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Published: January 18th 2010
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Training for the Tour Down Under
We passed this group on our way to Victor Harbour Day 262 - Storm Boy
We wake up to find that Jackson is in bed asleep with his grandpa and that Donna is catching some zzzz’s in the other room. Bless, we should have taken a photo of Brian with Jackson, it was just gorgeous.
Thankfully Jackson wakes up feeling a little better than he did yesterday, he’s not quite so hot and Darryl manages to make him laugh a little bit so he’s on his way back to his normal self. Donna thinks she might take him to the family doctor here before flying home to Sydney and husband Ross just to make sure it’s nothing more than the effects of teething. You just can’t tell can you so there’s no point taking chances with little ones.
We bid everyone a very fond farewell this morning, we’ve loved spending time with the Hardy’s over the past couple of days and it really does feel like we’ve known them forever which is just great. Who knows, maybe we are in fact related … we could be, Maggie’s maiden name was Howells!!! There’s something to research when we get home!
With Victor Harbour calling we set off through
the outskirts of the MaClaren Vale vineyards where we thought about searching out the ‘clean skins’ the Hardy’s had told us about. These are bottles of wine which aren’t quite perfect but still good enough for sale, the companies just don’t put their branded labels on them and they sell for about $8 a bottle. Trouble was we were going past too early in the day for anything to be open so we gave it a miss.
Victor Harbour was interesting. We enjoyed a good wander across the jetty to Granite Island which is home to lots of Little Penguins. We assume you need to be here at dusk to see them, there certainly weren’t any scurrying around the island whilst we were there! You can either walk across to Granite Island or catch the horse drawn double decker tram which looked great fun. The beautiful horses do 5 trips a day so they’re not worked too hard!! The scenery here is terrific with a fantastic looking coast line although it’s still the southern ocean so probably a bit iffy for swimming and of course there are the dreaded jelly fish in the waters, we could see them from
the jetty. Shudder. We followed the Kaiki Walk around the island which takes in several lookouts along the way but all too soon we found ourselves back in the car park, the walk really doesn't take long.
I got lunch ready in the caravan but we had to rush off as people were starting to park around us which meant we were slowly but surely being blocked in! There were plenty of free spaces elsewhere and we’d parked the furthest away from the touristy places but hey, it’s our problem and why should anyone else consider our manoeuvrability issues! Being the expert driver that he is, Mr Howells has no trouble freeing us from our confinement and we’re back on the road, this time towards the Coorong.
Ahhhh, the Coorong. I remember this place from my childhood as it is where the book and subsequent film Storm Boy was based. There are a few camp spots listed in the book but I’d had it in my mind to stay at Long Point for quite some time. No idea why, it just seemed to appeal. We stopped off in the information centre in Menigie, I found a newspaper there
which helpfully detailed the whole of the Coorong and Long Point was quite centrally placed with good scenic offerings.
There were 4km’s of dirt road to navigate and of course when we say dirt road we mean corrugation. They weren’t too bad and it wasn’t continuous so we hoped the caravan would be in one piece by the other end and it was! The paper had suggested that you needed to camp within the camping bays but we couldn’t find anything that vaguely resembled ‘bays’! We were all alone, even the beach shacks were all closed up and the tide was just lapping quietly at the shore line. We parked the caravan on a grassy mound just next to the beach and spent a very relaxed afternoon just gazing out at the haunting scenery around us. There were pelicans a little way off and plenty of sea birds flying around, it must be a good fishing time!
What a beautiful outlook we had and we didn’t even have to share.
Mr Howells was back on cooking duty, noodles and spicy sausage - just awesome. A quick game of Rummikub and a couple of blog updates then it
was time for bed. Should we sleep on the beach? We could have and we probably will before the trip is over but for tonight the comfort of the bed was just right.
Dar and Sar
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Jan Kettle
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Victor Harbour
Victor Harbour is a lovely place but we have a special memory of being on the horse drawn carriage in the pouring rain with it blowing a gale! xxx Mum K