Venus Bay is an tiny, pristine holiday town between Streaky Bay and Port Lincoln. It boast a caravan park (waterfront), a General Store and a Bottle shop. The handful of shacks is far outnumbered by the number of tinies in town. It's bay and beaches are nestled in amongst dunes perfectly sheltering the waters from weather and King George Whiting is the abundant catch in the bay.
We drove into town just to take a look. The beach has a full population of resident pelicans. They patiently await the local holiday fishing fleet to return to the beach with the day's lucky catch. The public jetty fish cleaning station is the arena. The fish are filleted then the scraps are tossed into the air and a feathered frenzied of honking, flapping, , diving pelicans snap and scissor their beaks in competition for the scrap. Armed with a hook at the end of the beak they can be intimidating when too close and hungry. We were warned not to feed them by hand. The park owner warned us to watch Noodle as last year a chihuahua was gulped up and the year before that someone lost a silky terrier.
With the help of a local, we wrangled a injured pelican on the beach, cut it free of hook and line and set it free. A boat was hired from the local shop and we caught and ate the local favorite fish as the sun sank into the waters. Perhaps this is the friendliest place we have ever been. We were given fish, someone offered to dog sit, not a person walked by without a nod or a good day.
This is where we wrangled the entangled pelican
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