Top tips for a weekend drive to the Yorke Peninsula

Close to: Adelaide. 100km to Port Wakefield then 185km down to Port Marion.
Day or Weekend: At least the weekend because there’s distance to cover. Cabins are inexpensive at Pt Vincent Caravan Park & Seaside Cabins; couples and families adore Redwing Farmstay; while couples and small groups love the secluded private beach setting of Yondah Beach House.
Hidden Gem: The Coffee Barn Gelataria in Moonta serving some of South Australia’s best gelati.

Once you’ve arrived, it’s easy to assume half the population of the Yorke Peninsula are surfers, the other are grain farmers (and many are both), but ‘Yorkes’, as the locals call it, is also full of surprises.

But first, a bit of geography. You get there by travelling about 100km north out of Adelaide and turning left at Port Wakefield.

The Peninsula is a 200km stretch of land poking into the sea with St Vincents Gulf to the east and the Spencer Gulf to the west. So there are plenty of beaches on its 700km of coastline, and inland is a fertile sea of wheat and barley fields crisscrossed by a lacework of mainly gravel roads.

You’ll want to head for the southern end of the Peninsula, which is tipped by the Innes National Park with its sand dunes, cliffs and saline lakes. Pick a beach which you like: Shell Beach in the Park’s north, the sandy expanses of Cap Clairout below the lighthouse at Corny Point, or the family-friendly Willyama Beach near Marion Bay.

There are towns, of course, including places like Moonta, where copper was discovered back in the 1860s leading to both an increase in civic wealth, as evidenced by the town’s beautiful buildings, and an influx of Cornish miners to dig it out of the ground. Browse the shops, take the Moonta Mines Tourist Railway into the mine, and then try an authentic pasty from the Cornish Kitchen.

Hopping from one seaside town to the next, you’ll notice the long piers jutting out into the sea. The pier at Port Victoria seems almost bigger than the town itself and in its day was where sailing ships took Yorkes’ grain bonanza to the rest of the world (there’s a small museum which explains it all). In other towns, the jetties are great for fishing, snorkelling around the old timbers, or simply enjoying an evening stroll.

In fact, if you like a hike, there’s the Walk the Yorke trail, a 500km stretch of well signposted, shared walking and cycling trails which can be tackled in sections as little or long as you like. There are even underwater trails for divers, following some of the nautical history and shipwrecks off the coast.

Foodies will love the abundance of seafood, especially the oysters from Port Vincent which are sold in local outlets, or on the menus of pubs and restaurants. From Stansbury, be a Deckie for a Day with Pacific Estate Oysters and head out to the oyster beds on a working boat, then shuck the oysters straight off their beds.

Like chocolate? You’ll love the Minlaton Chocolaterie with its jewel-like confections created in-house and fillings sourced from the owners’ own orchard out the back. The Peninsula also has vineyards including Barley Stacks Wines where grapes have taken over a small section of the wheat-belt and winemaker Colin Sheppard (yep, from Masterchef 2014) puts together some great Shiraz and Cab Sauv.

For a stress-free driving holiday, life doesn’t come much better than the understated charms of the Yorke Peninsula.

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