The foreshore of Port Lincoln is lovely: a long beach fringed with Norfolk pines, a wide grassy recreation area dotted with BBQ areas and picnic tables, and at the centre two large statues – a tuna fisherman and a horse. We’re at the south eastern end of the Eyre peninsula in a town of 16,000, but it boasts the highest number of millionaires per capita in the country. What is responsible? The tuna or the horse?

If you picked the door with the tuna on it you’d be right. Large fortunes are made in the tuna fishing industry, as the sashimi grade Southern Bluefin tuna is sold directly to the lucrative markets in Japan. More about the horse later. Port Lincoln isn’t a town to hide its light under the proverbial bushel – in this case the bushel is overflowing with seafood.  The town has the largest commercial fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere, including 39 prawn trawlers fishing the Spencer Gulf and 77 lobster (crayfish) vessels plying the coast.

Known as the Seafood capital of Australia, Port Lincoln is famous not only for tuna but also prawns (best ever), Kingfish and King George Whiting. The industry also farms mussels and abalone. I see an ad for a seahorse farm and I’m fascinated – is this a new delicacy? or perhaps they’re racing them?

After all, Australia has a propensity for erecting statues of famous racehorses as we found in Goondiwindi; we can’t miss the statue of Makybe Diva, three times Melbourne Cup winner and highest stakes earner in Australian history – over $14 million in her racing career, and owned, incidentally, by a tuna fisherman. Clearly not one of my syndicated horses. 

But wait, there’s more about seafood – the famous Coffin Bay oyster beds are 45 mins away so we book the Oyster Farm Tour. Which turns out to be less of a tour and more of a wade through the shallows wearing extremely unflattering chest waders, sitting half submerged at a long table, hearing about the farming of oysters, then learning how to shuck them. Oh, and then eat them. I try, really I do, but they are still just a snotty gobfull, even when washed down with decent bubbles.

But the south of the Eyre peninsula has other attractions. We hear about Memory Bay, a remote beach at the end of the road through Lincoln National Park. To preserve the wilderness only 15 vehicles a day are allowed in, and we need to get a key to the locked gate which takes us onto the road to the cove. At the Information Centre we pay $10 park fee (laughably reasonable – hello New Zealand?) and hand over $50 deposit for the gate key. The Woman taking our money relays the following information from the Ranger:

the road is is a poor state and only 4wd
reduce tyre pressures to 18
keep to the track
if you get stuck we aren’t there to pull you out

So, I ask, if we get stuck what do we do? Well, there’s Rupert and he charges $400. Showing deep confidence in our 4WD skills, and out of Scott’s earshot, I ask for Rupert’s number. Which, of course, we do not need. The road is very rough, but more rocks and potholes than drifts of sand, so we don’t get to use the fancy crawl mechanism the Landcruiser has – it drives itself out of trouble if youtube is to be believed. Indeed, I check all my fillings are still intact when we arrive.

Dental concerns aside, the trip is gorgeous and runs through several different landscapes over the 20km – which takes us nearly an hour and half in case you were wondering. There are lots of emu running amok, kangaroos bounding around and stunning coastal views.