The leaving of South Australia

This is the famous Blue Lake in Mount Gambier, the colours just does not seem to do justice to the reality

The wall art at Cape Jaffa near Kingston SE was spectacular but the prosperity came from the large cray fish operation at this very small port with a population of around 150 during the winter

More wall art, perhaps this keeps them busy in the winter, no TV reception and Km's from the smoke.



Another Mount Gambier attraction, their sunken garden, this was one of many "sinkholes" in the region and is another testament to the changing environment, in the late19th century there was water in the bottom sufficient for boating persuits but now the water table is much lower and we have a pleasant garden instead.

Not to be outdone Mike at the Blue Lake, a shame that the camera does lie !!

Pinks Beach at Kingston SE where we park for a couple of nights, Katherine was determine to get her feet wet and achieved that feat!, no one else was on the beach at 7.30 AM.

Aside from the beach and it's historic buildings, Kingston has "Larry", unfortunately Larry is falling apart and unless someone foots a large reconstruction bill, Larry will disintegrate, poor "Larry"

This is Mount Schank near Mount Gambier, in the text below you will see it was a climb and circumnavigation that Mike just achieved. The base of the crater still has water for the sheep that graze there, since the water table is at that level.

This is the"Eerie" crater where we spent one night and Katherine felt that something was "wrong" with the place. The kids who played there obviously did not agree and jumped from the top cliff into the allegedly 30 metre deep water.

This proves that the trip is not all places, one of the reasons why we are so slow is that we sped time at the overnight stops to relax.

Another activity at the stops is Katherine's recuperation exercises, if avoiding the flies is not sufficient hand activity.

General overview of this section of the travels

This part of the journey takes us from Strahalbyn to our farewell to South Australia via Mount Gambier.

The trip was in two parts, firstly the fairy drab coastline of the Coorong, with it's many natural park areas ( Only the birds and naturalist's really appreciate this area) and the more interesting historic small towns of Kingston SE ( never did ask what the SE stood for??), Robe and the Coonawara wine region.

The nightly stops varied, but were always acceptable with Kingston being so good that we stayed 2 nights, basically on the beach as you will see from the photographs above.

Millicent was a pleasant town that provided Mike with another place to play golf ( rated 76 th in Australian golf courses. Still only achieved 28 points, but seeing as the group had never played there before 28 points was not as bad as it could have been.

After Millicent we spent a couple of days in the Coonawara wine area, had an excellent lunch at the Hollicks winery and went heavily into the Mary Mackillop story at Pinola. Stayed the night at Pinola railway Station in the town, a quiet and central spot.

Then it was on to Mount Gambier and a Caravan park, the first since Adelaide, our longest out yet, it was big and full of "live people" as Katherine would say.

Mount Gambier was different from other SA towns, well it is a City really, and as such had a large number of facilities.

One of our aims was to collect the post, which was a trauma since there are 3 post offices in Mount Gambier and the one we chose to have the mail sent to was the smallest and most remote.

The main attraction at Mount Gambier was the "Blue Lake", a most remarkable phenomenon and has to be seen to be believed. Additionally there are the numerous volcanic craters, one of which (Mount Schank) Mike climbed and walked the rim, nearly killed him.

Nights in this area were again varied, adjacent to the Cycle club room, rear of an Hotel and on the rim of a crater. The crater stop Katherine felt was inappropriate due to the bad vibes from the place, it did not stop a good nights sleep and late breakfast.

• Distance from Perth = 3148 Kms


• Distance travelled from Perth = 5226 Kms


• Number of days on the road = 76

Adelaide to Strathalbyn

This was our first arrival in Adelaide

with Patricia's driveway nearly making our stay very short.







However once it was in the Van was only going to move once out of the drive and that was when we left Adelaide.
Still we have many reasons to Thank both Patricia and Patrick for their hospitality , water and electricity which ensured our stay in Adelaide was as comfortable as possible. 43 degrees without electricity would have been uncomfortable.





We arrived in Adelaide just before New Years Eve and celebrated the festivities in the driveway, with Mike asleep and Katherine religiously keeping watch for the approaching New Year.
The floating leaves are typical of Adelaide, flora everywhere and our river trip providing a delightful afternoon on the Torrens with the University and bird life illustrating the City.











We participated in the Art world of both Museum and art gallery and of the two we wished for more time at the Gallery, but as you can see both Patricia and Katherine supported the building well.






These two photographs capture the ambiance of Adelaide




















Our host in action on a total fire ban night in Adelaide.

The first stop out of Adelaide was Strathalbyn.

This typifies Strahalbyn and ideally complements Adelaide and South Australia.

The town was quiet, clean and the people friendly

We spent 24 hours here and found it pleasant.

The current statitics are

• 4498 Km's have been travelled
• We have been on the road from Perth for 65 days

Christmas and then to Adelatde

This was Christmas Day in the main street of Clare.

In many ways it reflects the type of Christmas we experienced

it was quiet, calm and peaceful.

The missing ingredients were of course the family, who were sorely missed and whilst everyone was in contact by telephone and web cam it was not the same.

The Mural on this wall describes Clare and it's surroundings.

We have covered this area very well except for the winery's,

there is little difference aside from the quality of wine and the salesperson, we have found the latter to be of questionable

performance at some places.

At a town called Burra (see last Blog) we went to a Cidery and we have had better service from a Coles checkout operative.

Back to Christmas, this delightful photograph was taken on

Christmas Day on the Apartment veranda, small but very pleasant.

All the trimmings of the Christmas festivities were present and overdone, including, Christmas cake, pudding, mince pies and a very well cooked dinner in the evening.

This photograph was taken in the evening of Christmas Day and the red wine was being tasted.

On reflection, the day started with champagne in the Spa and at the BBQ breakfast by the creek, beer before the power nap and followed by red wine in the evening. However it was a sober if not solemn day.

One of the reasons why we deserted the Van for a few day's was to have a little luxury, one of which was the Spa.

Over the 3 days we were at the apartment, this was used regularly.

A great way of relaxing.





This was our Christmas morning celebration where all the family were toasted and missed.

This was our first Spa attempt, where someone put too much bubble liquid in the water and we suffered the consequences.

However Christmas was over and on Boxing day we repacked the Van and moved on having spent about a week in and around Clare.

It was a very relaxing route where we drifted down the Main North Rd to Adelaide and investigated the cafes and antique shops of Auburn and Kapunda.

Kapunda was a surprise, the Museum there was not professionally run, only volunteers, the the quantity and variety of memorabilia was huge.

However some of the vintage items were very much of a time span that we had used in the past, the past obviously not being that long ago, or was it.

Well worth the stop at Kapunda.

This was an interesting pig we met at Birdwood just outside Adelaide.

The prices of the meat appealed to Katherine just as much as the pig

We had stop in Flaxman Vally and Gumeracha both of which were unmemorable, but the visit to Anguston was another small place with heart.

However Adelaide called and we arrived at Patricia's on Saturday evening of the 29Th December.

The distance to here was 4,402 Km's and we had taken 52 days