17th February – Day 38 – 3643 km. With my desire to push on to WA PDQ, we stuck to the original plan of pushing on down the Eyre Peninsula and drove to Port Lincoln in the one day. We stopped in at underwhelming Whyalla – to find that the HMAS Whyalla was shut because it was too hot!

This was the same Bathurst Class corvette that Dad first went to sea in as a trainee officer. I could see the irony here – too hot to visit a ship that was never fitted with refrigeration or air conditioning!

Anyhoo, south to Pt Lincoln – the home of Tuna and millionaires. Missy (also known as Thomas Thomas) found the caravan park at Boston Bay, and within minutes of arriving, James was chatting to Harry, a seven-year old also taking his family on the Big Lap (‘Lappas’  – Kris’s collective noun for other travellers doing the Big Lap of Australia). Like so many families we’ve met, we were immediately made to feel welcome, and we spent the next day chatting and swapping travellers tips and tales. A far more salubrious option to the vigorous walks Kris had loosely planned in the nearby NP.

We popped in to town to pick up some (guess what?) fresh tuna, only to hear ‘it’s not in season love’. Even so, (snap frozen) tuna steaks, coconut rice, mango salsa and salad hit the spot (washed down with a chilled Coopers Sparkling Ale of course). The boys loved Pt Lincoln, probably because they got extra time on ‘Minecraft’ with their new friend Harry. We even managed to get in a spot of squidding (no calamari for us though). We also booked a Sea Lion and Dolphin swim for later in the week at Baird Bay.
We swapped numbers with the two other ‘Lappa’ families (from Adelaide and Sydney), and hope we’ll bump into them again on the trip.