06 April 2011 - Limestone Coast Victoria - South Australia.

Our travels today will take us out of Victoria at last, & I must say we have really enjoyed it all.  It may be a small state in comparison to the others, but it is so varied & lovely.  We visit the last town, Port McDonnell after driving along the coastal route though not able to see the sea this time.  The landscape was very flat & boring & bleak, not helped by grey cloud & low temperatures.  The only thing of interest was the remains of little stone crofts now  & again which I was dying to photograph but it's not easy to just pull off the road towing a caravan, especially when you have other vehicles behind.  I'm hoping I will come across one in South Australia.  At 9am we  crossed the border into S.A. & had to change our clocks back half an hour.  What a pain.  Mt Gambier is quite a large town, lots of lovely stone buildings.  Stu wanted to visit & board the 'Lady Nelson' an old sailing ship which is part of a display at the i-site .  Unfortunately he was to be disappointed as it was closed for some maintenance.  We did however manage to purchase a National Parks pass for entering & camping in South Australia.  At $46 we thought we would easily get our value from it.

Moving on through the Coorong Conservation Park  we chose a campsite at 'Little Dip' which was very isolated .  The track in was really sandy & I wouldn't like to do it without a 4WD.  We quickly explored some of the surrounding area which was scrubby sand dunes, over which we found wonderful rocks & crashing waves.  No one else joined us so it was a very quiet, dark night which we enjoyed.   The high point proved to be the sighting of a wombat just a couple of metres from the van.  We had noticed lots of 'tunnels'  in the undergrowth earlier & I commented to Stu that I thought there would be wombats around & we intended to go out after dark to see if we could sight them.  However it was so dark we changed our minds until we heard an unusual noise & I opened the door with a torch & there it was.  Yay, another thing off my  'bucket' list.  Next morning we rose early for a walk in another direction where we had seen a couple of fishermen the day before.  It proved to be a huge cliff top with great formations made by the waves.  It was so high I don't know how they fished from there.

07 April - Next stop Robe, a delightful little seaside town, also close to the lagoons & one of the nicest towns we have been through.  So neat & tidy & with a great ambience.  It is also the beginning of wine country again.

Further on the landscape is dotted with lagoons.  One has a pelican breeding island which in breeding season can contain over 1000 pairs of pelicans.  You can only reach it by boat but it is illegal to go nearer than 140 mtrs.  Our next camp was another Conservation Park called Coorong.  It is set in an area of many lagoons, some absolutely huge.  They are all very saline & often surrounded by sand dune.  Those that dry up become total salt lakes.  The road into the camp we had to drive at 15km per hour as it was so rough & corrugated.  However it proved to be worth it as we were able to park right by the lagoon beside a few other campers.  It had no facilities whatever, but of course that didn't matter to us.  We took a walk further round the lagoon to a great picnic area but there was no camping allowed there.   Pity, as it was really nice & very large.  Along the track we saw a couple of Western Red kangaroos - very timid.    To complete the day there was a lovely sunset.  We feel truly blessed.

 08 April - Mother's Day with 2 surprise calls from family & a beautiful sunny morning.  We passed more salt lakes, & once again a very straight flat road., not even any trees or stock at first.  I should be practising driving with the van on.  We suddenly run out of road, due to the Murray River & no bridge.  But surprise, there is a FREE ferry on cables which takes all vehicles across, only about 100 metres.  Was quite neat really.  We arrive at Goolwa & book into a caravan park in time for lunch, then drive off to explore the area.  Goolwa is where the Murray River ends & it is controlled by 'barrages' which control the flow of the water into the sea & vice versa.  The reason for this is for the benefit of the lagoons & all the wildlife & fish which depend on them.  Without the barrages the river mouth would silt up & then in drought the fresh water would dry up & the sea water would not come in.  So they also have sand dredges working.  It costs $6m per year to keep the mouth open.  We also drove through Port Elliot, another small seaside town, & onto Victor Harbour where we climbed 'The Bluff', a large hill covered by large granite rocks which were formed approximately 500million years ago.