On the half-shell, straight up

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This was published 14 years ago

On the half-shell, straight up

All in good taste ... visitors sample South Australian local fare.

All in good taste ... visitors sample South Australian local fare.

Salt water trickles down my arm as the oyster tips into my mouth. It's come straight from the sea, been shucked on the boat and, after a saltwater rinse and a few deft flicks of the knife, is headed straight into the Davy Jones's Locker of my stomach.

South Australia's Coffin Bay oysters are some of the best in the world and when you eat them like this, they are divine.

The skipper and owner of Coffin Bay Explorer oyster tours, Darian Gale, agrees. In fact, he eats them no other way.

Only two years ago, Gale didn't even like oysters but the locals taught him how. They lined up two dozen in a row and by the 23rd, he reckons he had acquired the taste.

When they cost only $6 a dozen in the bay, it's an experiment everyone can afford. Even the milk bar sells oysters, alongside traditional hamburgers and Buffalo Bills.

A trip with Gale isn't only about getting your mitts on a freshly shucked oyster but a lesson on the history and industry of the town, home to 500 people.

In the 1890s, Oyster Town was down the road: it was like a mining town that boomed but the gold was native mud oysters.

Each week a horse and cart would collect the oysters and take them to reside in a swamp in Port Lincoln. Once a month a boat would ship them to Mosley Square in Glenelg, where locals unwittingly played oyster roulette (ever had an unrefrigerated oyster?).

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All that is left now of Oyster Town is some crockery buried in sand. In the 1890s the waters were fished out; oyster gangsters turned to the deeper waters of Coffin Bay to become fishermen and, in the 1950s, the oyster farming began.

There are a few myths about Coffin Bay oysters. For a start, they don't all live in the bay. Five-millimetre sprats from Tasmania are taken to Coffin Bay, the nursery for oysters, before they are transplanted at Point Longnose, the tight neck where the bay meets the sea, which is a 20-minute boat ride away.

Also, not all Coffin Bay oysters are grown here. Neighbouring Smoky and Streaky bays send their oysters to Point Longnose. But within three to five weeks, these oysters have been Coffin-ised, filtered by the bay's pure waters. A combination of no local industry, national park surrounds, a small population, daily cleansing tides and Antarctic waters works its magic to result in that sweet Coffin taste.

But back to the nursery of the bay. Gale points out the local identities, old boats that sit like aged pensioners in a nursing home, bobbing to each other in what looks like a greeting. And, of course, the baby oysters, growing in bags on fixed horizontal rails attached to posts driven into the sand.

We don't see the oyster workers this morning but if you ever lament your day job, consider that of a water-logged oyster picker.

A smaller oyster won't thrive next to a larger oyster, so in chest-deep water, for six to eight hours a day in winter water temperatures of 12-13 degrees, workers clip off the bags, take them to be graded and then reattach the bags of graded oysters.

Heading out to Point Longnose you'll pass two small islands known as The Brothers, where skuas from Antarctica breed every summer and the arid Goat, Pig and Rabbit islands where explorer Matthew Flinders left animals as a food supply. Shame they needed fresh water.

There are so many stories and such an array of wildlife that you almost forget about the oysters, until you come close to the 900 hectares of posts and rails supporting 1.5 billion of them.

Gale noses the boat between rows of oysters. Some of these oyster bags, instead of being fixed on rails, hang on ropes that can rise and fall with the tide.

It's a smarter system but the ropes can break. Enter once again the oyster worker, repairing broken ropes before the oysters suffocate on the sandy floor.

Hanging at the end of a row is a bag that is our bounty for the day. By the time you arrive at this watery treasure trove, you've received a fascinating new insight into oysters that makes them taste even better.

In town, you can have oysters in wasabi and soya, watermelon and red onion salsa, garlic and yoghurt or deep fried. But out here with the rock of the boat and the sting of the sun, the only way to eat them is au naturel, perhaps with a squeeze of lemon.

It's the moment of truth. Oysters spill from the bag across the deck and with a rubber mitt I grab one, shuck it and, 30 seconds after it was pulled from the brine, it's sliding down the back of my throat.

It's so fresh it's startling. A crumb of sand catches in my teeth and a shard of shell hides beneath my tongue. In the interest of research I have another, and another. Then another for good measure. No oyster roulette here, they're all good. I don't know if it's possible to eat too many fresh oysters but if you ate an oyster every 30 seconds from Coffin Bay, it would take you about 1426 years and 11 months to eat them all. It's a challenge but just a few hours is enough to understand why you'd almost give it a go.


TRIP NOTES


Virgin Blue flies direct to Adelaide from Sydney five times a day, from $119. Regional Express (Rex) flies to Port Lincoln up to nine times a day, from $107. See virginblue.com.au and rex.com.au. Coffin Bay is a 45-minute drive from Port Lincoln.


A double room at the Coffin Bay Hotel Motel on Sheppard Avenue costs from $95 a night, phone (08) 8685 4111.


The Coffin Bay Explorer runs the three-hour Oyster Lease tour, which leaves from the Coffin Bay boat ramp at 9.30am. The cost is $75 and bookings are essential. See coffinbayexplorer.com. Two-hour twilight cruises are also available and run from 6.30pm on demand.


For a seasonal produce bonanza, head to the Oysterbeds Good Food House in Coffin Bay for its trophy dish, the deluxe seafood platter for two, $87.50. Phone (08) 8685 4000 or email theoysterbeds@bigpond.com.


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