Fingers and Nose -Todger and Toes: It’s the extremities that suffer most in the cold. Minus 1 on the beach at Streaky Bay this morning, any colder and I would be waking up in the morgue!  The cold, along with the promise of a beautiful clear day had me packing up quickly.

Breakfast of raisin toast with tea at the caravan park kiosk. Yesterday’s ‘fresh oysters’ hadn’t moved from their position in the fridge. Would they still be fresh tomorrow?

I did one last lap of sleepy Streaky Bay. If they ever wanted an Australian location for a remake of the Hitchcock classic “The Birds” Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor would be right at home here, where even the seagulls looked suspicious!

As I was exiting town, I passed a bakery, too good to resist, I went in for a second breakfast; another cup of tea with a hot Cornish pastie fresh out of the oven. I was good.

I called in at the service station to put a little more air in my tyre , then the post office to pick up stamps and post another card to mum. It was getting on to 9.30 am, I had got into the spirit of the laid back fishing village. Enjoying a lazy day, I decided that I would have a short day’s ride today and camp at Port Kenny or Venus Bay rather than push out the 130 kms to Elliston.

Not far off the Flinders Highway is Eyre’s Waterhole, this as well as the highway and the Peninsula I’m traveling through, are named after the British explorer Edward Eyre, who camped here on his way across the Nullarbor in 1840.

The local indigenous people had added a few comments to the sign leading to the waterhole. In  effect Eyre used their waterhole, one that had been used by local Aboriginal people for centuries, then explorers, settlers, pioneers and now me. As I filled my water bottle from the well, somehow it felt poignant to be drinking from the well, knowing others had quenched their thirst here for hundreds perhaps thousands of years.

Today’s countryside was almost park like, box mallees , tea trees (Melaleucas) and wattles stood in fields of green grass, interposed with rocky limestone outcrops. The road surface was great, light traffic, fair winds, a few false flats that rewarded me with a couple of surprising downhill runs.

Rolling into Port Kenny around lunchtime, I thought yeah this will do. A sign selling ‘fresh prawns’ almost had me. I opted instead for a bucket of hot chips, 50 cents extra if you wanted gravy, I didn’t.

I set up camp by the fence under some trees hoping to beat the morning frost. I serviced the bike, did my washing, then walked down to the beach. The whiting are biting, boats and tackle were for hire. I toyed with the idea of taking a boat out an catching some fresh fish.

If the weather holds it should be an enjoyable ride tomorrow as I continue my slow tour of the Eyre Peninsula slowly making my way to Adelaide.