The last time we caught a plane was in January, as we returned from our eight day trip in NZ over Christmas & New Year. It seems so long ago now. As luck would have it we had no holidays planned for 2020.. except for weekend trips to MEL, CBR, and SYD. We had lots of discussion – “we could go to Japan for three weeks”… (although this seems the default plan). Unlike many people who had overseas holiday’s booked and now cancelled, we are counting ourselves as extremely lucky for not reserving a lump of leave for far off exciting destinations. For those of you who are in that position – I can only imagine how hard/difficult/challenging this year is fast becoming.

At work I keep reminding people of the importance of taking a holiday for their wellbeing – I finally I took my own advice and we have taken a week off.

Originally the plan was to cycle the Yorke Peninsula (walk the Yorke), in preparation for a 7-9 day bicycle ride with some friends from VIC and NSW. Due to a combination of limited planning, wet weather and the general malaise it changed by the end of last week to a couple of days. Given the weather we now think we will return to explore the Yorke further in October/November.

This morning, we packed the Brompton’s into the car along with some clothes and headed off to Tiddy-Widdy beach near Ardrossan. Before you start to complain… the name comes from the Aboriginal name of Titty Witty Titty – and here is the photo where you can read it yourself.

Apparently the area is also well known for death adders. Yes you read that correctly – snakes. Thankfully we didn’t see them – but the coastline along the trail is very picturesque.

The ride is fairly easy, and the yellow markers along the trail at key turning points are well signed. There are many well known marked rides around the world (England…) which are not well signed. The Walk the Yorke trail itself is a mix of dolomite (its mined around in the area) and gravel. Some areas are better compacted than others. Meaning the trail is good for mountain bikes, hybrids, or if you have knobby tyres. Bromptons are pretty good too 🙂

We continued on the trail through Ardrosson, past the silos, lock out point to the open mine and down to James Well. At the end of the road there are memorials to nine female sperm whales which beached themselves in the area in 2014.

The trail from here gets a little bumpy.. and with the very steep hills walking always comes in as a good second option. At the point below we decided to turn around and go back to Ardrossan so we could pick up a late lunch.

Whenever you see a jetty on holiday – you know we are going to have to walk on it. As a bonus this one had concrete and we could cycle

After getting back to the car we drove further along the coast to check-out the trail. There are some parts of the walk they they recommend cyclists to go on the road – this section looked okay to cycle on. The other option would be to walk on the beach where the trail is….

After this we stopped briefly in briefly in Port Vincent, and headed over to Wallaroo where we are staying for a couple of nights.