Limestone Coast

I had a very slow start to the day. I got myself organised and then decided that I'd do some washing before I left. I also wanted to have coffee with Gaye and Evelyn so I decided to combine the two. I had a coffee while my clothes washed, then I had another while my clothes dried. The ladies are sisters-in-law, having coffee with strangers while their husbands fished.

Some of this trip was backtracking from the previous week when I was anxious to avoid the heat and settled instead for cold, wet and windy! I stopped first at Millicent - lots of very old buildings and a very modern looking Catholic church, with the photo of Mary MacKillop which I have come to expect in this corner of Australia.

When I'd driven through before, I noticed signs to the Tantanoola caves and was pleased to find them only a hundred metres from the road and almost flat and easy to get around. (I had booked later for the Engelbrecht caves in Mt Gambier thinking that I could probably manage the 147 steps down - but changing my mind later when I considered that I may be feeling fit now but if I can't drive for a week afterwards it may not be a good idea.)

I booked into the Central Caravan Park which was the same price as the 'cheap' parking at the showgrounds - and had hot showers etc. Right in the middle of town is a sunken garden and cave. I had been there during the day but wanted to see the sound and light show of the local indigenous history on the cave wall at night. So I rugged up, tracksuit, coat, hat and gloves and strode off up the street.  There were about 50 people there for the light show so obviously a lot of tourists in town for the school holidays.

Mt Gambier

Mt Gambier is the second largest town in South Australia but it is not what you'd expect of a largish city. The whole area is built on limestone caves and even in the middle of town are sinkholes and sunken gardens and limestone caves.

Only about a kilometre from the city centre are crater lakes. The smaller one shown gives an idea of the size of the whole crater as the photo is taken from a lookout at the top. It probably filled the crater at some time. The larger is the Blue Lake which is a brilliant blue from about November to March then reverts to normal wintery looking grey as the weather changes. It is supposed to be past its best now but the photos I took are fairly impressive.  Half an hour from town is the Small Blue Lake which is actually polluted with blue-green algae and is almost green in colour. It is about a tenth the size of the Blue Lake but is perfectly round and gives an idea of the geological history of the area. It may be a sinkhole rather than a crater lake.

Back in town, I visited the Umpherston Sinkhole garden. About a century ago, the original owner built walkways and terraces and gardens to provide an oasis on his property. At the time, the water table was higher and half of the base was a lake with a boat. Not any more, but it is still a very attractive area, set in a large shady park and administered by the city. At night they are floodlit.



The view from the end of the jetty
 may be unchanged
from Mary MacKillop's time

I took a drive to Port MacDonnell, checking out the jetty where Mary MacKillop set off for Adelaide to set up schools there. If you are looking for a MM relic, this may be the place to go. I am sure the jetty hasn't been replaced or repaired in all that time. The boards are worn and unevenly spaced and railway tracks run down the middle. Photos of women on the jetty about 150 years ago, show not much has changed. This is the centre of the lobster fishing area of SA and I had hoped to shout myself to a lobster tail or a lobster entree at a hotel or cafe. At $65 a serve, I discovered that I have as much Scottish heritage as Irish and contented myself with garlic prawns for lunch.


I almost detoured on the way back to town to see Adam Lindsay Gordon's cottage but changed my mind. Those heritage cottages are like the Spanish identical twins - seen Juan, seen Imal!

Easter Blows In

There is a kind of concentration camp mentality obvious around me. You know how it is. When people have been through shared experiences, there is a certain connection. That's what I am seeing around me.

I had intended to stop in Mt Gambier for a few days but the weather was so hot that I decided to head for the coast instead. In retrospect, that may not have been the best move. I got as far as Southend and settled in for a few nights - and so did the weather.

Eve held the wool for my knitting

Josh, Eve and Isla made sure
the Easter Bunny came to me

When I set up on Thursday, it was lovely - light sea breezes and clear skies. On Good Friday, the weather turned wild with 45 knot winds. I had stopped in the waterside camping area attached to the Southend on Sea caravan park, only $8 a night plus a cost for showers. Most of the area was settled by families there for the four days of Easter, many in tents of all sorts and sizes. Even those in motorhomes or caravans battened down and closed up everything as sand swirled around the camp and tents came adrift.  There were two groups fairly close to each other in the same type of tent. Both had broken poles and one had a torn tent and went home, The other family rescued the extra poles from the bin, combining all the poles to reset their tent.

Most who were here for the weekend, left early Monday (today), even those who had planned to stay for part of the school holidays. There were three families near me who left early. They had been very helpful when I needed to fold my awning away in the wind, especially Paul. Think of my brother Frank ten years ago. Add another five or six inches in height, ginger beard to his chest, dreadlocks to his waist - very useful to have when muscles were needed. Interestingly enough, he is a secondary school teacher - and probably has great credibility with the kids, though not sure about the administrators of the school! His kids, Isla and Josh, together with Eve from another tent, adopted me a bit and made sure that the Easter Bunny left me some eggs.

A group of eight vans is due to set up near me today, with one arriving so far. Apparently they all come here every year for a week. They plan for a camp fire later and I'll zip over for a while tonight. I've just had two ladies from the caravan park over for a cup of tea. They are here with their husbands, who are brothers, for five weeks. They suggested I visit them later today but I said I'd call for a coffee before I leave tomorrow.

I took my awning down this morning as it is getting windy again. Now that I have no attachments, I can move the van if I want to but I think I probably have the most protected spot. Because I hadn't booked, I got squashed in at the end of the grounds with fairly thick, low lying bushes on two sides, bushy dunes on another and caravans on the fourth side. 

After  rolling up the awning on Friday night, I made the most of Saturday and spent the day exploring close by. There was a market at Beachport, where I bought two delicious pork sausages (yes, I do cook occasionally) and tomatoes and cheese for my afternoon biscuits. The town was crowded for the markets but further afield the traffic was almost non-existent.  I went to the Pool of Siloam (not the one in the bible!) which is supposed to be seven times saltier than the sea. It was too cold for anyone to be swimming so I couldn't see how buoyant swimmers would be.

Pool of Siloam
Beachport, not Galilee

Jetty once 1200m, now 700m long

I have never seen this sign before

Robe was just a bit further on so I kept driving. It is a pretty little town and was absolutely packed. One of the shop keepers told me that Easter is their absolute most busy time. There was a real holiday atmosphere and the town was busy and bustling.  I went to St Mary Star of the Sea church which was commissioned by Julian Tenison Woods and included a school taught by the Sisters of St Joseph. Mary MacKillop was a regular visitor here. The church is not in regular use and had a sign for a mass on Sunday and asking people to brings chairs or rugs to sit on. I assume there are no pews, but the church was locked and I couldn't check for myself. I'll add a couple of photos to the Mary MacKillop blog, and more during the week when I go to Mt Gambier and Penola.

I enjoy writing these blogs but find the photos very frustrating as they are almost impossible to position and I have to go with what the program decides is the placement. So the layout is not what I want. I hope when it comes to printing the book at the end, that there is the opportunity to reposition photos. I will be upset if my final result is all higgeldy-piggeldy!

People of the Journey - Victoria

Clement at Aire River Camp

My trip across Victoria was fairly quick and I didn’t make much contact with people. Aire River campground reminded me of how we are creatures of habit.  When I arrived Robin had set himself up on a high flat corner of the grounds.  Tanya and Phil were tucked away in one corner with the tent out of sight behind the truck – which they proceeded to do at the next camping area. As usual, I circled the place a couple of times looking for a shady, grassy, flat spot. You can’t adjust a car the way you can level a caravan or motorhome. If I’m not flat, I fall out of bed. There is about half a square metre of floor space between the bed and the door, that is a very awkward predicament to be in. Far better to find the right spot in the first place. Clement eventually cycled in and we talked for quite a while in the evening and again next morning.

There was a very popular spot at Dartmoor, When I arrived Marty and Liz were on the best high level ground. When they left, Max and Nadine moved from the gully to their spot. They were followed by Lynda. Lynda is on the road almost permanently - eighteen months already this trip. She has quite a large motorhome with a motor bike on the back. Not only in Australia, she has camped in Asia and South America and seems to have seen large amounts of the world, including long term teaching in Laos where she is headed again at the end of the year. (Lynda is Nomadic1 on the Grey Nomads Forum)

Marty and Liz and Bonnie
Dartmoor

Max and Nadine from Germany
with their first ever campfire

Liz suggested that I should go to a sex shop and get a blow-up doll for my passenger seat to give the impression of not travelling alone. I'm not sure about the message that would give.

Doona Days in Dartmoor

At Wannan Falls a couple of days ago, I met Kim and Germaine. They run a caravan park at Falls Creek and are on a busman's holiday, caravanning and camping for a few days. They suggested a stop at Dartmoor - and here I am. The town is quite small but provides a large camping area beside the creek. There were probably a dozen rigs here last night and they are starting to roll in again for tonight. I wandered up to the town today and had a coffee (surprise!) and a toasted sandwich. I haven't bought bread since I left home and appreciate a sandwich from time to time.

Like the memorial sculptures I saw in Tasmania, the town has a series of sculptures, carved from trees planted as a memorial after World War 1. As the trees became dangerous and likely to fall or break, an avenue was carved depicting images of the great war - soldiers, a nurse, a weeping mother, a group of young men - not really old enough but going to war anyhow, a sentinel gun for those who didn't return. These were all carved with chainsaws - perhaps by the same sculptor who did those in Legerwood, Tas.

  Down the road at the Village Green, another tree has been carved in the kids' playground with an assortment of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters.

 It is so very quiet and peaceful here that I have set up both my awnings, side and back, and settled in for a couple of Doona Days. I have just finished a Barbara Taylor Bradford book that has taken me more than a week. Last night I sat around a campfire with Liz and Marty and their dog Bonnie. Liz gave me a book called 'The Inconvenient Child' by Sharyn Killens and Lindsay Lewis. It is the true story of the abandoned child of an Australian girl and a black African American marine and her quest to find her American family. I have just started it and am totally enthralled. If I spend another day here lazing around, I will finish it tomorrow. I might sit and knit for a bit as well.

In the Footsteps of Mary MacKillop

Bayview College Portland which Mary rented
 as a school and boarding school
and where she trained as a teacher

Mary was sacristan at
All Saints Church
in Portland

Stained glass window of
All Saints Church Portland

Christ Church, Hamilton

Christ Church, Hamilton

St Mary icon Christ Church
Anglican church, Hamilton

Tribute to Mary and Alexander MacKillop

Window in St Mary's church, Hamilton
commenorates her time there as part
of that Catholic community

The modern extension of St Mary's

Star of the Sea, Robe

The view from the jetty may be
largely unchanged since
Mary MacKillop's time

Port MacDonnell Jetty

An Exuberant Mary, Penola

Sculpture in the MM
Interpretive Centre, Penola

Father Woods Tree outside Penola

Tree Sculpture Fr Woods Park

Some of the sculptures
telling the Father Woods story



This life size sculpture of a young Mary and her pupils
is outside the Adelaide cathedral. I understand it is to
be done as a smaller model. It is one of the nicest I have seen,
 brimming with energy and joy.

 

Once a Yolly Yambuk

A few days ago - the days run into each other when you don't use a watch or a calendar - I spent the day in Warrnambool and took a tour. Well, it was actually a private introduction to the city as there wasn't a tour going but Bob took me anyhow. It is always great to see a place through the eyes of an insider and Bob gave me a great overview of the city. (If you are there, go to the Information Centre and book one of his tours. It is well worth it.) Bob is retired principal of the high school, so we also talked a bit about our working lives.

He recommended a few days in the area and suggested the Yambuk caravan park where I have stayed for the past three days. It is a lovely quiet spot - or it was till the school holidays started yesterday! The park is on a lake, quiet and serene. Over the sandhills is the ocean and it is quite disorienting to look at the still  lake and hear pounding waves at the same time. (And yes, I know it was the jolly swagman who camped by the billabong. I have since met Jos - pronounced Yos - yet another cyclist, this time from Holland. I thought it tied in nicely with the Yambuk theme)

I did Warrnambool the easy way, mainly in Bob's little bus, followed by a drive around to have a closer inspection of some of the areas I had just seen. It is a city of contrasts with the very old buildings intermixed with brash new modern designs but it seems to be true to its origins and clings to its historical roots.

This restaurant was once
the Post Office

I spent most of the day yesterday in Port Fairy, the end of the Great Ocean Road and another day in Portland. This area was the first to be settled in victoria and was a very busy entry port for thousands of Chinese who came to the goldfields.

I love the gabled windows

The Notorious, replica Portuguese Caravel
soon to sail around the world

Hundreds of wind turbines on wind farms

Guess how far I walked on the Great South West Walk

Cape Nelson Lighthouse
Are you there, Josee?