Lyndelle Jeffrey is looking for her duck. She lost it months ago on Australia Day during Arno Bay’s community duck race. “I’m still waiting for my duck to come back, he’s got lost along the way,” she tells me as we cross paths on the community-built boardwalk over the town’s tidal creek.
I’m still struggling to understand why more ducks didn’t get lost in the winding mangroves, mudflats and samphire. A wry smile crosses Lyndelle’s face as she reveals it was a rubber duck. The tidal creek rubber duck race is one of the annual events that brings an immense sense of community to this small town of just over 300 people on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
It’s that community spirit which helped build the multi-award-winning boardwalk where a visitor, on the biggest tides of the year, can wind their way over totally exposed vegetation only to return hours later on the high tide and find the dunes, shrubs and mangroves are entirely flooded by the swelling creek. This story has been a few months in the making. I first experienced the tidal creek on low tide as part of my journey around Australia with my dog Mallee and, at that stage, my brother and his family.
We were determined to visit Arno Bay and have the pub’s famous squid schnitzel after seeing it in a YouTube travel show — the squid schnitty turns out to be the dish of the Eyre Peninsula. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised it’s like eating a massive crumbed squid ring. The optional garlic pr.