Eyre Peninsula abounds in startling contrasts. The two huge hammerhead peninsulas, forming Lincoln and Coffin Bay national parks, jut to the east and west respectively. These geological wonders give the region an uncanny symmetry.

West Point Memory Cove wilderness area, Lincoln National Park.

Sunrise at Sensation Beach, Coffin Bay National Park.

An osprey at Coffin Bay.

A kangaroo leaps into sight at the Memory Cove Wilderness Protection Area, Lincoln National Park.

Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

Pacific gulls (Larus pacificus), Seven Mile Beach, Coffin Bay National Park.

The rocky headland at Almonta Beach, near Point Avoid, Coffin Bay National Park.

School of Dolphins surf a wave off Almonta Beach, Coffin Bay National Park.

Cape Catastrophe, Lincoln National Park.

Sea birds at Wreck Beach, Eyre Peninsula.

Headland near the entrance to Memory Cove, Lincoln National Park.

Gunyah Beach sand dunes, Coffin Bay National Park.

Sensation Beach, Coffin Bay National Park.

Coffin Bay NP is a great four-wheel-drive area.

Headland at Almonta Beach, near Point Avoid, Coffin Bay National Park.

The driver for this multi-barbed coastline is a geological double act. Eyre Peninsula is part of the Gawler Craton, one of the most stable hunks of our continental crust. It

An emu at Coffin Bay National Park.

Scalloped cliffs of pale, biscuit-coloured stone are the Eyre Peninsula’s gritty signature.

Along the foot of the coast, these crystalline-tough basement granites hold fast as robust headlands and broad, wave-cut terraces. This sturdy frontline takes the brunt of the ocean’s heaviest blows, and protects the much younger layers of limestone above.

Eyre Peninsula is home to some of Australia’s oldest rocks, dating back as far as 2.44 billion years – about 1.4 billion of which has seen barely a ripple of tectonic activity.

Eyre Peninsular sports harbours and discreet hideaway bays. But each turns to the open ocean with wildly exposed cliffs and beaches – plus a slew of menacing reefs, islands and unyielding capes, not to mention freakish currents and waves.

In 1802 Matthew Flinders named many locations on the Eyre Peninsula, from his home county in England: Boston Bay, Sleaford Mere, Port Lincoln, Cape Donington.

Jetty at Port Lincoln, South Australia