Snap Crackle and Pop

Funny but walking around we have noticed there is a crunching sound underfoot. Today we found the out reason; it is tiny snails that love this alkaline soil- a real crop pest. The farmers burn the paddocks at this time of the year to remove some of the stubble, to kill weed seeds and also to destroy the snails!

It was a day of exploring the eastern side of the Yorke Peninsular so first stop was Tiddy Widdy beach, sounded intriguing but really was just a  "shiddy" beach. The tide was out, lots of weed but last night someone caught 4 huge snapper, the heads and skeletons were left on the beach. It was the talk of the town when we stopped for coffee.

Ardrossan was the next beach town and it has a huge grain facility capable of storing and shipping. Then we discovered "mining". so up the lookout we went which actually gave a great view of the gulf, farm lands and the open cut. They are mining dolomite.

Rifter loved looking for rabbits and Greg found a stump-jump plough. This was developed by accident and solved a problem of ploughing country full of mallee roots. I remember learning about it in Primary school.  As I've said before the paddocks are now huge and smooth.

Down the coast and numerous bays later we found an interesting lime kiln perched on the edge of a cliff. I guess the kiln made lime mortar for the limestone buildings that are everywhere here.

At Edithburgh ..more historic buildings and once a thriving salt production town. This helped the farmers survive drought years It was a busy SA port shipping out wheat, oats barley, chaff, livestock, hides, gypsum, lime and of course salt..... but no longer.

Instead of the bouncy sealed roads damaged by all the grain trucks we came home via the gravel roads. More interesting - some huge farm houses, derelict building- including a pioneer school, farmers seeding and rolling paddocks.

Tomorrow we hitch up and move on.