Trekkin

4/6/2022 – Saturday – ?km

The Umpherston Sinkhole in Mount Gambier is a large limestone sinkhole that has been made into a garden, initially in 1886. The sinkhole has a lot of steps down into it & is terraced at the bottom. Thankfully the sun is out & the rain has stopped when we get there so it is a more pleasant experience. It is winter so there are no flowers & the plants have recently been pruned, we can only imagine what it would look like in flower in summer. There are masses of ivy hanging down from the sinkhole edges providing a green curtain for the sinkhole walls. We spend a good hour looking over the Umpherston sinkhole before moving on.

The Cave garden right next to the main street is another limestone sinkhole & again has stairs & a garden, though this one has a decent waterfall from all the rain recently. The sun is still out so we get to enjoy this in a bit of warmth then move into the Riddoch Art & Cultural Centre next door. There is a documentary film showing of the volcanic formation of Mount Gambier & the surrounding district as little as 4,500 years ago, it is very interesting. We have a look at the art display afterwards, though that is fairly lame.

We find somewhere to refuel the car then need to find some Adblue for the pollution control on the exhaust of the car. After this little bit of running around we settle for lunch across the road from the Cave garden at the Sorrento Café. I had Angas steak with prawns, the sauce was a little salty & I washed it down with a craft beer, it was all delicious. Tereza enjoyed her prawn pizza as well (we didn’t stray too far from our usual seafood meals)

It starts to rain again as we drive south to Port Macdonnell & we stop at Mount Schank for a look, this is another volcanic crater mountain that was formed around the same timeframe as Mount Gambier. It just sticks up out of the surrounding plain. Port Macdonnell is a small fishing town hugging the coastline with a focus on crayfish during the season. We drive north along the coast on the Coastal Scenic Drive & it is very scenic. We are reluctant to get out of the car as it is cold, windy & raining, however, we still manage to soak in a fair amount of the scenery. At Cape Northumberland, the southernmost tip of South Australia I do get out as the rain stops & go up to the lookout. Big mistake, it then started to sleet so I was getting hit in the face by cold & hard sleet that hurt. I ended up wet & cold by the time I managed to get back into the car. As we drive back to Port Macdonnell the sun comes out & we are treated to a rainbow.

Back in town we get out & have a look at the jetty & read some of the town history up on billboards under the picnic shelter, the tide is in as the water is right up to the boards on the jetty. We decide not to walk out on it, we are cold enough as it is. There is a good sculpture of a cray fisherman at the start of the jetty. The main street of the town is small, though the combined old police station, courthouse, post office, gaol & customs house built in 1863 is very impressive.

Mount Gambier really stands out from the surrounding plains as we drive back to camp in the rain. Cheese, bickies & wine end another great day.

3/6/2022 – Friday – 166km

Only a few spots of rain this morning as we packed up camp & drove into Robe again for another look. We stopped at the old Customs House overlooking the small harbour, it is a museum, however, not open today. The Woakwine Cutting was our first stop today, a channel of 28 metre depth & around one kilometre long to drain the Woakwine Swamp that took 3 years to complete. This drains into the very large Lake George that borders Beachport.

Beachport is a pretty spot, we drove the signposted Bowman scenic drive around town & along the ocean front, it certainly is scenic, absolutely beautiful. We drove up & down hills & pulled over many times to enjoy the rugged coastal views, though the wind was blowing & it was very cold. We stopped at the Beachport jetty for a walk, it is the 2^nd longest jetty in South Australia at 772 metres. It was cold & got colder as we walked out & back, strangely enough, we were the only people on the jetty that whole time. Thankfully there is a seafood café at the start of the jetty & we got out of the cold for a warm drink & hot seafood. I tried a crayfish pie & Tereza had the ever reliable salt & pepper squid, yum. On the way out we admired some of the old stone buildings, very nicely preserved.

On the way to Mount Gambier we pass the Kimberley Clark paper mill, a very large factory in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after we started passing the pine plantations that provide the timber for the paper, the plantations stretch endlessly on either side of the road. We drive into town & find the Blue Lake with the van park next to it on the crater rim. The Blue Lake is a volcanic lake that sits in the crater of a dormant volcano & is a very pretty blue colour. We set up camp. We wanted to go for a walk around the lake but was so cold that we decided to drive around the cluster of volcanic lakes, it is very pretty & very well maintained. It is difficult to imagine that as little as 4,500 years ago this area was bubbling with molten lava.

Into town for a little bit of food shopping & then it started to rain, back to camp & settle in for the night. Another great day.

2/6/2022 – Thursday – 350km

Around 8 degrees as we departed Hahndorf, a beautiful little town. We took the scenic Angas River drive & it was very scenic, though slow as we climbed up & down hills through very picturesque countryside with lots of beautiful trees & small valleys. The small towns we drove through of Echunga, Flaxley & Macclesfield along the way are also very nice & are unspoilt secret places with lots of beautiful old stone buildings. Strathalbyn is a very nice larger town & after this we drove past lots of grape vines with vines stretching on either side of the road as far as the eye can see in places, there are lots of wine companies with cellar door premises either side of the road. We then drove through the Langhorne Creek area, one of Australia’s prime wine producing regions, even more grape vines.

The plan was to cross the Murray River at Wellington, however, the ferry was getting repaired so we had to travel a further 20km & cross the Murray River on the ferry at Tailem Bend. The ferry driver had the gates closed & was ready to leave when we pulled up, but he stopped & opened the gates again to squeeze us on, there are nice people still in this world. The Murray River is swollen with all the recent rain & is running a bit faster than normal & is a bit muddy.

After Tailem Bend the road improves & the traffic decreases as we travel on the Princes Highway down towards the Coorong. The Coorong is a narrow body of water between the road & the sandhills of the Southern Ocean & stretches for a very long way along the coast of South Australia. There are sheep & cattle grazing farms on one side & the Coorong on the other. There is not much in the way of settlements nor even houses the full length of the Coorong, apart from the very small hamlet of Salt Ash.

Kingston is the first town after the Coorong & we call in to have a look & a late lunch (2.30pm) at the Thistle & Bee Café. We had a drive along the foreshore & stopped for a look at the re-located Cape Jaffa Lighthouse that was decommissioned after more than 100 years of service, then rebuilt at Kingston. We keep driving & another 50 km on we come to Robe & decide to stay the night after driving around the town & having a look at the foreshores & harbour. We pull into a van park in between Lakes Charra & Dunn, set our Karavan up.  We head back into town for a good look & walk around as it is dusk by now.

The new lighthouse, which is built in a high rectangular shape, a more modern style than the usual ones at Robe, is on top of a limestone hill, it is overlooking a treacherous stretch of water. In the distance we see a red & white striped obelisk that was previously a warning to mariners. The coast here looks rugged & pretty dangerous, apparently in 1835 alone there were a total of 30 shipwrecks occurring here at Guichen Bay. We walk up a very good track to the obelisk which is not as far as it first seemed, however it is fenced off due the high risk of the cliff edges collapsing on the narrow ismuth that the obelisk is located on, we agree with that assessment. It is very cold in the wind, we are so rugged up to try & keep the chill out. Nearby is the ruins of an old goal that was abandoned & we explore that before heading back to camp. Another great day.

1/6/2022 – Wednesday – 73km

We slept in this morning, it was so peaceful after the last two nights of howling wind & rain bucketing down.

It was cool & sunny with blue skies first up for our walk around Hahndorf village. The old town is built along the road & it is a fair walk from one end to the other with many old stone buildings converted to shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, boutique accommodation etc. There is a real eclectic mix of businesses. The old buildings are mostly well looked after & restored, with a real old German look. After our walk we have morning tea & warm up next to the fire with a German Beesting & apple strudel.

A drive through the countryside, on Onkaparinga Scenic Drive, passing some beautiful old villages with more nice old stone buildings on the way to Birdwood. The old gum trees along the side of the road look really good & the grass is so green compared to what we have been seeing on the Yorke Peninsula. At Birdwood we stop at the National Motor Museum, old cars & motor bikes including a collection of the first & last Holden car off the production line & a lot of Holden concept cars that did not make it to production. We spend a few hours in the motor museum & reminisce about some of the cars on display. A few nice old motorbikes caught my eye. There is an interesting story of Tom Kruse, the mailman on the old Birdsville Track & a restored truck that he once drove.

Back to Hahndorf enjoying the drive through the countryside again. I had a video conference again. Afterwards it was time for dinner at the old German Arms Hotel & some German style meals washed down with a beer from Munich in Germany. Tereza had a selection of German sausages with sauerkraut & I had pork Jaeger schnitzel with sauerkraut, both very nice & very filling. Back to camp after another great day.

31/5/2022 – Tuesday – 41km

My goodness, what a windy & rocky night again last night, the rain & the wind gusts certainly woke us up a few times, the Karavan shook constantly with the strong wind gusts. Packing up in the morning was a challenge in the light rain & strong wind, I sometimes got nearly blown off my feet. It was not a long drive to Hahndorf up into the Adelaide hills, the road is very good, though it is a very steep climb up into the hills.

Hahndorf is a beautiful old town & we drove through it first to the Beerenberg farm & factory. It is very spacious, warm, well laid out with a great history of the farm & the four generations of family that created Beerenberg. We sat down to some pies & hot drinks. After lunch we drove to our campsite & set our van up & Ron had an important phone conference.

Hans Heysen, the artist, lived at Hahndorf & we visited his house & art studio this afternoon. The house is furnished with all the original furniture & has a lot of his original art works. The studio also has a lot of original works on display & you can imagine him standing at the easel. Han’s daughter Nora was also a very accomplished artist, she was the first Australian female war artist & the first woman to win the Archibald Prize for art.  The Canberra War memorial has about 200 of her work.  Her studio is small & interesting with some very good works also on display. The guide that took us around the property was very informative & knowledgeable. The gardens are also laid out the same with the same plantings. It was an amazing experience, especially seeing we were at the Adelaide Art Gallery the day before & saw some of Hans Heysen’s art works on display there. Unfortunately no photos are allowed inside.

We left at closing time, not having time to do the nature walk in the rain & cold. Back to camp & dinner. Another great day.

30/5/2022 – Monday – ?km

It was very windy & very wet last night, the van was shaking most of the night. This morning we drove into Adelaide city again to have a look at the Art Gallery. The guide told us about the exhibition of Japanese ceramics & we went downstairs to look at that first, what a great exhibit, there are certainly some very talented Japanese potters. We spent a long time looking through the exhibit & being impressed by the quality of the exhibits on display & the techniques used.

There was another exhibit in the basement of contemporary artists & that was interesting, some was ordinary. Then we had a look at the Australian works on the main floor, some stunning iconic paintings by renowned artists such as Hans Heysen (local Hahndorf artist), Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and lots of others. Very good. Mixed with a few modern art.

Lunch was Bento boxes from the Cherry Blossom Japanese café, very tasty & filling before we walked a few blocks to visit some good friends we haven’t seen for a long time.  They down sized to a lovely   apartment in the city. They have great views from the 10^th floor to the Adelaide hills & over the nearby parks. We had scones with cream & jam plus coffee followed by some nice liquors. All too soon it was 5pm & time to go. Back at camp the wind started to pick up again & we look to be in for another very rocky night, it is already gusting to 40 knots. Another great day.

29/5/2022 – Sunday – ?km

Up early & walking through the gates of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens just after the gates opened at 9am, with a parking spot just next to a gate. The gardens are full of people walking dogs & we find out it is the million paws walk charity day, dogs everywhere.  The gardens are beautiful, well laid out & well maintained, it is a credit to all the gardeners working there. The different garden sections are very interesting & we are taken by some of the buildings, stunning in the sunshine today.

The first & most striking building we see is the Bicentennial Conservatory, a very large glass roofed wedge that houses the tropical rainforest plants with an elevated walkway through the canopy as well as a ground walkway. Outside of this on the pathway is a beautiful & interesting glass sculpture in a pool called “Cascade”, stunning in the different lights we saw it in during different parts of the morning.

The rainforest walk next to the building is full of very tall trees & beautiful, though a little cool first thing of the morning.  We soon warmed up when we went into the heated glasshouse pavilion that houses the giant Amazon waterlily from Guyana, such an amazing size. The main lake has a small flock of ibis tending to nests in a gum tree & next to that is an amazingly large conifer with branches drooping down into the water & beautiful autumn russet tones, it is picture perfect with the reflections off the water.

The Palm House is another beautiful glass pavilion with stunning blue coloured glass highlights. This has a cactus & succulent garden outside with more cactus inside, so many varieties & so many interesting shapes & sizes. We walk all the way around the many different sections & kept getting delighted with the new vistas we saw as a garden opened up or a path led us around a new corner. There was one spot we stopped that had a tree shivering in the sunlight as a gentle breeze caressed it & dropping masses of leaves & on the tree trunk a dappled silver & leaves a stunning silver yellow. It held us mesmerised, a magic moment.

The Santos Exhibition in the Museum of Economic Botany was very interesting showcasing some of the many uses plants have in the lives of everyone. The display was very well set out & labelled with a wide variety of plant seeds, barks, resins, leaves & their uses. The building the display is housed in has an elaborately beautiful ceiling as well. This museum is the only one outside Kew Gardens in London which Joseph Banks set up especially on his Australian botanical collection.

All too soon it was 11.30am & time to go, we are meeting some friends for lunch. As we drive out through the city we admire some of the many old buildings in the city as well as some of the new buildings, there are some clever architects in Adelaide. We meet our friends at 12.30pm at the Henley Beach Hotel & have a very nice lunch of squid, fish & chips plus a red wine and talk & talk, we have not seen Carol & Judy for so long.  Carol brought along a couple of her photo albums, we have so many happy memories to share & to catch up about the time since we last saw each other. All too soon we finish up at 4.30pm as a big storm is approaching & we all want to go before it hits. Just as we drive back into the campground the first spots of rain start to fall.   We only just managed to get the washing off & the door closed before the rain comes down. Another great day.

28/5/2022 – Saturday – 157km

Thankfully no rain this morning as we packed. Ardrossan is a nice little town & we could easily go back to it. Our first stop is Tiddy Widdy Beach (cute name), just north of Ardrossan & the site of a well for drinking water for Ardrossan when it was first settled. We join the highway north, the water of the gulf gets shallower & we can see the other shore easily. We turn into Port Clinton for a look, the tide is a long way out, the beach is very wide & the water is very shallow. This is a tired looking town with what looks like a lot of fishing shacks/retirement dwellings, though surprisingly it has a lot of houses in it. There is a seawall to stop the big tides flooding the low-lying streets.

The next place we drive through, Port Arthur, is no more than a name on the map, then we join the freeway to Adelaide, after some roadworks the road opens out to a good dual carriageway divided road & we follow this road all the way into Adelaide to about 5km from our destination at West Beach. During the last hour we have been driving through rain.  Luckily as we get closer to our destination the rain clears, we check in & manage to set up on a nice grassy block. Just as we finish setting up it starts raining again, lucky. Time for some lunch.

We decide it is time to wash so head over & get the only machine available, there are only three washing machines working out of a bank of eight machines, fairly poor. The ocean is very close so we go for a short walk to look at the beach then back to collect our washing & hang it out under the bed on our van. Next we go for a long walk along the West Beach promenade, looking at the beach. We look at the many varieties of houses (most of them very big) lining the street looking out to sea. Some of the houses are well designed & look good, others not so. The walk back is pleasant in the sunshine.  The weather is pleasant but we are wearing jumpers. We are amazed to see kids swimming in the pool (must be heated) & when they come out they look like little wet shags, shivering in the cold air.  A whole heap of kids are on the jumping pillow, it is nice to see them & hear their laughter.  This the first caravan park that we see children, makes us miss our grandkids even more.

Tereza makes a delicious steak dianne for dinner with vegies & a really nice sauce. Another great day.

27/5/2022 – Friday – ?km

The Ardrossan Museum is in the former power house for the C.H. Smith Plough Factory, the inventor & maker of the stump-jump plough, the invention that made farming the Yorke Peninsula possible. The museum has all the factory designs for all the farming equipment made there as well as examples of some of the farm machinery, very innovative. There is a whole host of various farm machinery on display, all in working order.

The museum has many items displaying the local history of the area, including exquisite wedding & christening gowns, crockery & all manner of household items. It is all very interesting. There is a display from the shipwreck “Zanoni”, lost in 1867, with the recovered ship’s bell & many other artefacts. Fortunately no lives were lost. The grounding of sperm whales nearby is also another interesting, though sad, exhibit.

We spent a few hours in the museum & when we came out it had just finished raining so down to the Ardrossan Bakery for coffee & some pastries, it is very good. Next was a walk around town, it is a very interesting town with a nice array of shops & we feel very comfortable looking at the old buildings & supporting the local hospital charity.

Down to the Ardrossan wharf for a walk out along it & again a chat to some of the fishermen. One had done well with some blue swimmer crabs & some squid, he was fairly happy with that. We saw a huge Pacific gull, it was a giant next to the normal silver gull. It had grabbed a large piece of bait from the water & was trying to swallow it whole. The public toilet at the wharf even had a nice sea-theme mural covering the walls.

We took a drive out of town to the dolomite mine & there is a lookout on top of the tailings heap with fabulous views up & down the coast. The mine is a huge tiered hole in the ground. A few photos then back to town & camp. Another great day.

26/5/2022 – Thursday – 86km

The Edithburg cemetery is on the way out of town with a view over the ocean. We stop & visit the graves of the sailors of the “Clan Ranald” lost when the ship sank off Troubridge Hill. There are 31 sailors buried in a mass grave (the largest in Australia) out the back of the cemetery. Five officers from the ship are buried next to each other in another section of the cemetery. It is very sad to see so many people taken by a single tragic event.

The road hugs the coast north & we pass through the small township of Coobowie, then the large group of grain silos & ground storage next to the jetty at Port Giles, with a ship anchored out waiting for the tide to rise so that they can come into port.

Wool Bay is only a little further north & we stop to have a look at a lime kiln built into the cliff looking over the Wool Bay wharf. Of course we take a walk out on the wharf & have a nice chat with a young couple with two children that recently bought a house & moved to this small town. The fishermen at the end of the wharf are not having a lot of luck, though the concrete is black from past squid captures. The production of lime was a big business for Wool Bay & the town was busy with six lime kilns in operation in the early 1900s. The wharf was one of the busiest on the Yorke Peninsula in its day. Now it is only used for recreation.

The next town of note is Stansbury with a mural painted water tower marking the entrance to town. Stansbury is a nice little town with some beautiful old stone buildings & a corner café in the main street covered in an amazing mural, the artists have done a fabulous job on it. We have a short drive around town admiring the scenery, ocean & murals before stopping for lunch looking over the water at the Dalrymple Hotel (this place has been recommended by several people at different camp sites as a great place to eat King George whiting fish).  The King George whiting plus salt & pepper squid were delicious.

After lunch we continued north stopping next at Port Vincent, driving the length of the waterfront along Marine Parade admiring the ocean views & some of the nice old stone houses. There were a lot of big modern house in this town. The caravan park here is right on the point with water on three sides, it looks to be very exposed when it gets windy.

Ardrossan is our next destination & we drive slowly through town admiring the old stone buildings then find the van park, book in then set up for a couple of nights. Only some fruit for dinner, we are still full from lunch.  Another great day.