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Published: January 25th 2011
Salt pan lake
The only pink one we saw, near Robe.Jan 14-17 Adelaide, South Australia
One thing I can say for sure about this country is that it has some very pretty cities, and Adelaide is another one. We are staying at the youth hostel here and as always, it is in a great location. We have spent a day and a half wandering around the city looking at old, stylish, sandstone buildings. There is also a walking mall through the main section of town where we spent quite a bit of time window shopping. While walking around town we also saw lots of cyclist who were training for a big professional race (the Down Under)which is scheduled to start on the day we leave. One of the cyclist is Lance Armstrong but if we saw him, we didn’t know it.
Then on Sunday we hoped on the tram and went out to Glenelg which is the original settlement in this part of Australia. It also has a very nice beach and boardwalk with stores and restaurants. I know I shouldn’t compare things, but those beaches in Western Australia are hard to beat. SW Australia has those long, clean, white beaches whereas this one is the darker sand and not
as long. It is also very crowded, but it was still a nice place to spend the day. Unfortunately the wind was up so we didn’t go swimming, just wandered and ate. We had fish and chip…the fish here is shark…I do prefer our halib
Adelaide was also a crises point for both of us on this trip; actually the first one we’ve had. Australia is expensive and takes a lot more planning to get around as it is a long ways between points. The conversation turned to heading early to New Zealand and even to home. (yup, we had a melt down). Anyways, it didn’t take us long to realize what a good thing we have going for us right now and we got things sorted out. We have rented another car ( a Toyota Yaris) and are heading around South Australia and New South Wales, along the coast road. We had wanted to head in land but because of the flooding this is a better route. After we get to Newcastle we are thinking on flying up to Cairns and spending a few weeks there.
We are currently sitting in small motel in Meningie, Meningie
Near Robe
Limestone cliffs is a small place with only one café open so dinner tonight is TV dinners. (we have finally succumbed to such a meal)
Tomorrow we are heading down the coast to Robe and hopefully missing all the floods.
Jan 18-20 Robe
What a pretty little town this is. It is the second(?) settlement in SA and still has many of its original buildings all of which are still in use. Our hostel is called the Lakeside Manor and is exactly that. It is a manor built over 150 years ago, between two small lakes. With a little TLC this could be an amazing place. It has the 18” thick brick walls, 4 metre high ceilings, large bay windows, 1.5” hardwood flooring, in short, everything one would expect from such a place. It is 75 squares (?) in size and as long as 2 cricket fields (however long that is). Unfortunately it has been allowed to get run down and not much effort is being put into keeping it up. If you are interested in buying it, it is on the market for 1.5 million dollars.
Robe is also surrounded by more sandy beaches which are framed with
impressive limestone cliffs. That is why this area is called the Limestone Coast. After spending yesterday exploring the town and wandering the beaches, our plan for today is to drive up to one of the natural parks in the area.
I should also mention that while driving here we had our first close encounter with kangaroos. We now understand why we have seen so many dead ones along the road and no live ones up to now. ( 10 dead, 2 live) They tend to hop out of the bushes right onto the road, stop, stare, and then go in every direction imaginable. Thank goodness for good brakes.
We took one day while here and drove the 100km up to Naracoorte Caves National Park. This place has a maze of beautiful wet caves which we, of course, had to explore. I thought we would get tired of caves but everyone is so different from the next that we can’t resist. One of the caves is a bat cave that we viewed from video cameras mounted throughout the cave. No, we did not enter this one. What we couldn’t stay to watch was the evening exit of these 3000
of so bats. Driving at dusk and at night is a bit risky in these parts because of kangaroos and wombats.
Jan 21-23 Mount Gambier
The Australians speak with a ‘lazy tongue’ so this place is pronounced Moun Gammea. We are learning.
This is another pretty place along the southern part of Australia. It is actually built along the cone of an old volcano which is what makes it so attractive. There are several lakes created by the cone; one of them is Blue Lake which has strikingly blue water. Apparently it changes to this colour overnight in November, and then in April it starts to change back to a blue grey colour. Just one of the mysteries of the area.
We spent a couple of days here, the first one exploring the area and the second one was our ‘day off.’ We need those every once in a while. Plus it was Sunday and as with most of these Australian towns, they rolled up the carpet at about 5 pm on Saturday and keep it up. Darrel likes this place though because the number one pass time seems to be cruising up and down the main drag
in some pretty nice cars.
Now we are on our way back to Naracoorte to see the bats.
Naracoorte Caves National Park
Bat, bats, bats, who would ever believe they are so cute. They have a fur on them that if they had been bigger, the fur trade would have wiped them out. We spent the evening watching these little wonders. We started by watching them on the video monitors again, this time as they were in the process of waking up. Then we wandered through the Blanche Cave which is their winter cave. While in there we saw a number of them whizzing in through the cave entrance so we hurried back to the main bat cave where we stood right at the cave’s mouth. It was pretty dark by this time but we could see them because of a spot light and could hear them as they dove, swirled, and sped past our heads. At times it felt like they barely missed us as they flew by at about 50 km/hour.
A totally fascinating experience.
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thunder
gloria chaulk
Thinking of you both, take care Gloria & Terry.