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.