It’s good to be able to do an actual travel blog, maybe not involving international travel, but still we are out exploring!
Sunday 10 July 2022
We dropped Louis off at our dog sitter at 10 am and head down the coast via the Coorong.
It was a really easy drive. We stopped off in Kingston SE for a bit of a break on the way and got to Mount Gambier around 3:30pm. We called into the Blue Lake on our way in and had a look around it for a short while. The weather isn’t going to be all that good while we are here so we wanted to make the most of the sunshine we had.
Our Airbnb is a cottage set on a few acres on the edge of town (5 min drive to cbd) It’s very comfortable, nice kitchen lounge log fire and comfy bed.
We had a late night, we stayed up to watch Nick Kyrgios play in the Wimbledon Men’s Final against Novak Djokovic. He lost in 4 sets 4-6 6-3 6-4 7-6(7-3). Beat himself rather than Djokovic winning. Djokovic was steady right through, where Nick was his normal erratic self after the 1st set.
Monday 11 July 2022
We had a bit of a sleep in and a lazy start to the day before we headed out to have a look at the Umpherston Sinkhole. The sinkhole was formed when the roof of a large limestone cave collapsed, leaving a large circular crater. It is about 50m in diameter and about 20m deep. It now has a lush garden in it and has a colony of resident possums. A great free attraction everyone should see.
From there we drove to Port MacDonnell, Australia’s Rock Lobster capital, as it promotes itself. Unfortunately it isn’t cray/lobster season. It’s a typical small fishing village with a large breakwater. We took a drive along the coast and reached a point with a monument marking South Australia’s southern most point, which was also the eastern end of the Great Australian Bight. We have now been to both ends of the Bight (Albany WA is the other end).
We had lunch there and then drove back to Mount Gambier. Coming back the very flat plains made the areas volcanic history very easy to see, with old Volcanoes scattered around the plains.
We scoped out the town on our way back, found the venue for granddaughter’s Dance Competition (did I mention the impetus for this trip was our youngest granddaughters entry in a dance competition down here. 😊 ), the local picture theatre and the shops.
We spent the rest of the day at our bnb, just as well as the rain was heavy during the afternoon.
Tuesday 12 July 2022
Sad news this morning, our youngest granddaughter, has come down with Covid-19. And so, she and her mum and dad won’t be coming down here. We are sad for her, she was so looking forward to the competition here. But we wish her well and hope she avoids any nasty symptoms.
We spent the morning down in Nelson, a small fishing village just over the Victoria border on the Glenelg River. In the middle of winter it was very quiet, but in summer it is bustling town with holidaymakers enjoying the river, fishing and the beaches. We spent some time by the river, enjoying the views and peace. There was a beautiful stark white egret sitting on top a wooden pile by the jetty.
We took a drive down to the foreshore and walked to Ocean Beach. It’s a beautiful long beach open to the Southern Ocean. The seas were very quiet today but there was still a good looking small surf rolling in. The smell of the ocean is amazing. Wh then drove around to Estuary Beach, where the river meets the ocean, a beautiful peaceful area where you can look out to sea and up the river.
It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours, just 30 mins drive south of Mount Gambier. We had wanted to come down here for a long time and it lived up to all our/my expectations.
We had a quiet afternoon relaxing by the wood fire at the bnb.
Wednesday 13 July 2022
We had a quiet day today, all this relaxing is getting to us!! Lol
We went to the cinema this afternoon and saw Elvis, the Baz Lehrman production. Deb found it distressing, a very black movie about how Elvis was basically apparently abused by his Manager, Colonel Parker. I was expecting much more from the film, it never celebrated his music in any real form.
After that we went back to our bnb to relax a bit more.
Thursday 14th July 2022
Happy Bastille Day
Today we took a drive up into the Coonawarra, about a 30 min drive north of Mount Gambier. We went to Patricks of the Coonawarra, a vineyard we spent an obscene amount at last time we went through here. We were much more restrained this time. Maybe the wines weren’t up to the memory, but we still left with a few bottles.
From there we went back into Penola, it’s a small village sort of central to the Coonawarra region and has ties to Australia’s only Catholic Saint, Mary MacKillop. It’s an interesting little town, as are most in country Australia. We tried looking into an old church but it was shut.
After a stroll around town we headed back to the bnb.
We decided that we would leave tomorrow, we had seen all we wanted to see and it would make our life a little less chaotic when we got home.
Friday 15th July 2022
We got away around 8:30am and went to Robe (a bit of Ingress to be done) and went to the lookout. It gave a good view over the district, but no view of the waterfront areas. We then drove down to the Obelisk (more Ingress) and then drove to Cape Jaffa, to see Deb’s brother J and his partner S. They are farm sitting for 12 months. It’s a mixed activity farm , normally with cattle, sheep and formally almonds. But the owners have sold off the cattle while sailing the east coast of Australia and let the almond groves go, so most of the work J and S need to do is move the sheep around into different paddocks and look after the chickens, duck and dog. They both looked really well. After a cup of coffee/tea and freshly cooked fruit cake (thanks J it was delicious) we had a tour of the farm, which was really interesting. The property was fairly large a few hundred hectares at least.
We eventually left J & S and headed home. Walking in the door around about 4 pm. We had a great, relaxing time away and both agreed we need to do it more! (We picked Louis up on Saturday, no we hadn’t forgotten him!)
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