The Eyre Peninsula loop: a lap worth doing before Streaky Bay gets discovered

Denise reckons the pie at the Streaky Bay bakery is better than the one we got in Birdsville, and I'm not going to argue with her in print. We've done the Eyre Peninsula loop three times now over the years, and every time we tell someone at a caravan park we're heading that way, they say "oh, we've always meant to do that one." Meant to. That's the thing with the Eyre. It sits there quietly between the Flinders and the Nullarbor, and most people tow straight past it on the way to somewhere they think is more exciting.

They're wrong, and I'll tell you why over the next few paragraphs, with the usual detours.

Why the Eyre Peninsula loop works as a lap

The loop runs roughly from Port Augusta down through Whyalla and Cowell, along the lower peninsula through Coffin Bay and Port Lincoln, then up the west coast through Elliston, Venus Bay and Streaky Bay to Ceduna, before you either push on toward the Nullarbor or turn back inland via Wudinna and Kimba to rejoin the highway near Port Augusta. All up it's around 1,000 to 1,100 kilometres if you do the full circuit without excessive dawdling, which we never manage.

The beauty of it as a loop, rather than an out-and-back, is you're never retracing bitumen. Every day the scenery changes character - mangrove flats and steelworks around Whyalla, then working farmland, then that turquoise water down around Coffin Bay that genuinely surprises first-timers, then the wide open cliffs and dunes on the west coast that feel more like the edge of the continent than South Australia usually does. Because, out there, it basically is the edge.

We reckon two weeks does it justice if you actually stop. Ten days at a squeeze. Any less and you're just ticking towns off, which defeats the purpose - something I've banged on about before in our piece on slow travel and why rushing the Big Lap is the biggest mistake you can make.

Whyalla and Cowell: the bit people rush

Whyalla gets written off as an industrial town and, fair enough, the steelworks dominates the skyline. But the foreshore camping and the giant cuttlefish aggregation (May to August, if the timing works out) are worth a night on their own. We didn't bother the first time through and regretted it.

Cowell is where we always stop for lunch, and it's the sort of town where the servo bloke will tell you which oyster farm does tastings that week. Port Gibbon just north of town is a decent free camp on the water if you're not fussed about facilities - check current conditions and any council signage before you settle in, as these things shift season to season.

Coffin Bay and Port Lincoln: worth two nights, not one

Here's my mildly contrarian bit. Everyone raves about Port Lincoln, and it's a fine town with a proper working fishing fleet and the big tuna statue Denise insists on photographing every single time. But I reckon Coffin Bay, twenty minutes up the road, is the better base. Quieter, cheaper, and you're right on the water where the oysters actually come from. Port Lincoln's good for a big shop and a look around, but we always sleep at Coffin Bay.

Coffin Bay National Park itself is worth a full day with the 4WD unhitched - sandy tracks out to Point Avoid and Golden Island Lookout, and if you've got the gear and the tyre pressures sorted (drop them right down, this isn't a place to be tentative about it - see our notes on tyre pressures for corrugations, sand and gravel if you haven't already), you can spend a whole day exploring without seeing more than a handful of other rigs.

The west coast run: Elliston to Streaky Bay

This is the stretch that changes people's minds about the Eyre Peninsula. The Great Ocean Drive loop out of Elliston is a short, sharp scenic drive along dramatic cliffs, and it's towable in a smaller rig if you go slow, though I wouldn't drag a big off-road van around it just for the view - unhitch if you can.

Venus Bay has a caravan park right on the water that books out over summer, and Talia Caves further along is one of those spots you'd walk straight past if a local hadn't told you to stop. We only found it because a bloke at the Elliston bakery drew us a map on a napkin. That's the Eyre Peninsula in a nutshell - half the best stuff isn't signposted properly, you find it by talking to people.

Streaky Bay is the town we always give an extra night to. The foreshore park is well set up, the jetty's good for a fish, and the bakery does a pie that Denise still mentions unprompted. From here it's not far to Ceduna, which is really the gateway - keep heading west and you're committing to the Nullarbor proper, which is a different trip altogether and not one to underestimate on fuel or water.

The inland return: Wudinna, Kimba and the long paddocks

Coming back, most people just belt up the Eyre Highway from Ceduna to Port Augusta in a day, and if you're time-poor that's fine, it's sealed and easy towing. But if you've got a spare day, dropping down through Wudinna to see Mount Wudinna (the second largest granite monolith in the country, they'll tell you, right after Uluru) and then across to Kimba for the big galah statue is a nice way to close the loop without just repeating the coast road.

Fuel-wise, the distances between towns on the west coast stretch out to 80-100 kilometres in places, so top up whenever you're under half a tank rather than waiting for the light. Same principle as anywhere remote - we go into the actual maths in our fuel budgeting article if you want the numbers rather than the rule of thumb.

What sort of rig do you need

Here's the honest answer: the sealed loop from Port Augusta to Ceduna and back via the highway is fine for any caravan, including a big single-axle off-roader with no special preparation. It's the side trips - Coffin Bay National Park tracks, some of the Elliston backroads, a few of the free camps north of Cowell - where you want decent clearance and, ideally, something you can unhitch. A soft-roader hybrid handles most of it; a full off-road van is overkill for the loop itself but handy if you're tackling the national park tracks with the van still attached, which I generally wouldn't recommend anyway.

If you're weighing up what sort of setup makes sense for a trip like this versus something more remote, it's worth reading our comparison of hybrid caravans and full vans for long trips before you commit to buying anything specifically for this kind of touring.

Where to base yourself

We've stayed at Streaky Bay Foreshore Tourist Park more times than I can count on one hand, and it remains our pick of the whole loop for value and location. For those wanting a Flinders Ranges add-on before or after the Eyre leg, it connects up reasonably well with our Flinders Ranges loop if you've got three or four weeks up your sleeve rather than two.

Last thing - book ahead for Streaky Bay and Coffin Bay over the school holidays. We got caught out one October and ended up in an overflow paddock with no power for two nights, which taught Denise a valuable lesson about ringing ahead that I still bring up occasionally, much to her irritation.

Anyway. Might be time we did the loop a fourth time.

— Trev Sanders, Grey Nomad Correspondent