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Published: February 8th 2011
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When we woke up on Thursday, 3rd February we dreaded what sort of news we might hear. During the night Cyclone Yasi had slammed into the north Queensland coast at Mission Beach and Tully all but destroying these small towns. All along the coast from Townsville up to Cairns it had caused widespread devastation. It is an area prone to getting cyclones but how do you prepare for a category 5 cyclone? We hope that the brave people of Queensland don’t have to deal with any more natural disasters for a long time.
Today we said goodbye to Robe and made our way towards a place called Meningie. People had told us that there was not a lot to Meningie but it was ideally placed along our route towards Adelaide, the journey was well under 200kms and it had a Top Tourist Caravan Park. We stopped en route at Kingston and had our usual coffee break. Kingston was another small delightful coastal town with a reputation of being ‘the lobster capital of Australia’, hence the ‘Big Lobster’ on display at the edge of town. The weather continued to be good making it an ideal stopping place. But we meandered on
to Meningie and our first impressions confirmed what we had been told. It was quite small, just a few small shops, easy to pass through on your way to somewhere else. But when we reached the caravan park we were more than delighted that we had chosen to stay. The park was right on the shores of Lake Albert which happened to be full because of the heavy inflow of water from its source – The Murray River. We asked for a waterside site and were given the prime spot on the park. We couldn’t believe our luck – a huge site with uninterrupted views across the lake and at a very reasonable daily fee. The facilities on the park were immaculate and very handy to our site. The proprietors were most welcoming and, everything considered, it’s possibly the best deal we’ve had from a caravan park in the whole of our travels so far.
Once we were set up we thought we ought to do something energetic so we cycled into Meningie. The information centre was a “help yourself” one and was in with a local craft centre so I enjoyed wandering around. There were all sorts of
things on show, all lovingly made by local people. I bought a couple of little things but couldn’t take the large pot of honey I wanted because we didn’t have a rucksack with us. While we were there we had a ‘help yourself’ cup of tea and a few biscuits. We cycled on to the yacht club and watched a lad doing somersaults off the jetty into the lake.
Friday – yes, it’s definitely Friday. This morning we were so relaxed that neither of us could remember what day it was – maybe we’re just getting used to this lifestyle or is it that we are just getting older! Early in the morning there was a haze over the lake and I could hardly make out where the lake ended and the sky began. Later on we went for a stroll and just outside the caravan park is what was once a cheese factory but is now a museum and a restaurant – perfect! We had a lovely lunch there admiring the remnants and photos from the old factory at the same time. We decided to stay an extra day and while we were in the office sorting it
No beginning and no end
Where does Lake Albert end? out the site owner lent us one of their information books that they’d made up – it had loads of information in it about the local area. We went for another cycle in the afternoon, this time going away from the town alongside the lake. We spent a long time chatting to the couple opposite us – they had also decided to stay a few days longer than they originally planned because it was so relaxing. Without doing very much we’d had a very pleasant day!
On Saturday we heard about some terrible weather in Melbourne - high winds and floods. A tree had come down in the caravan park where we had stayed and badly injured two English tourists – we hoped they would make a speedy recovery.
Here today it was windy and cloudy but we had already decided to drive around the lake so armed with a picnic we drove off in an anti-clockwise direction passing a lake known as The Pink Lake. We turned off the main road and after about 20kms came to the point where Lakes Albert and Alexandrina meet. There’s a small channel of about 100 metres called ‘The Narrows’ where
a free 24-hour cable ferry runs. So we went over on the ferry and stopped on the other side for a while. From there we could see Point Malcolm Lighthouse – the only inland lighthouse in Australia. It was built in 1878 to help the ships that passed through the lakes on their way to River Murray ports but it was turned off in 1931 due to a decline in river traffic. We drove on through the village of Nerrung to the small Aboriginal Community of Raukkan which is the birthplace of Aboriginal author, inventor and political leader David Unaipon and home to Raukkan Church - both of which appear on the Australian $50 note.
The community’s name means 'meeting place' in the Ngarrindjeri language. For thousands of years Ngarrindjeri clans have met on the banks of Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the Murray River, to discuss important issues.
On the journey back towards Meningie we attempted a couple of diversions, to Pelican Point and Long Point, but the gravel roads were in such a poor state with severe corrugations that, with still 7 months of our trip to go, we valued the car (and our teeth!!) too
much to risk it. We popped into town to get the honey and as we were there got fish and chips! Sadly by then it had started to rain and it continued on and off for the rest of the day but we relaxed under cover of our awning and caught up with some reading. One interesting fact is that lakes Alexandrina and Albert together host the longest fresh water yacht race in the southern hemisphere going from Goolwa to Meningie.
We were tempted to book yet another day but in the end decided to move on and explore some of the delights of the Fleurieu Peninsula.
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