On the road

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Yesterday was a good day!

The sinkholes, mountains and volcanoes did not disappoint. The cool thing about Australia (or at least South Australia) is that no one has ruined it. This is particularly noticable having just left Asia.

We took a walk around Blue lake in the morning and there was definitely no false advertising there, it was a blue lake. It was also quite big and very free.  After that we took a drive out to Mount Schank, parked up for some beans on toast and took a trek up the hill. This was also free and we were the only ones there. Mount Schank is a dormant volcano with a walkway around the top and it was stunning. In the future you may see a picture that looks like me having a wee in the volcano, I would like to clarify early on that this was not the case. We finished our Mount Gambier experience by visiting their famous sinkhole which was also beautiful. Back in the 1800s some guy brought some farmland, part of which had a giant hole in it so he decided to build a fairytale garden in the hole and had a little boat to sail from one part to another. Over the years it became just a hole again until the proud Australians decided to pitch in and re-create the Victorian garden. Also free. If any of these attractions were in Asia, they would have been turned into places of worship, littered them with Buddhas, charged you to get in and ruined the land around it.

Having stocked up on supplies earlier, we hit the Princes highway and crossed the South AustraliaVictoria border. After a good couple of hours driving we stopped at a rest area. Rachel was completely ready to leave the scary woods when we saw some other campers which made it all ok. Apparently it was then like being at a camp site.  The batery on our DVD player is not too good so to avoid disappointment later on we watched the first 30 minutes of a movie in the front of the van which is pretty much like being in your private (albeit slightly small) cinema.

The next morning was definately a highlight. We woke up and followed the standard transform and roll out drill. Being Rachels turn to drive she moved the van about 4 feet before the rear wheels found some mud. As she realised this she decided to put her foot down a bit.

After me asking her to stop and regroup for a second she did. I had no doubt that Rachel could get us out of the mud but being a man I felt compelled to give her some advice in how to do so 'rock it' I said and no sooner had I said it than Rachel had put her foot to the floor and sprayed some more mud 'no, ROCK IT' (at this point I think I did a rocking gesture with my hands and then my whole body) again, foot to the floor and more mud!

After some discussion it transpired that the message was slightly misinturpruted. What Rachel actually head was 'Rocket' thinking my advice was to turn our high top transit van into a rocket and just fly us out of the mud. In hindsight, the expression on her face now makes sense. It was an expression of determination and self belief. 'Be the rocket' she was telling herself.

At this pout we're in stitches when the friendly neighbours come to help. Led by grandad (a very regimental man) I took the drivers seat while the others went to the back to push. At which point we discovered that my ability to move the van slowly wasn't up to much either. Regardless of this we were out of the mud, we said our thank you's and were on our way. Just as I thought things couldn't get any better Rachel informed me that the youngest member of the family, a cute little girl had lost her footing and fallen in the mud. As this happened my lead weighted right foot had hit the floor and given her a nice mud topping. If only the start of every day could be that good!

It continued to be a good day. We arrived in Port Fairy and took a walk around Griffiths Island where we saw swamp wallabys and what I'm pretty sure was an Echidna. We also found a phone and put in the call to Qantas which we have been meaning to do for about 5 weeks to change our flights. It's times like this where having Humphrey with us really proves to be useful. Rachel had been standing in the cold on hold for ages so after retrieving Humpa's I hopped in the back and made us a nice warm brew.

We tried to see some whales earlier but they didn't want to play. The weather isn't all that either so we've checked into a camp site where we we plan to chill for the evening. 

We'll catch those pesky whales in the morning.

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