Beachport 2010

It’s been a long while since our last Jan and Ira posting. We have been off having separate adventures for a while, with Ira in the Northern Territory and Jan in England, but now we’re back together in Australia and we kicked off the year at Beachport, in South Australia.

Legend has it that under a deep limestone shelter at Beachport lives the biggest rock lobster (aka robster) ever. The peerless robster hunter Jim once caught the brother of this giant monster, but catching such a beast is fraught with danger. Jim ended up with deep lines of deep stab wounds along his chest from its razor sharp legs. Every time I’ve been to Beachport so far I’ve heard these great stories told, but never have I actually seen a robster caught, nor tasted the flesh of one. This year, the drought was broken, with us munching on four lobsters in total, three of which we pulled from the rich Beachport waters ourselves. As for me, I got my first taste of robster catching glory and am still basking in its glow.

Ira with his prize

Jan pours the champagne

The other delicious and plentiful food that can be pulled from the Beachport waters are abalone. Ira tried making tempura battered abalone, and it was good, but the truth is that they are best cooked simply on a barbeque. A nice quick cooking and these molluscs turn out to be quite delicious. The gutting process is a bit time consuming, but worth the effort.

Cooking tempura abalone

Jim extracting the abalone from it’s shell. Nothing gets left behind!

The other great thing about being at Beachport was that the whole Strugnell clan were all there! As well as camping with Jan’s Mum and Dad, it was lovely to catch up with Paul and Shaye and see their new caravan (and beat Paul convincingly at cricket!) and also to spend some time with Tracey and Phil. We also got to catch up with our lovely little nieces and play quite a few games of ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’. Jessie turns out to quite a hunter AND gatherer – managing to catch her first fish and demanding to be taught as much as possible about the bush tucker on offer (pigface and bush currants – Yum!).

Of course, we also made sure to check out the famous Island while we were there and look for the roo … but he/she seems to have moved on. We did see a sooty oystercatcher though and found out where the fairy penguins live in their little cliffside burrows. We pretty much had nice adventures every day so there are too many to write about here. One day though we went for a big coastal walk and beachcombed up a whole bunch of stuff including this old glass buoy.

Jan with our beachcombed treasure

Who knows how long this buoy was out there in the ocean. It certainly must have been pretty old since I don’t think they make these anymore … but it was also in pretty good nick … so who knows what it’s story is.