Thursday 12th February 2015 – Black Springs Camp – Coffin Bay NP SA

We packed up very early from Tractor Beach to travel down to Coffin Bay National Park.  The temperature has been in the mid 30s.  Fine clear blue skies with some clouds.  Sunrise starts around 7 am which is also a bit strange for us.  This should have been a fairly easy day, but it turned into Chris and Glen's Big Adventure Day.



There were a few little historical settlements that we passed through which were established in the mid 1800’s, towns which are now just localities with stone churches and other ruins.  This is still sheep farming country.  Although it appeared most were rock farmers with the limestone rocks sitting on the surface everywhere.














Murphy’s Stacks:  The is an unusual geological formation of granite which has been weather shaped.  The stem of the rocks were originally below the original plain height.  The shape has been formed as the plain level has lowered and the periods of stability between the levels changing.


This granite is called Hiltaba Granite – it was named after a homestead in the Gawler Ranges.  The rocks are in private property with public access.  There is a picnic table / toilets and shade shelter at the site, so we had our morning cuppa there as well.



















We then took the turn off to Talia & Woolshed Caves.  We decided to look at Talia Cave first and drove to the end of the road and couldn’t find a sign for it.  We ended at the entrance to the conservation park.


















Above is Memorial Beach, even in 1928 people were swimming at this beach and drowning.  It was a calm day and we could see a large rip running close to shoreline.  Not the place to swim at anytime I should think.
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I liked the list of things that could happen to you on the sign boards – falling down, falling off, sharks and being swept away by waves.  Now that’s a fun day at the beach.













The Tub is basically a collapsed cave.  The ocean has tunnelled through and you could see the waves coming in.  From where you could see the waves entering the cave from above, it appeared to just be twenty or so feet, so imagine my surprise when I went to look for the ocean side entrance to find that it was an extremely long way from where I thought – more like 100 feet.











The tunnel looks small with the ocean just the other side, but when you see the force of the water in the video, you can see that it is travelling a long way to be just a lap at the above photo.

We found our answer to Talia Cave, there was an old sign on the back of this one, so maybe they renamed it, anyway there were no other signs apart from the one at the highway turnoff.








I can’t image the size of the waves that have or are washing up into this cave.  We were there on low tide and it was very calm and the tide was just beginning to turn back.



This is looking back at the cave entrance and then towards the ocean.  It was like a very long canal.















There were several rock pools which were over a metre deep in the large rock.  Must have been ground out by water action with a separate rock which has now disappeared.


A complete pond of life. 
Seaweed, anemones, but no fish –




























This one had it’s own waterfall.  I did wonder why the bowl was not full of water, so it must have a hole at the bottom otherwise the water level would have been up to the rim.



Looking back up to the steps and cave entrance.  That water has to travel a long way to the back of the cave.



So when you farm rocks, what do you do with them – make dry stone walls. 



We have arrived at the entrance of Coffin Bay National Park.  It is around 3pm and it the registration station is quite a way in.

We registered for camping and had no sooner left the registration station when we came across the Emu.  On the brochure, they say you might see Emu in the park.  We were pretty happy to see them so soon.  They are so different from other Emu we have seen on the trip.  A lot more black on the head and neck and they are smaller.  That is an adult male and four chicks.






We have decided to camp at Black Springs which is 28 kms away.  I will let you know at the end, how long it takes to drive 28 kms.

  After we had left the bitumen, we came across a couple of young blokes who had bogged their car in the soft sand and had just got it out.  So SA sand is the same as WA sand, very very soft and we were trying to drive it as the end of a hot day when it is at the softest – no moisture in it at all.  We got through the patch where they came to grief, but then further along the track, we came to a halt.

















These photos are of the first bog.  Yes, there were a few more to go, but no photos, as when you have to get yourself out of a pickle, taking photos is the last thing on your mind.  The only difference between what happened is that the sand just got further up the wheels. 






We pulled out the max trax and started to move metre by metre, when another couple were coming the other way, stopped and gave us a hand.  Dave, pulled us free with our snatch strap.  We even found another max trax buried in the sand.

Yes lots and lots of people get bogged daily on this track.  Our problem was caused because we are so heavy and we had a full load of water on for the camp at Black Springs – far too heavy for the very soft sand.  The young blokes from earlier had gone back and taken gear out of their car and caught up with us, but decided that it was too scary for them and went back with Dave and Ann as support to the bitumen.

We had got through the worst of it with only a couple of more soft sections to go and yes, we bogged at both of these.  It didn’t seem to take too long to get out of the second section.  The last patch was where the fun began.

The last section, we started to move using the max trax.  This is how it goes, dig out the sand from the wheels, lay the max trax – put the shovel where you installed the max trax – saves a lot of time trying to figure out where they might be buried under two feet of sand.  Go forward, bog, start again :) We ended up with sand to the running rails all round, the max trax under the front wheels and unable to move at all.  We couldn’t dig the max trax out.  We dug the sand out from under the car as much as we could.  Now time to get serious.  We disconnected the trailer from the car, it was obvious that we were not going to be able to get the car free with the trailer attached.  We winched the car out using a bush – yes a bush – we were amazed that it held.  Now we have a island trailer in a sea of sand. 


Clever Glen, making up a ski base using the small shovel through the tow hitch.  We put down the jockey wheel.  So that we were towing the trailer with the jockey wheel and preventing the tow hitch from digging in by using the shovel base to glide across the sand.







The plan is to snatch the trailer.  This is how it went.

I couldn't video anymore, because basically I need to make sure we weren't ripping off the front of the trailer as we snatched it.   You never have photos of the most difficult moments, because you are too busy trying to sort everything out.

We wrapped our heavy duty safety chain around the trailer front and connected a u-bolt to the snatch strap. We only just had enough strength with this combination, as when I undid the chains, one link was completely stretched apart and two fell off - so we just got away with the links holding while we towed.

Amazingly, the trailer towed on the jockey wheel up along the track, up quite a rise on to firm ground, and we were able to reconnect the trailer to the car and head to camp.

We got to camp around 8pm, some five hours from the entrance. 

That was five hours of sand digging - now that's a lot of sand.

Just as well that the sun doesn't set to late because it made sorting this out a lot easier and we managed to finish setting up the camp on last light.


We put up the camper AND the annex as it is forecast for some very hot weather tomorrow around 38c and then 42c on Saturday.  We had a hot shower and went to bed tired little campers.  Glen’s words to me ‘ “you did well today, you just stuck at it”.   Yes, we both did – if you want to be adventurous you also have to be prepared for days like this.

 Thank goodness that they don’t come around too often, saying this, we do have to go back the same way :) – but one things for sure, we won’t have a full supply of water on board and we know where the bear traps are.

I have marked our camp on the map.  It is the purple square.  The best part is that we have full mobile reception and internet.  You never know when you have to call RACQ....... :)