Paul Starick: Why Tumby Bay is my favourite SA holiday spot

Ask Advertiser journalist Paul Starick about his favourite SA holiday, and there’s just one beach he’ll think of. Here’s why he loves Tumby Bay.

If there’s a better beach than Tumby Bay for family holidays anywhere in the world, then I’m yet to see it.

Admittedly, I’m quite biased. My childhood summers were spent staying with my late grandparents, Frank and Margaret Richardson. My brother and I would spend a fortnight in early January, strolling from their house to the beach every day for learn-to-swim classes near the “little jetty” – then one of two in the eastern lower Eyre Peninsula town.

Nowadays, my own family has become regular visitors to Tumby. Initially, we were lured there by family events: My grandfather’s funeral in 2010, my cousin’s wedding and a reunion or two.

Even before Covid turned the focus on South Australia’s regions, though, we were spending some lazy summer weeks lolling on the Tumby beach during our own holidays.

The attraction is obvious. We stay in the two-storey Tumby Bay Hotel seafront apartments, literally across the road from the beach. The pub is just over the backyard. The magnificent cafe where we used to get soft serves after swimming lessons, the delightfully named Ritz, is just metres away from the apartment.

The Tumby Bay beach. Picture: Paul Starick

Small-town friendliness and charm is evident throughout Tumby. When the teenagers were much younger, we sent them to get some milk at the corner store about 100m away from the apartment. They took some encouragement to summon the courage to walk on their own but duly returned with a milk carton, eager to go back for more shopping. It was Easter and the proprietor had given them both a chocolate egg.

Everything we need is in walking distance. Two supermarkets, a top-notch bakery, two pubs, the Ritz and, until recently, an extraordinarily good French cafe that has relocated to Port Lincoln.

The Coral Geographer docked in Tumby Bay on Thursday morning. Picture: Emily Jarvis

But it’s the beach that is Tumby Bay’s reason to exist. Wheat and sheep farming developed after the area was settled in the 1840s and Tumby, as it was known until 1984, was an important grain and loading port. The original jetty, sadly dismantled in 1999, was built in 1874 – just the second on Eyre Peninsula. This had been built to ship ore from a nearby mine through Tumby. The newer jetty remains, though, and is popular with anglers, divers and swimmers. Stingrays, seamoths and the renowned leafy seadragons can be seen in the water near various parts of the jetty.

The Tumby Bay jetty. Picture: Paul Starick

I once caught a giant whiting there and regularly used to jump off a jetty platform into the deep water with my cousins.

Sadly, my more recent fishing expeditions have been less successful and I have abandoned the pursuit, in favour of the beach or either of the two pubs.

Jetty jumping has been replaced by leaping off the pontoon moored to the north of the jetty, or just floundering around in the water in front of the apartment. There also is a beautifully located bench on the dune between the two – perfect for sitting and reading.

Thankfully, my teenagers share my interest in cricket, even if their talents greatly exceed my own in the occasional beach contests.

Finally, though, my extended family is a huge attraction. My cousin runs the farm in the hills west of Tumby where my mother grew up – my great-grandfather started working the land more than a century ago. There’s other cousins, uncles and aunties who regularly join us for meals, drinks or just a gossip.

Times change. Dramatic events like pandemics shape our world. But Tumby Bay is a splendid oasis of seaside beauty that has been a constant throughout my life.