It is now Friday and we will be off tomorrow.  We will have stayed at Goolwa for 10 days by the time we leave and we have loved it here. 

Out last couple of days have been fairly relaxing.  We went and checked out the little town of Strathalbyn just to the north of us.  What a beautiful little place it was.  It was just full of historical houses and it was a pleasure to walk around it.  The local Anzac park is just a gem and a real credit to the town.  It has a little stream running through it and an Anzac memorial in the middle.  From there you can also see a very impressive church that overlooks the park.  Housing was fairly expensive though, with prices up around the $350,000 mark.  A lot really for a tiny rural town.

 

Took a bit of a tour around the area, through the wine growing area, but all of the vines have already been stripped of their grapes so that was fairly uneventful.  Called into another very small beachside village called Milang.  Nothing really there except for a huge flock of pelicans all huddled together.

 

Had our last look around the town yesterday, and not too soon I think.  I am really quite concerned about Deb at this moment, and quite worried about my future.  She walked into a Mens Barber shop yesterday and, as blatantly as you could imagine, she asked the male barber if he did women. He exact words "do you do women".   He was quite taken aback and will probably never be the same again.  (has nothing to do with the fact Deb wants a haircut.)

Despite the fact I have to watch Deb at all times now, we still went to the pub for dinner last night.  They had a great schnitzel night and it only cost $12.  For your information, Deb was on her best behaviour and didn't make lewd approaches to any other locals. 

Had our final look at Victor Harbour this morning.  What a great location that is.  I could just imagine how it would get over run with tourists during the summer months.  The outlook over the ocean is just incredible.  You could really get used to seeing all of these great sights.

Anyway must be off now.  Will speak in a couple of days when we are in Adelaide.

Barry and Deb. 

          

Hi to all that are still reading of our travels.  Its been a couple of days and, believe it or not, we have had a couple of fine days.

On Friday we headed towards Victor Harbour, but on the way stopped at another little coastal settlement called Point Elliot.  This is a lovely little village with fantastic views of the ocean.  Went for a walk around the coastal track and I think the tide must have been coming in, as the waves were enormous, crashing into the rocks just under where we were standing.  Have decided to come back another day to check the area a bit closer.    

We then headed over to Victor Harbour on Friday and had a walk around the town.  It is really a busy coastal town with a bustling shopping precinct.  Slipped in to the Information centre and decided that we would go across to Granite Island.  That is an island that is only about 400 metres from Victor Harbour, and you can either walk across the bridge, or catch a ride on the horse drawn tram car.  Of course, being tourists, we had to catch the tram.  It was an exhilarating journey, as at one stage I think the horse got up to about 2 kph.  It is actually overtaken by the pedestrians.

 

On Granite Island we took a stroll around the island checking out the local animals and sights.  The ocean constantly belting the island is just awesome and of course took heaps of photos. After our 1.5klm walk around the island we got up the courage eventually and took the tram ride back to the mainland.  After that just had to have a coffee to settle the jangled nerves.

Continued our tour of the area and checked out an area called the bluff.  From there you can see a lot of the coastline to the west.  It is a very popular area, but extremely steep.  There were even some idiot cyclists riding up these hills.  From there we checked out some of the other tourist sites before heading back home.  Cant have too much excitement in one day. 

Had a fairly quiet day on Saturday, which included a ride on our bikes along the bike trail in the town.  We had to save ourselves up for the excitement on the Sunday.  Ok, it is now Sunday and we are catching the local tourist train from Goolwa to Point Elliot.  How disappointed were we when they cancelled the steam train, and we had to settle for the diesel train.  We will probably never get over the disappointment.  Anyway we still took the trip and had a walk around the town of Point Elliot.  I took a lovely photo of one of the churches there, just as God was sending a stream of lightning at me.  As can be seen from the photo, it was absorbed by the top of the church. 

Some fantastic old buildings in the town, including the original police station and court house.  The townspeople and obviously the National Trust obviously take great pride in the town, and it shows, as it was a credit to them.  

Got up Monday morning and just couldn't believe our luck.  The sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky.  We decided that we could go for a drive down to the south on the Fleurieu Peninsula.  We headed off bright and early, OK, so at about 10.30.  Our first stop was the little town of Myponga.  Not the best of names, but not the biggest of towns either.  Drove to the lookout over the top of the local reservoir and it was such a great view.

From there we headed to the town??? of Carrickalinga.  Drove through a bit of a residential area but decided there was no town.  No shops, No Service Stations, No nothing. 

Undaunted on our journey, we next found ourselves inside the town of Normanville.  Decided there wasn't much there for us either so we continued another 1 klm to the town Yankalilla.  This was  lovely little town with probably no more that about 1500 residents.  Stopped at the local Information Bureau for all the gossip.  The man working behind the counter was extremely disappointed that we did not check out his local Museum, which was attached to the Information centre. 

Stopped at the local Anglican church, (can you see a bit of a link here) and went into the church.  Several years ago, some of the parishioners had a vision of the Virgin Mary on the wall inside the church.  It was fairly huge news at the time, although I must admit I cant recall it.  It is a really beautiful church inside, and outside there is a shrine to the Virgin Mary, obviously erected after the visions, which attracts visitors from around the world.

 

We continued our expedition, with the next stop being a tiny little place called Second Valley.  There were only a few houses in this place, but they were all magnificent old stone buildings.  We took a walk along the pier, where there were several fishermen.  Just to show them how its done, I jumped in to the water and wrestled out a huge squid, and threw it on to the pier.  Yeh, maybe in my dreams.  Had a walk over rocks, to reach the furthermost edge of the area.  The landscape is all made up of basalt type of rocks, and you can just imagine the earth, millions of years ago, bursting out of itself to make these great designs.  The rock face is really awesome to look at with all of the different levels, obviously of great meaning to a geologist or similar.  I would never have imagined us looking at rocks with such interest, but it was awesome.

Needed a bit of a relax after that excitement so it was off to Cape Jervis.  This is the place that you catch a ferry over to Kangaroo Island.  We had a bit of a drive around the place but it was really a bit of a disappointment.  Very few shops or other activity, apart from the ferry.  You could bet if that was in Victoria, there would have been a satellite city built around it, with Bunnings and Maccas as the first occupants.  Could see some wind turbines in the distance, but I don't think we could handle the excitement of getting a close up of them.

With Cape Jervis in our mirror, it was off in the direction of the Ingalalla Falls.  It was on the way back towards home with Deb in charge of the Map, we found it with ease.  She only scares me when she turns the map around.  It must be a girl thing.  It was only about a 500 metres walk to the falls and, even though it wasn't huge, it was still a very pretty site. 

From there it was towards home, but of course, we saw a sign 'Glacier Rock', so we had to stop to investigate.  After spending about 10 seconds looking at a rock, in the waters of a creek, and then looking at each other, we decided we had seen enough.  I also decided that I am no longer a geologist. 

As unbelievable as it is, the weather today was great.  Probably about 18 - 20C with very little cloud.  Wasn't enough to get our washing dry but pretty close.

By4now as it is Revenge time.

Barry & Deb.        

  

Hi all.  Time for an update of our last few days as the travelling Leylands.   Being the TV addict that I am, I was devastated when the caravan park had no reception on the normal channels, only ABC and SBS.  Just awesome.  Spoke to the managers of the park and they let us into one of the unused units so that we could get our 'Revenge' fix.  Just in keeping with our trip so far I can let you know that it poured rain, as usual, on Monday night at Murray Bridge.  It was the hardest rain I think I have heard so far in the van and was constant for most of the night.

Anyway, after the torrential rain overnight, we decided that we should still go and check out the  Monarto zoo.  This is about 15k's from Murray Bridge and is supposedly the biggest Open Range zoo in Australia.  Actually, the only reason we went was to see if Noah had turned up overnight and we were going to be at the front of the line for access to the new Ark.

 

We were a bit disappointed on arrival as Noah was not in attendance.  We still went in though and the ad's for the zoo were not an exaggeration.  It was really good.  Just like at Werribee, you get driven around in a bus to check out the animals, but there are also lots of walking tracks so that you can walk around at your own pace. There is one part where you are in an enclosure with a Rhino and you are even able to pat the rhino.  Incredible. We both thought that it was really great and definitely worth the visit.  The amazing part was that there was no rain at all whilst we were there.

  

After spending about 4 hours at the zoo we spent the rest of the day sorting out a Telstra problem and then back at the van. Of course it started bloody raining again and rained for most of the night.  No kidding. 

Up early on Wednesday morning and of course it is still bloody raining.  Come time to hitch up the van, in the rain, and I was rushing things of course and when reversing the Jeep scraped the front left guard on a tree stump that was below my line of sight.  It didn't dent the guard but took off a fair slice of paint on a couple of areas.  Of course it was my own bloody stupid fault for rushing things and I have been really pissed off ever since.  Will have to get it fixed when we get back to Melbourne. 

That was just the start of a crap morning as it bloody rained most of the way to our next stop at Goolwa and half way there the caravan mirror for the drivers side stuffed up and it took a while to sort in out, in the rain, or course.  Also thought I had lost my favourite double ended screw driver.  Could the day get any worse.  Well almost.  For the last 20 klms into Goolwa I had a mongrel tourist bus sitting right up my butt as there was nowhere to pass and nowhere for me to pull over to let him pass.  I could just hear him quoting that new ad from the TV.  Bloody caravanners.

Arrived in Goolwa and set up at the Caravan Park.  It is very spacious and not very many vans in at the moment.  Needed coffee to bring my levels back up so into town and got our first shock when the cost of our 2 coffees was $10.  I suppose I had to expect it as god hates me today.  After that we checked out the information centre and headed over to check out Hindmarsh Island. 

Went out and saw the Mouth of the Murray.  A spot where the Murray River meets the ocean.  There are a few huge dredges out there that are constantly keeping the mouth open.  It is all regulated as to how much water goes out to the ocean and how much is retained in the Coorong National Park and in the local lakes.  After our nature walk it was back to the van.  Decided to have fish and chips for dinner and got my 2nd shock.  $27.  Obviously Debs burger must have had Waygu beef and the chips refined in special oil. 

Kept awake during the night by the rain, as usual.  Up bright and early Thursday and went out for our nature day.  Went out and checked out the Goolwa Barrage.  This is just another man made structure to again regulate how much water goes into the local lake system.  It is a huge set up and pretty awesome when you consider that it was erected in 1935.  Checked out our friendly pelicans that are still following us around and found them feeding just near where the water was being let out of the lake system.  Also found several New Zealand fur seals laying around at the centre platform area of the barrage.  Just ask the Leyland brothers, we know it all.

Headed off for a local spin and went to a Cheese making factory.  Of course we had to have a tasting of several types of cheese and then got totally ripped off when we stupidly decided to buy a little bit.  It had better taste good.  Then a quick trip down to Victor Harbour.  This is a really big coastal town with a population of 14,500.  There looks to be quite a lot to do here and we will be back maybe tomorrow, when the weather is forecast to be sunny.  Will be praying for that. 

Then back to the van for the night.      

You would not believe it, but we left Kingston on Sunday morning and it was brilliant sunshine.  It was the first time that we had seen the sun since leaving Echuca almost 2 weeks ago. 

We were almost tempted to stay another day instead of tempting fate but we had to press on.  It was a fairly easy drive but for the Princes Hwy, it is not very wide.  You just get used to driving on double lane highways in Melbourne.  Half way to Meningie Deb decided that she would take the Captains chair and I could lay back and relax.  It was the first time that she had driven on a narrow road and she took it all in her stride.  The only disappointment came when we met another fellow caravanner and Deb gave the caravanners wave but it was not reciprocated.  She was devastated and had to pull over and let me drive. 

Pulled into Meningie which is a very little seaside village much the same as San Remo except it is on Lake Albert.  This lake is really huge and goes as far as the eye can see.  From all reports though, it is also full of the dreaded carp so not much fishing going on there.  We got the bikes out of the car and went for a ride into the township?? and rode along Pelican Way.  A bit of a misnomer really as we didn't see any pelicans.

 

After getting back to the park we went for a walk along the banks of the lake.  Finally we found the missing pelicans.  There are tons of them all over the lake.  Arrived back from our walk just in time to take some professional photos of the sunset.  Just glorious over the lake.

 

Not really much else to do in Meningie as we were only staying the one night.  Spoke to the park managers about the tourist attraction called the 'Pink Lake' but according to him it was a bit of a 'missing attraction' as he had driven past it numerous times and had never felt the urge to have a closer look.

After leaving Meningie on Monday morning, we drove over the 'Pink Lake' and like the manager, never felt the urge to take a closer inspection.  It is allegedly only Pink in the summer.  Yeh sure it is.

The next town we drove through was a little whistle stop called Tailem Bend.  After reading the reviews on the caravanning web sites we were almost to scared to stop.  A case of tying everything down even before you get out of the car.  We were tempted to check out the Sovereign Hill type village but decided to save our money for the Open Range Zoo just out of Murray Bridge tomorrow.

Arrived in Murray Bridge and went to check out the shopping centre.  It was strange to walk into a big shopping centre again as we had not see that since leaving Melbourne.  Went on our Leyland Brothers walk and finished up down at the river where I did my Casey Jones impersonation in a train.  If you check out the next photo you can see me driving the train across the old style steel bridge over the river.  After all of that excitement it was back to the park where we checked out the house boats on the marina, awesome, and of course the pelicans that are now shadowing us everywhere. 

Anyway that is all for now, except to say that I had no windcheater on today.  Yes, you guessed it, the weather was fine.  Except for this minute where I can hear spitting rain on the roof of the van.  Cant expect too much of a good thing all at once. 

By4now.   

Thursday was our last day in Mt Gambier and as usual it was raining.  At least we had plans to thwart the weather.  We went down into Engelbrechts Cave for a quick tour.  This cave is what is known as a dry cave as it had no hanging limestone formations in it.  It is just part of the huge cave network that runs underneath Mt Gambier.  At the bottom of the cave you can see that it is all part of a huge underwater network of caves.  Cave divers come from all around the world to dive in these caves.  To be permitted to dive in this network takes between 5 and 10 years training.  A bit difficult to photograph as you couldn't get close enough but the water is crystal clear.  You could see the bottom and it looked about 1 metre deep but it was in fact 8 metres deep.

The mine entrance

 

After out tour and coffee we just returned to home base to pack up and get the van ready to leave.  Come Friday morning we were off bright and early, about 10, for the drive to Kingston SE.  It was fairly incredible but yes, it was not raining.

We drove through a tiny fishing village called Beachport but there was nothing there of any great note.  The first stop that we had was at Robe.  This is a lovely little beachside town and judging by the cost of the Real Estate, it is very popular.  Probably reminded me a bit of a smaller version of Anglesea.

We went on a bit of a Leyland Brothers tour of the town and went to check out the marina, eventually finishing up at a local tourist site called 'The Obelisk' This structure stands 40ft tall and acted as a landmark for shipping and it also contained rocket fired lifesaving equipment to be fired to stricken ships.  It is painted red and white and can supposedly be seen on a clear day from 20k's away out to sea.  Just across from the obelisk is a rock feature called Doorway rock.  Obviously so named because of the big opening in the rock caused by the constant pounding of the waves. 

To complete our nature trip we headed up a steep hill, towing the van, to the local lookout.  Not to be missed according to staff at the information centre.  Alas, when we got there it was closed for repairs, and looked like it had been for some time.

After our huge disappointment at missing the lookout it was back on the road again, with our nose pointed towards Kingston.  On arrival in the town it wasn't too hard to find the caravan park as the town is not that big.  The Caravan Park is set on the ocean and as you can see below, the sunset was just incredible looking out of our van window.

A close inspection of the beach shows that there is no beach.  There is just tons and tons of smelly seaweed.  It must be about 6ft deep on the foreshore and it just goes on forever.  Of course, in the tourist brochures, Kingston has the most beautiful beaches, maybe in the summer only.  There is a great bike path that runs past the caravan park and takes us into the township.  As it is now Saturday, and for the first time not raining, we had a leisurely ride into town.  Checked out another local piece of history, being "" The Big Lobster "".  How awesome is that.  Also checked out a sculpture that is supposed to be a sort of sundial, but of course, there was no sun to check it out properly. 

Having a quiet night tonight before heading off to a little place called Meningie tomorrow.

By4now.    

You will be happy to see that we are still here.  It has rained on and off ever since we arrived at Mt Gambier and the temperature hasn't been over 14 since we got here.  I am sure that last night it was down around 3 or 4 degrees as it was freezing sleeping in the van over night.  I think the rain is the only thing that is saving us from being frozen into our own igloo by washing away the ice forming on the van.

Yesterday we were well and truly into tourist mode.  We just had to keep picking the gaps between the showers and hail to get out of the car.

We started off by checking out the Blue Lake.  It has a beautiful steel blue colour at this time of the year, changing to a more brilliant blue in the spring/summer.  From there we checked out the other lake in the vicinity but this was just your ordinary boring colour.  The locals have done such a good job in this area as there are plenty of gardens with bbq's and other picnic areas.  Would have been great had the temperature been higher than 10C.

 

From here we could see the Centenary Tower beckoning us from the distance.  From about 2 kms away it looked very appealing so off we went and parked in the car park at the bottom of the hill.  We couldn't see the tower but how far away could it be.  We started our walk and the slope was only about 45 degree.  After walking only about 100 metres the slope went up to about 75 degrees.  We almost had to put bloody mountaineering spikes in our shoes just to make the tower.  The walk was only about 500 metres but it was very tough.  After all our guts and determination we arrived at the top and it was CLOSED.  There were workmen there repairing it.  How ripped off was that.  At least the walk back down was a bit easier.

From there we checked out the Cave Garden in the middle of the city.  So much of Mt Gambier is formed over huge underground caves caused by volcanic blasts obviously thousands of years ago.  So much of it is limestone and the sinkholes in the area are caused by the limestone collapsing down into these caves.  God willing we will be going down into one of the caves tomorrow. 

The city centre Cave Garden is really well done.  It is probably about 25 metres deep and maybe 50 metres diameter.  As the sinkhole settled the native plants have continued growing on the base as well as the side walls of the sinkhole.  The local authorities have put walkways into the sinkhole and it is great walking into the middle.  The caves that run under the city are out of limits for the general population.  There are even caves full of water under the city that are world renowned and often have cave divers from around the world checking them out.

From there we went and checked out the Umpherstone Sinkhole.  This is just fantastic.  I could have put on dozens of photos but they just don't do it justice.  It is a really huge sinkhole that is probably about 50 metres deep and 75 metres across.  With all of the walkways you are able to walk down into the middle and check out the garden at the bottom.  It is really awesome with huge amount of ivy growing on the walls and cascading down from the top.  All of the walls are made of limestone and if you know where to look you can see fossils from millions of years ago within the limestone.

It was then time to get back to the van and chip away the ice so that we could get in.  It rained quite a bit overnight but your intrepid travellers were off again today.  We headed down to the shopping area where we watched a video presentation all about the history of the area, including all of the volcanic history.  It went for an hour and was really interesting. 

After that we attempted to go down in a cave but it was closed for the day.  We will go back tomorrow.  With very dubious weather overhead we decided to head out and check Port Macdonnell which is about 30k's away. 

It is a small fishing village, supposedly the lobster capital of the area.  Not today though.  The fish shop was shut.  The wind was howling and the seas were really quite huge.  They have built a little breakwater for the fishing fleet which was a great idea.  That not only kept out the waves, it also kept out the tons of seaweed that was lying on the seaward side.  The whole area had a distinctly rotten plant type smell about it.  Anyway the modern day Attenborough's were not to be put off by that so we went up to a lookout to check out the ocean.  As soon as we breached the top of the hill the wind was just incredible.  It was almost too hard to walk forward.  It was worth it though as when we got to the top you could see a colony of fairy penguins living in the rocks about 100 metres from us.  It was impossible to hold the camera still to take photos so I had to get down on my knees and try to brace it with a fence post.  The photos actually came out all right. (I think so anyway).  Had to keep an eye on Deb in the wind as it fair dinkum could have pushed you off the track, never to be seen again. 

 

 

 

Had a quick look around the town and then back to the igloo for the night. 
That's all for now.