Day 41 – October 11 2012

Last night was apparently extremely windy & raining heavily, according to Tereza & neighbours, I slept through it all, so blissfully unaware.  Tereza said the Karavan was being rocked by the sudden gusts of wind.  This morning our outside kitchen bucket was full to overflowing with rainwater & Tereza’s shoes left outside had been blown behind the Karavan.  I checked the weather observations on the Bureau of Meteorology website today & there were 4 different time periods last night that recorded wind gusts of 55 knots or more (100 km/hr) so it was definitely windy as well.

This morning we started out a little later than usual while waiting for the rain to clear & headed down to the causeway wharf at Victor Harbor, rugged up in our rain jackets & walked out to Granite Island, around 500m from shore.  The wind on the first half of the wharf was extreme & cold, but started to settle down once we started to get into the shelter of Granite Island.  There were not many people out walking, only us two.  There is a walking track of about 1.5km distance around the island so we walked around, going from the sheltered side into the full teeth of the raging gale was interesting.  The sea was very rough with large waves crashing into the rocks throwing huge plumes of spray up, at times splattering us with sea water.  When we reached the shelter of the café we took advantage of the comfort & had a very nice lunch of garfish & salad.   After lunch we walked around the island again, we had enjoyed the wild conditions so much that we decided to brave the elements & enjoy the vista from the other direction.  I think it was even windier & colder than the first time we walked around, with even more spectacular wave action crashing into the rocks & sending up huge sprays. Victor Harbor has a horse drawn tram to take people out to Granite Island but today they considered the weather too awful for the horse & he took me out there  (I must love him or I am crazy to do these walks with him).

We didn’t see any penguins, then again we didn’t really expected to because they come back after dusk, but we did see some sea birds & a Shingle Back lizard (it must have been too cold to move so it just sat there allowing us to walk up to it & photograph it ).

The walk back to town over the wharf was OK for the 1^st half, but around the middle we were back out of the shelter of Granite Island & being buffeted by the full force of the gale force wind again, we literally were blown back along the wharf.  In town we walked around the shopping precinct & admired many of the old stone buildings restored from the town’s beginnings in the mid to late 1800s.  Victor Harbor is a pretty little town with a lot of charm & character.  Most of the restoration work has been done very well & the artistic talents of the signs & seats are also notable.  We finished off our day with a bit of boring shopping then back to camp.  We walked around the large caravan park we are staying in & were about to venture out on another walk just as the next rain shower was coming through, so back to the Karavan for coffee & cinnamon donuts (an indulgence Ron craved for).  Another very nice day, even allowing for the wind.