Day 5 – 18th January 2018 – Memory Cove, Lincoln National Park

Temperatures hit 43 today!! So we decided to drive to the Lincoln National Park just outside of Port Lincoln and go to Memory Cove for a swim. It takes about a 2 hour drive from Coffin Bay. You have to go to the Port Lincoln Visitor Centre first to pick up the key to the gate and get a permit first.  It is $11 per vehicle, and they take a $50 deposit for the key but this can be on credit card.  They only allow 10 cars through into the Memory Cove section, so you may want to pre-book to avoid disappointment. The park is only about 10 minutes (13km) out of Port Lincoln but the drive in to Memory Cove took us about an hour. Most of it on a 4WD track but the tracks were pretty good and not particularly challenging.  While we did see some cars that weren’t 4WD, the track was pretty rough in parts and a 4WD would be the best option. 

The beach itself was amazing! Crystal clear water and white powder sand in a little bay. Just breath taking. We finally found an awesome beach, yay! You can camp down there too and the camp spots looked great. There were drop toilets there too. Gas fires only though.

Both Col and I felt that this idea is a good way to manage the extreme heat because we were able to sit in the air-conditioned car for the beautiful drive, then cool off in the water.  We might continue to use this as an approach to enjoying the really hot days.  We were mindful of taking plenty of water though, as it would have been potentially traumatic if we got bogged or stuck if the 4WD track was more challenging.

There is also a beautiful National Park in Coffin Bay that is worth visiting too.  We did this on our last trip, so chose the Lincoln National Park instead this time.

Link to the Lincoln National Park for more info,

Lincoln National Park

In the evening we decided to head to the pub for dinner to escape the heat.  The food was great and good value for money too. We then headed home to watch our outdoor cinema as it was still cooler outside than inside the van at 10pm. We got the fans going  in the van and slept fairly comfortably.