In the first instance there is a marina of sorts. The entrance is very tight and one must first navigate through some sticks. It would be overstating it to call them channel markers. They don't appear to be colored, illuminated or marked with any traditional navigational markers, save for the port marker visible in the photo. The channel is extremely narrow and the entrance is really too shallow to negotiate at low tide. The local advice is for extreme caution if intending to approach. A boat had run aground only recently. So what is the point of a 'marina' that is difficult if not dangerous to enter? When we motored past to anchor up near the town jetty for our foray into the Tumby Bay Bakery we got a good look down the Tumby Bay Marina 'channel'. There is a big, big house at the end with a large 'Riviera' (or similar) moored on the jetty in front of the house. Would it be cynical to suggest that the creation of the big house, big boat and canal is connected in some way? Rather than being a 'Marina' this is best viewed as a private canal development and not a tourism asset.
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| Position yourself to port and then make a run in through the poles |
In checking out some history for the area, why not have a look at the local council Web Site? Here is a snippet I found on the Local History page (http://www.tumbybay.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=219) complete with typo:-
"Settlers began moving into the area from the early 1840's. In Old English language the name means "fenced village". When the area was first settled in the 1840's one of the earliest settlers was named Harvey and the area was known as Harvey Bay. Wheat and sheep farming industries developed in the area and still provide the main focus today, together with a fast developing tourist trade. In the early years, Tumby Bay was an important grain and loading port servicing the cereal and heep farming industries. Today it is a service centre for the surrounding farmers and like the rest of the area, a popular destination for holiday makers."
Now I'm off to research 'heep farming'!
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| Is Tumby Bay the home of giants or am I shrinking? |
The above throne in the main street commemorates local blacksmiths, governance and prominent citizens 1908 -2008.
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| NOTHING quirky about a country town bakery |
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| This is what a Top 10 sausage roll looks like. The pastie was darn good too! |
On the foreshore in a very prominent location is a large plinth decorated with what looks like locally quarried stone. It's very similar to what we know as Toodjay stone. It's a lovely quartzy stone with a greenish stripe. This object is part of a memorial to the local pioneers. When we first looked we rather scratched our heads since it mostly obscured the view of the water from one of the min streets and seemed rather a waste and not something that you'd imagine pioneers favouring. A pioneer life was tough and frugal and this object was neither decorative nor useful; or so we thought.
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| In memory of the Tumby Bay Pioneers. |
We have been sending postcards from most towns we have visited along our journey and it's often a struggle to find something that is unique to the town. Dolphins, seals, whales and pelicans are hardly unique identifiers of a specific location in coastal locations around Australia. From the perspective of the photographer it's probably an opportunity to stamp any old town's name across the bottom and 'job done'. Having found something that provided a unique image, I was admiring my prize once we'd returned to the boat and to our Ski Beach anchorage and was delighted when the Bloke spotted what that crazy plinth was all about. It obviously once supported a clock tower.
I'm now on a mission to learn what happened to the clock - perhaps hijacked by the aesthetics police?
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