Whyalla was one of those stops where we had a few things we wanted to see, but we ended up fitting quite a bit into our time there.
Sitting on the Spencer Gulf, Whyalla has a pretty interesting mix of coastline and heavy industry. You can be standing on the foreshore watching dolphins one minute and looking across at the steelworks the next.
For us, it was another chance to slow down for a few days, let the kids explore and check out some of the history along the way.
Whyalla Maritime Museum
One of our main stops was the Whyalla Maritime Museum, and you certainly can't miss it when you're driving past.
There's an entire warship sitting out the front.
The former HMAS Whyalla was the first ship built at the Whyalla Shipyards, launched in 1941 during World War II. Today it sits around 2km from the sea and about two metres off the ground.
We joined one of the guided tours and climbed aboard to have a look through the ship.
Being able to actually walk around inside rather than just looking at it from behind a fence made it much more interesting for the kids.
You get to see different areas of the ship while learning about what life was like for the crew and the role ships like HMAS Whyalla played during the war.
The shipyards themselves were a huge part of Whyalla's history. They operated until 1978 and built 66 vessels, ranging from warships and tankers to ferries, container ships and barges.
Inside the Maritime Museum
After the ship tour we spent some time going through the museum itself.
There's plenty more in there than just information about HMAS Whyalla.
The displays cover Whyalla's shipbuilding and industrial history, World War II, the marine environment of the Spencer Gulf and some of the Aboriginal history and connection to the sea.
There's also a huge HO-scale model railway with more than 400 metres of track, showing railway routes between Whyalla, Iron Knob, Port Augusta and Adelaide.
Anything with trains usually keeps the kids occupied for a while, so that went down pretty well too.
If you're travelling through Whyalla with kids, we'd definitely put the Maritime Museum on the list.
Whyalla Jetty
We also headed down to the foreshore and walked out along the Whyalla Jetty.
The circular design makes it a little different to your standard straight jetty and gives you plenty of room to walk around and look back towards the coastline.
But there was something else we were hoping to see.
Whyalla has resident dolphins that are regularly spotted around the marina and jetty area.
And we got lucky.
We spotted a dolphin while we were there, which obviously became the main attraction pretty quickly.
It doesn't matter how many times the kids have seen dolphins — apparently seeing another one is always worth getting excited about.
We spent a bit of time around the jetty and foreshore before continuing our look around town.
Hummock Hill Lookout
For a completely different view of Whyalla, we headed up to Hummock Hill Lookout.
Hummock Hill overlooks the eastern side of the city and gives you a 360-degree view across Whyalla, the Spencer Gulf and the massive industrial area surrounding the steelworks.
It's probably one of the best places to understand just how different Whyalla is from a lot of the other coastal towns we'd been through.
Look one way and you've got the water and foreshore.
Turn around and you've got the steelworks and industrial side of the city.
Hummock Hill also has its own history. The area was used as a defensive observation post during World War II, and some of the old gun emplacements remain around the lookout.
It's an easy stop and definitely worth heading up while you're in town.
Lunch at Whyalla Waves
Somewhere between museums, ships, dolphins and lookouts, food had to happen.
We stopped in at Whyalla Waves Café for lunch before continuing with the day.
When we're travelling, we generally mix eating out with cooking at the van, and stopping somewhere local for lunch gives us a chance to sit down for a bit before heading off to whatever is next.
Then it was back out exploring.
More Than an Industrial Town
Before visiting, Whyalla was probably one of those places we associated mostly with steelworks and industry.
There's obviously a massive industrial history here, but once you start looking around there's plenty more going on.
You've got the coastline and foreshore, resident dolphins, maritime history, lookouts and plenty of places to explore further out of town.
Whyalla is also known for something we unfortunately weren't there at the right time to experience — the annual aggregation of Giant Australian Cuttlefish.
During winter, huge numbers gather in the waters of the Upper Spencer Gulf near Whyalla to breed. It's regarded as the largest known aggregation of Giant Australian Cuttlefish anywhere in the world and attracts snorkellers and divers to the area each year.
That's something we'll have to keep in mind for another trip.
Would We Stop in Whyalla Again?
Definitely.
Whyalla worked well as a family stop because we could easily fill our days without having to drive huge distances between everything.
The Maritime Museum and HMAS Whyalla tour were probably the standouts for us, especially with the kids being able to climb aboard and explore an actual World War II ship.
Add in the jetty, a dolphin appearance, Hummock Hill Lookout and some time around the foreshore and we ended up seeing quite a bit during our stay.
It was another one of those places on our lap where stopping for a few days gave us the chance to see much more than we would have if we'd simply driven through.
— All 4 Good Wins
