Underwater wonderland

South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, west of Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent, became known as "Little Cornwall" in the 19th century, when Cornish miners brought their culture and skills and built villages with Cornish names like Wheal Basset, Wheal Grenfell, Wheal Rose, Truro, Carn Brea and Crinnis.

Some are now ghost towns, like the gypsum-mining settlement of Inneston, but others thrive and the region holds Kernewek Lowender, the largest Cornish festival in the world, every odd-numbered year.

Yorke Peninsula is famous for its shipwrecks (as is Cornwall, curiously) and scuba enthusiasts visiting Yorke find the 38 wrecks dotting the coastal seabed make excellent dive sites. Two underwater maritime heritage trails add to the appeal. The wreck of the sailing ship Zanoni (which foundered in 1867, 18.5 kilometres south-east of Ardrossan), is considered one of the most worthwhile in South Australian waters.

Sailors don't consider wrecks worthwhile, so a lighthouse was commissioned on Troubridge Island in 1856 after the tally of ships wrecked off Troubridge shoal, six kilometres from the coast at Edithburgh, grew too high. The island, with clean sandy beaches ideal for swimming and snorkelling, is a pleasant place to visit as well as a stopover for huge flocks of migratory birds and fairy penguins.

If you enjoy fishing, try here for species such as Australian salmon (no relative of the true salmon), as well as giant mulloway, garfish and tommies. Net delicious blue crabs or rock lobsters.