Adelaide-ish

A beautiful fine day for our drive along Coorong National Park, poked in to have a look at 42 Mile Crossing campground …another nice spot…with the long weekend coming up I think it will be full here.  Plenty of walking tracks, the limestone has  been cut out of the ground to build water wells in the area back in 1850s by the chinese and even one of the wells still standing.

Big Lobster at Kingston SE

well made by the chinese immigrants

 

We got the free Wellington Ferry over to the Fleurieu Peninsula and it ended up being a long day driving so we stopped in a free camp, Frank Potts Reserve in Longhorne Creek, a winery area.  Frank was the bloke to buy the first two blocks for sale in the area in 1850 and the family still owns Bleasdale Wines so Steve bought a cleanskin  ($16) from the local tavern and it must have been a bit of alright…another dead marine at the end of the night!    

Next stop was Strathalbyn  what a beautiful little town.  Our Talban camping friends would love it. Boutique gift type shops, history, beautiful stone cottages built in 1850s, and plenty of bakeries and coffee shops (for Greg).  Shortly after our arrival it started to rain, so after finding the ’loo’ and the ATM we had to choose a bakery to sit in and let the showers pass…this is no easy feat!!!  Walking down one street we found three bakeries alone. After getting a few food supplies we hopped in the car and drove around town in the rain and had a look at the place.  We should have stayed here, don’t ask me why we didn’t…gorgeous place.

Off the main road across the country roads and onto Normanville on the westcoast of the Fleurieu Peninsula.  There is the HMAS Hobart scuttled of the coast here and we thought we would do a dive, after enquiring about the weather…it was going to be raining for the next week and unusually 2.9m swell so we decided it was probably a no go.  It was cold and miserable but the camp kitchen had a great fireplace…and we know one of the many skills Steve has;  he knows how to make a good fire so we spent the night in there and did the laundry and cooked dinner. I had a hair cut tonight and I can honestly say…Steve did a pretty good job.  Yes, Steve clipper cut my hair!

 The next day was no better weather wise, it just rained and rained and rained,,,argh.  So we got in the car and we drove and we drove and we drove around the Fleurieu Peninsula (Cape Jervis, Victor Harbor, Port Elliot, Goolwa and the mouth of the Murray River) and everywhere we went the rain went with us.  We stopped at Victor Harbor to have lunch and that was it….so cold and miserable.

 

Sunday 2 June, we did a visit back to Victor Harbour and got a walk in over the causeway to Granite Island

horse drawn tram on the causeway

a rock on Granite Island walk

see the man with the big belly?

see the face?

then went to see Keith and Heather, who we met in Oatlands, Tasmania. We stayed with them for two nights and we had a beautiful view of the ocean and we had our eyes peeled the whole time hoping to see the Southern Right Whales (that come in as close as 50m from shore) but we had no luck.  We did see a whale out to sea on our walk on Tuesday but not very close and we even had some no rain days and calm seas but still no luck in the whale watching department.  But on Monday when Keith and Heather were driving us around showing us the area we did see a couple of seals playing close to shore.

views around Port Elliot

We also got to see Ingalalla Waterfalls in a lovely picnic area, and plenty of water flowing.

On the way back to Port Elliot we stopped at Yankaville Bakery and I am afraid to say it is hard to choose which bakery is the best so we will have to just keep doing the taste testing.  After having a couple of lovely days, lovely food and beautiful company with Heather and Keith we headed off to Adelaide.
 

We left Port Elliot a little bit later than planned so we drove straight to Adelaide and got caught in the edge of the peak hour traffic but found our way to Levi Park Caravan Park at Vale Park (North East of CBD).

We have decided to stay in Adelaide for a week and it was dark by the time we finished setting up the awning on the Tvan.  Wednesday was an organizing day, we emptied out the car because it goes in for a service on Thursday…and just in case we don’t get the car back when we expect it… and we’ve had that happen before!!!

Thursday the car went in for its service and we caught the bus into the CBD.  We walked around,had lunch and saw The Camera House had a sale on for an Olympus camera…well seems my Fuji is about 10+ years old we spent a bit of time inquiring and we found it to be a very good. 

We got a phone call about the car and with a couple of extra things to do on the car we will have to leave the car overnight and it will be ready tomorrow midday.  Oh oh!!!

We googled the camera, and decided to buy…blown the budget again this month.

The car was ready on Friday…thank goodness and we took it for a drive up the Adelaide Hills then back to camp and back into the CBD and we bought the camera and then we walked to the Central Markets.  Its a lot like the Melbourne markets but not as big and it is next to Chinatown.  Lots of fruit and veggies and meats, live entertainment and multicultural foods to eat…and I bought a new pair of uggies in Chinatown.

Saturday we drove to Semaphore

to meet up with Keith and Heather again because Steve left his camera in their car and we met at a great eating place called Swedish Tarts but we stuck to lunch more than the tarts.  We walked around Semaphore and Keith and Heather showed us around as they used to live there.  We went to the local library which used to be a theatre and still has all the original decorative features on the walls and looked at some of the original houses…just beautiful.  We left them to do what they had to do and catch a bus to watch Adelaide play AFL.  We took a walk along the pier, had a look at the carousel (which is 75 yrs old) and walked along the beach front back to the car and drove to Glenelg.  Glenelg reminds me  of the Gold Coast with its apartment building and boat marinas and then the  main street, Jetty Street reminds me of St Kilda with shops and eating place.

Sunday  we drove to Mt Lofty, Adelaide’s equivalent to Brissy’s Mt Cooth- tha with a great view of Adelaide 

and then onto Hahndorf, a town outside Adelaide established by 74 german families back in the 1800s.  Today is a beautiful sunny day and the long weekend and just like home everybody was outdoors and I think everyone came to Hahndorf. We arrived at 11.30am and found it hard to find a park, by the time we walked down one side of the street we could not see the end of the line of cars coming into town, but a great town:  puppet shop, german foods(Steve loves, it’s in his blood), boutiques, beer halls etc we had a fabulous day.

streets of Hahndorf
 

 

Monday was a pack up day and Tuesday we left Adelaide bound for Mambray Creek or Mt Remarkable NP to camp for a couple of days (a few people had told us this was a lovely area.  We got to Port Pirie and had a look

chimney stack to the worlds largest lead smelter

and then the usual happens to us anyway...

 

we get a little rain!!!  Somebody please give us a break.
So change of plan, no camping; we head straight to Pt Augusta and book a room for two nights (the weather is not getting any better for a couple of days).  We have been here before so we just stocked up for the great outdoors.
Thursday 13 June the car is stocked chockers with food and fuel and we are off to Woomera.
Bye for now.

South Australia...

We had two nights in Naracoorte and stayed in the showgrounds, did one of the famous Naracoorte cave tours, the Victoria Fossil Cave tour where there have been fossils and bones dug up from
100 000 years ago and are so important to the history of palaeontology the caves are World Heritage Listed and David Attenborough has even crawled around in here and filmed a documentary. 

We had a two for one meal at the local pub, walked the town and checked out the history and admired all the original buildings of the 1850 era.  The Info centre had a display of robotics for shearing sheep that was quite humorous and I think it cost the inventor about $10 000 000 of investing money for it all to fail.  On our way out of town we stopped at Bool Lagoon...a HUGE lagoon for the birds to nest and many species have a stopover from Russia and China for a rest.  There is a gravel road to drive to a hill and get a view of the whole lagoon but when we got to the highest point we noticed there was something missing...water...the lagoon was bone dry and back to the info notice board we were supposed to pay a fee before entering any of the protected area of the lagoon...Ooops...See Yah.

 

That’s another town done and we were on our way to Mt Gambier (the history of volcanoes, one of Steve’s favourite subjects), but on the way we stopped in Penola.  I never get sick of looking at the stone cottages and reading about the history of these places.  Penola is famous for the start of Mary Mackillop’s  governing and teaching career.  Every one of these towns has a huge bakery and Penola is no different so we stopped in for lunch and we will continue on our travels to find the best bakery in Australia…someone has to do it!  I found Petticoat Lane which was recorded as the first street in Penola and there are still some of the original cottages here and the street still has original timber curbing lining the street. 

Just as well we have nowhere to be, by the time we have lunch and visit the history rooms and walk the streets of these little towns hours fly by.

 Found the showgrounds in Mt Gambier where we camped for three nights, $15 unpowered site with plenty of hot water for the showers and flushing toilets.  Saturday and Sunday we had horse floats arrive at the showgrounds for riders having show jumping lessons and that was interesting to watch while we had our morning cuppa.  For all the geology nuts out there, Mt Gambier is formed by erupting volcanic activity (a long time ago) and we learnt about this in the town centre watching a free 3d movie explaining the formations of the whole area…well worth watching.  Mt Gambier is formed of Lakes and underground limestone caves, and it all becomes very interesting when we could actually see the volcanic cones, sinkholes (in the middle of town), the entrances to dive caves and the ripples forming hills in the landscape where former shorelines were many years ago. 

Blue Lake

Cave Garden

Umpherston Sinkhole

Engelbrecht Cave

dive cave entrance at bottom of stairs

The garden in Umpherston Sinkhole

Lives in the Sinkhole

entrance to Engelbrecht Cave

 

Sunday morning we left and headed for the coast, there are so many things close by to Mt Gambier you could easily base yourself there and do day trips.  Mt Schank (a dormant volcano) is only 13 km away and we stopped to have a look and we climbed the stairs to the rim of this classic cone shaped hole in the ground and what a view across to the coast and back to Mt Gambier and on the rim we got to see the ripples of hills across the farm paddocks of previous shorelines we were told about.  It took us about 1 hour to walk up and around the whole rim, we could have walked down into the bottom of the cone but gave that a miss, we weren’t too keen on the walk back up. 



The inside of Mt Schank Volcano



 

 

Ripples in the landscape of previous shorelines

 

View of another volcanic vent and the cattle below

 

Standing on the rim of Mt Schank

 

Morning tea back at the car and drove to the famous Piccaninnie Ponds to have a look.  From the top it looks just like any other duck pond but if we had a permit and were registered with the Cave Divers Association of Australia we would find a huge cavern under the water surface that leads to under water limestone caves.

 

You can’t even tell how deep the water is on the edge because the water is so clear.  The closest we got was to stand on the platform where the divers enter the water.

Pt MacDonnell was next where we stopped at the jetty and made ourselves some lunch but we gave in to the cold weather and bought some hot chips (and if you know how I love my hot chips) they were some of the best hot chips we have tasted for ages. Hahaha. 

 

The Limestone Coast is quite obvious, the cliffs get under cut by the bashing of the waves makes for an amazing landscape.  There are so many underwater reefs and rocks no wonder there was so many shipwrecks back in the day, one shipwreck mentioned a lot, the ‘Admella’ has quite an interesting story with most lives lost.

Camel Rock

Rhino Rock (looks more like a horny devil lizard)

This one looks a bit like an Iguana

 

We decided to camp in the NP at Southend.  Drove a little cross country with the help of the GPS through Tarantoola and Millicent…bummer rain again…and down to a gravel road along the coast and found it…Kotgee Campground.

No one here, which we have found a lot where we go,  ended up being a cold and wet night, that goodness we decided not to set out the canvas.

Today, Mon 27 May, is warmish 16C and we are on our way along the coast through Beachport, did an 8km scenic drive, and then back on the road to Robe.  At Robe, bakery stop for a cuppa and then a $10 pub meal at the Caledonian Inn…mmmmm.  Then out to find a camp spot in the Little Dip Conservation Park about 20km out of Robe.  We looked at a few spots and decided to set up at Long Gully Campground. 

Wombat poo

The Culprits!!!

It is a large grassed area with a long drop toilet and we were greeted at the entrance by a wombat.  The campground was surrounded by wombat burrows and two in particular came out every night getting quite close munching away at the grass.

Our second day in Robe we did the scenic and historical drive around town, Out to Robes famous Obelisk on the edge of the limestone cliffs which are fenced off about 20mt from the edge because the cliffs are getting undercut by the sea and there is only a limestone crust on top,

found a blowhole underfoot and we could hear the water washing in under the rock surface under our feet. Then inquired at the info centre about a 4WD track along the coast from Robe back to Beachport (found it in our 100 4WD Adventure book, so far we have done 6).  We decided to drive the track from Robe back to our campsite and it was a sand and rock track along the coast line, the bloke at the info desk told me all the driving was up on the dunes and we didn’t have to worry about the tide, so we didn’t… even though it was high tide at the time, but he lied, the track took us onto the beach a three times and of course I (andy) was driving and I got bogged in some soft course sand, so change of drivers and Steve was a bit more man-ly behind the wheel than me and he got us off the beach and back to camp and tomorrow we will do the rest of the track.

 

In our last blog I forgot to mention that while staying at Bruce and Norma’s place at Blairgowie we got to see the International Space Station fly across the sky for 4 minutes and on our second night at Little Dip we got to see it again for just as long.  We had nights  full of stars, which always means cold nights this time of the year.  Into bed by 7pm because it is so cold and in the tvan 6.5C…brrr.

Cool morning but we are looking forward to trying this track today…

nowhere to go but over...

...and over we went and dowwwwwn

 

and it turned out to be quite fun, tracks go all over the place with not much signage, only orange posts to guide the way (as long as the  slasher  tractor who had been through  before us hadn’t cut them in half).  There were rocks to drive over and then we found we were on the park boundary road so we headed back to the sandy coastal track and we found ourselves on a huge sand dune and we had to get out of the car to see where the track went as there were tracks all over the place but we found a track over the edge of the sand dune and we were off again.

Cheers