we love our little home on wheels, that’s for sure. ok, every now and then, we we look at the supertanker-sized twin-axled five-star luxury cruisers other travellers live in we do get a tiny bit jealous. they have bathrooms, massive kitchens, washing machines, wide screen tvs (probably more than one) and more storage space than an average sydney apartment.
then again, if we had one of those we would not have attempted to get out to memory cove. memory cove is located in lincoln national park, south east of port lincoln. it’s only about 50 km from the town center but 20 of those are really rough. not rock-crawling or deep-sand-driving impossible, just really rough going over rocks and washouts.
add in a few pinch climbs and we really appreciated the (lack of) size of our camper and the capability of our disco (ability to raise the air suspension 5 cm, low range, 2 mechanic diff locks mid & rear and electronic front, 3l twin turbo diesel with heaps of torque).
it took us more than an hour to cover those last 20 km from the locked gate to the camp but it’s absolutely worth it. we all agreed this was the best bush camp so far.
we had not even set up the van when our neighbour, skippy, stopped by to see if we had something to eat for her.
we didn’t (sorry, we don’t feed wildlife). heaps of little finches and wrens tried their luck as well.
the feral bees were after water; after a bit of an infestation on day one we made sure there was no water around our camp site.
oh, and the seals. we followed a little track along the south side of the cove and there were a few seals playing in the shallow water. we are not quite sure what they were doing there, if you have an idea – check the video below – let us know. to us it looked like they were just having a bit of a play.
given the effort to get out there we decided to avoid any side trips from the cove and divide the time between beach & study.
somehow the studying bit didn’t go so well, the beach looked very tempting. we even got the boat out and went to look for the seals from the water.
if you are ever near port lincoln and you need a place to stay (and you got proper gear) you absolutely must go out to memory cove. book one of only 5 sites out there at the info center in port lincoln, get the keys and enjoy the amazing scenery!
btw: memory cove traces it’s name back to matthew flinders’ expedition to circumnavigate and survey the coastline of what was to be named australia, a term suggested by flinders.
flinders lost 8 of his crew who were sent to the mainland to look for water when their boat capsized in the area. the cove was named in their memory.
here is a different view of memory cove – as a little planet!