Tumby Bay is a coastal town situated on the Spencer Gulf, on the eastern coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, 45 kilometres (28 mi) north of Port Lincoln.
The town soon grew into an important grain storage and loading point, with a jetty constructed in 1874, only the second to be built on the Eyre Peninsula.
[8] Tumby Bay hosted the popular event Triple J's One Night Stand on 2 April 2011, featuring the bands Birds of Tokyo, Art vs. Science and The Jezabels and locally "Unearthed" musician Joshy Willo.
[16] Like much of coastal South Australia, Tumby Bay experiences a Mediterranean climate with warm to hot summers and moderately wet winters.
Since it was first settled, Tumby Bay has predominantly been an agriculturally driven town, with cereal crops, sheep and beef commonly farmed.
The ecological communities on and around the pylons supporting the Tumby Bay jetty make for an interesting and easy shore dive.
The town was briefly the home to a newspaper, the Western People and Tumby Bay Times (19 June – 3 July 1912), which was printed locally by Walter Augustine Wade.
Tumby Bay is normally reached by private car via the Lincoln Highway that runs along the east coastline of the Eyre Peninsula.
[23] Land has been purchased 20 kilometres (12 mi) north east of Tumby Bay for the purposes of developing a bulk commodities export port.
The proposed port (if approved) will be capable of loading Capesize ships (either directly or by transshipment) for export of iron ore and potentially, grain.
[25] A potential rail connection to the Eyre Peninsula Railway at Ungarra, 27 kilometres (17 mi) away, has been discarded in preference for a slurry pipeline for iron ore transport.