Why visit Whyalla?

Why indeed?

Whyalla was one of those stops that we didn’t bother researching too much. It was really that it was in a geographically convenient location, and in a spot where we could get accommodation during school holidays. We ended up in a caravan park in a powered site, which we do every now and again when we just need a bit of a break from ALL the camping tasks. It was also quite close to everything for the usual repairs (new solar panel, new trailer light connection thingee and various bits and pieces).

We also took the opportunity to give the dog a bath (he really hates that), vacuum out the car and scrub some mould off the tent – life on the road is pretty glamorous!

As usual the weather was forecast to be rainy, windy and cold, despite being a town that receives very little annual rainfall. In fact, it was flogging down as we drove in. I was pretty quick to get down to Kmart to drop $17 on a heater too (our last one broke a while back) – it’s amazing how much more pleasant it is to sleep in a nice warm tent.

Whyalla is an interesting town. The landscape is completely dominated by the enormous steelworks, right next to crystal clear waters and a beautiful bay. It’s quite interesting seeing a huge amount of man-made industry with the mines and steel plant, right next to a beautiful natural setting.

I’d read that if you wander down to the marina and jetty you can just see the dolphins hanging out, and sure enough there they were doing their thing in the mouth of the marina area. We watched them for a while, and walked around the waterfront, went up to the lookout and generally had a look around the town.

We’ve been keen to try squid fishing, and the amount of ink on the local jetty suggested this might be a likely spot. Jim went down one night when it wasn’t raining and had a go. He could see them all in the water, and lots of blue swimmer crabs too, but sadly no joy. We all went down another night for a go, but the water was a lot murkier and again we came away empty-handed.

On another day we went out to Point Lowly, just a bit to the north of Whyalla. This area is famous for being the breeding grounds of the Giant Australian Cuttlefish. Each year 250,000 of them come into the area to breed. Sadly, we were a few weeks early to see them, but we read all about them in the information provided on the shoreline. After that we drove out to Iron Knob, a mining town that looked a little sad (clearly past its heyday). We stopped there for lunch and a quick spin on the playground, which were the main attractions in town.

Being school holidays, I took the kids to the movies too. We saw Mario which was quite a good movie actually, and it was in a cinema in the Arts Complex which looked like it hosted some pretty big events and concerts.

The main attraction in Whyalla is the steelworks, and believe it or not, you can pay good money to go on a tour of them. Of course, dogs aren’t allowed, so Heidi and I went first on the Friday. At 1.5 hours it’s pushing even my attention span on the topic of steel and steel production, but it was interesting nonetheless and impressive to see the sheer size and scale of the whole thing. Our guide/driver Rod was extremely knowledgeable and nattered on for the whole time barely drawing breath.

Jim and Hamish did the same tour on the Monday. Jim probably found it the most interesting out of all of us given his work background, and it was a good “school excursion” for both the kids.

As usual I had a fair bit of work on so most of our remaining time in Whyalla was spent getting that done, fixing all the things that were broken and preparing for the next bit – further down the Eyre Peninsula towards Port Lincoln.