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The Blue (ish) Lake
a grey cloudy day didn't show it at its best We have had a good week getting here. After leaving Canberra, we drove to Wagga Wagga and then across some rather remote and boring countryside of ploughed paddocks, wheat stubble and no sign of life until we finally came to the pretty town of Tocumwal and the Murray River.
The countryside was much more interesting once we crossed the river into Victoria. We had a look around favourite shops at Echuca and on then once to to Daylesford. Though it was cool there, it's always a nice area to visit - my favourite as always being Kyneton where I haunted the knitting shop and a couple of very nice gift shops. We had a couple of nights in the caravan park at Daylesford and drove around all the pretty little towns in the vicinity.
We'd heard there was a front coming from Adelaide which we were watching closely. We had heavy rain at night and, on leaving Daylesford, we decided we'd head west to Hamilton, and so missed the worst of the weather but did get some strong winds as we drove.
We've had days of beautiful countryside. Hamilton calls itself the Wool Capital of Australia - there
are many sheep and new lambs in the green grassed paddocks in the area. The rugged Grampians were in view beyond the flat paddocks. We had a night at Hamilton and then drove towards the South Australian border. Other times we've come here, the fruit fly inspectors have made sure we weren't taking fresh fruit and vegetables into South Australia. This time we were ready, par cooking vegetables and eating those we couldn't cook, squeezing lemons and lamenting that our honey would be taken from us. However, not a sign of an inspector once we crossed the border !! On arriving at Mount Gambier, the first stop Woollies to buy some fresh fruit and vegies!
It's interesting how the architecture changes from state to state and it's always nice to see the stone buildings popular in South Australia. Mount Gambier has an old extinct volcano and beautiful blue crater lakes. There are also several sink holes, which they call caves - tours can be made into them. One sink hole has been made into a lovely garden. We toured the lakes and drove to the Mt Shank volcano but couldn't drive to the top - it had instead a
Another mural
showing the coast and lighthouse and wool bales being transported on a dray. steep mountain path to the top, not good for a lady getting over a broken ankle. Several young people had been camping overnight in little tents in the cold, at the bottom of the volcano, which made us feel we weren't really roughing it when we had a fit when our heater gave out this morning and we had to search Mt. Gambier for another small motor home sized one before once more hitting the road.
We drove from Mt. Gambier to Port McDonnell, the Limestone Coast and the Great Southern Ocean, which looked rather forbidding on a greyish almost winter's day. There were several murals on buildings showing life as previously lived in Port McDonnell, once a busy port for shipping wool. We found that the poet, Adam Lindsay Gordon, had lived in the town and visited his home, called of all things Dingley Dell. He is the only Australian poet with a bust in Westminster Abbey and known for his
'Life is merely froth and bubble, two things stand like stone, Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own'.
We drove back to Mt Gambier and then north to Penola for a little
stop and a walk through an antique shop and a cellar door and then to Coonawarra - a well known wine area, before heading to Robe.
And it is here we'll stay for a couple of days.
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