes of grain in 1940.
The period of high export came to an abrupt end in 1963 when the storage silos were built, and ocean shipping became redundant to the large trucks that were now the main mechanism of transport.
This signalled the end of Arno Bay as a port, causing the population to drop slowly, eventually leading to its current position as a tourist fishing town.
A bid for a government loan to back a major mineral project was accepted by the National government in February 2022.
The Siviour mine secured $185 million loan from the federal government and the mine aims to supply the global electric car industry, this graphite mine Is the second-largest proven graphite reserve in the world and the largest reserve outside of Africa.
The project also includes two processing facilities in South Australia – one at the mine site to create a 95 per cent graphite product while a second, more technical site would create a purified spherical graphite product to a purity of at least 99.95 per cent.
Tomorrow
We travel north to Whyalla.
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