East Eyre Peninsula

Riding down the east side of the Eyre peninsula (Whyalla - Port Lincoln) was made painfully laborious facing heavy head winds. The road had no concept of the word 'flat', so like a very slow roller-coaster I crept up one side and coasted slowly into the wind down the other. This was made harder for me as I made the decision earlier to follow the coast rather then follow the wind across the top (Eyre highway) which would have saved me 426km's. But this decision later proved to be a good one.
It took four relatively uneventful days to reach Port Lincoln from Port Augusta, and the landscape was often nature reserves. Even though it was usually just mallee scrub, it was beautiful. It was easy to disappear into the trees to camp each night, and the emu's would occasionally visit me inquisitively investigating my tent.
I was lucky enough to experience a short oyster farm tour free of charge due to a random encounter with the owner in the main street of Cowell. It was very interesting.
My next stop was Port Neil, this is where I was going to buy some lunch, but the one shop that sold food was closed! "Sorry for the inconvenience". Well it was a little inconvenient because I only had a tin of tuna and was very hungry. Fortunately I bumped into a middle-age couple with a camper-van that fussed over my nutrition and insisted I eat their sandwiches, fruit and a glass of milk. I was very thankful.
I reached Arno Bay on Friday night which was a great little fishing town, famous for its mega snapper. It was late afternoon when I arrived and I followed the signs to a mangrove board-walk I had heard about earlier. The Grey Mangrove system grew over the tidal rivers and looked utterly spectacular in the fading light. Both sand crabs and Blue-swimmer crabs scurried around quickly avoiding the hungry flocks of hunting sea-birds. But try as I may, no photo could capture the unique nature of the mangrove.
Without considering my camping options for the night it was straight to the pub. After a slow start people began to trickle in and soon I was chatting to the fishermen and feeling very jolly. I was feeling quite sun-burned on my face, but looking around the room calmed my worry. In the dark pub faces shone out, bright red cheeks with purple noses.
I met a group of tourist fishermen who had me in tears with laughter as they teased the local drunks. One such drunk staggered in throwing nasty comments in my direction informing me that cyclists are all scum and he wanted to hit me with his truck. Luckily I had won the hearts of the patrons, and they hushed his taunts with comments like; "shut up Chubbs! Tommy here is alright!", or "sobre up ya drunk!".
As I rode wonkily down the street to look for somewhere to camp that night, I decided that I would return to Arno Bay again one day, but next time on a fishing trip.