Coorabie Farm Stay

Fri 23 

Because we enjoyed ourselves so much we decided (on Jan’s suggestion) to spend another night and to see if we could buy a leg of lamb to cook in the camp oven, This was quickly arranged and Deb and Leon donated a big leg of lamb and eight large shanks in return for us cooking dinner for them and their two friends (Mudcrab Mick and Merve) who had invited them for dinner. In the meantime, Leon gave us a mud map of some interesting things to see. We started with the town hall that was the mail depot and contained the honour rolls. Beside it was the school that has been closed for several years. Our next call was the cemetery where we read the headstones. We followed the dirt road for several km until we came through the sand dunes and onto the coast for views of Wandilla Beach, a spectacular beach with good surf and not a surfer in sight. We continued on to Mexican Hat and looked in vain for the whale footprints we had hoped to find. Here the sea was relatively flat. After that, the map wasn’t so easy to follow because there were several tracks and it was hard to tell which one to take – or even if it was a track. We continued on with it getting fainter and fainter, degenerating to stony outcrops alternating with loose sand.  Eventually we came out where we were meant to be on the road from Fowler’s Bay back to Coorabie.  On the way we stopped to look at some ruins that Leon had told us about.  The track went for quite a distance with ruins on each side. It used to be the headquarters of a huge run that extended all the way to Streaky Bay. We stopped and looked at what used to be the cook house. The old fireplace was still there although it is nearly down. Just up from that were the remnants of stone walls and wooden fences of the sheep yards.

 

We had a quiet afternoon around the campfire while the men cooked the lamb in a huge camp oven on a special purpose built frame. We all contributed the vegies we would have had confiscated at the W. A. border and Deb made a chocolate pudding. Twelve of us sat down to a delicious meal in the dining room and then finished up around the campfire. We had a completely enjoyable day thanks to our friendly hosts Deb and Leon and I’m sure we will return in the future.