Blogs from Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Today we have heard that there are whales off Bascham Beach at Middleton, just a few Klm's out of V.H. so there was no question as to where we were off to first today ! and yes, they were there ! After an hour of watching them, 4 in total that we could tell, a mother and calf and two others, 500 plus photos of flipper slapping and some tail flute flapping we felt that not much else was going to occur so moved on to continue our day, but what a great experience to see them. Coffee was in Port Elliott a great town that was once destined to be the port from which all the rich agricultural produce shipped down the Murray on paddle steamers would be shipped out to the rest of Australia ... read more

OK, OK, we know we have not loaded any photos yet but we are still trying to catch up! Having Faye and Neil with us has impacted our ability to do this blog 'real' justice..just having way too much fun I guess ! If I can at least give you some info the pics will follow. Our first day we took a trip down to Cape Jervis via Waitpinga. Fantastic rolling coutryside, looking brilliant in an amazing season. Cape Jervis is the ferry terminal to go over to Kangaroo Island. We worked out for the 45 min trip for our vehicle and the Trakkie it would cost about $480 ...one way ! would love to go there one day, but that will have to be a dedicated trip. Cape Jervis is a small fisho spot, not ... read more

In January 2011 we went on our annual summer holiday, which was Flerieu Peninsula this year. We went to the Barossa Valley the year before which was beautiful, so decided on Flerieu Peninsula for this year. We were anticipating a holidays full of wine tasting, food tasting and gorgeous beaches and markets. We did lots of winery tours, my favourite being Dog Ridge. We went to see many of the spots where 'The Boys are Back' was filmed (an Australian film starring Clove Owen). Highlights included: - Dog Ridge Winery(where the house in 'The Boys are Back' was filmed) -Book market at Myponga (many classic books were purchased!) -Fruchoc factory (mmmmm) -Aldinga Beach -Victor Harbour -Mount Compass Cheese Factory -Chapel Hill Winery -Jacobs Creek Winery -Shopping in Victor Harbour -Camel ride at the beach at Victor ... read more

Something that has amused me whilst we’ve been in Oz is the form of greeting. We had been expecting ‘G’day’, which we’ve barely heard (although to my embarrassment, I’ve used it a couple of times!) Instead, the greeting is more in a form of asking how you are - anywhere from chirpy ‘Hello, how are you today?’ (normally from someone hoping to make a sale), through to the more gruff ‘How’re ya going?’, and anywhere in between. What I’ve come to realise is that they don’t really want to know. I think I first realised this when I started giving some poor checkout girl an overview of my day, you should have seen her panic ridden face as I gave her the litany of John trying to get the van into reverse. I buttonholed the artist ... read more

After leaving the majestic Grampians we made our way back to the coast, our first port of call being Mount Gambier. After two beautiful sunny days in the Grampians NP, we were not expecting the nice weather to last and we were not disappointed! Driving through hail to get there it continued to rain for pretty much the next week with only a few brief sunny periods. Mount Gambier appears to be famous for its limestone caves, “blue” lakes and the youngest volcanoes in Australia. We camped next to Mount Schank (one of the volcano craters) and took a drive down to Port MacDonnell to see the southern end of the Limestone coast. Despite being absolutely freezing and then subsequently rained on (resulting in us retreating to the pub!), this little town offered an astounding rugged ... read more