Eyre Peninsula

Half way along the south coast of Australia the Eyre Peninsula projects like a broad triangular spur into the Southern Ocean, separating the Great Australian Bight to the west from Spencer Gulf to the east. At the corners of the triangle are Ceduna in the west, Port Lincoln in the south and Whyalla and Port Augusta in the east. The northern boundary of the peninsula is formed by the Gawler Ranges in the arid north. The east coast, on Spencer Gulf, has safe and sheltered beaches and good fishing waters. The peninsula is named after the explorer John Edward Eyre, who in 1840-1, starting from Adelaide, surveyed the coastal regions on the Great Australian Bight. After traveling north as far as the huge salt lake which bears his name he turned west and south to cross the Nullarbor Plain close to the coast and reach Albany in Western Australia. In the interior of the Eyre Peninsula the Koppio hills in the south give way further north to great flat expanses of farming land, and in the thinly inhabited far north the horizon is bounded by the Gawler Ranges. To the west is the desolate, treeless Nullarbor Plain, ending on the coast in cliffs of dangerously friable sandstone. Between June and October whales can be seen passing along the coast close to the land.