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terryfrost at 06:01am on 07/12/2008 under travel
terryfrost at 06:01am on 07/12/2008 under travelSal and I decided in a mad moment to drive to South Australia yesterday for no particular reason. We like country drives and from our side of town it isn't difficult to get on the open road. Started out around six thirty, picked up a drive-through breakfast and out through Geelong, Lismore, and Purnim to Warrnambool. We paused in Port Fairy for morning tea and found ourselves in the middle of a school Xmas fete where Dean Martin sang "Let It Snow" from loudspeakers and a somewhat svelte Santa arrived as we were partaking of the sausage sizzle. From there I drove past the enormous coastal wind farm at Yambuk and through the Lower Glenelg National Park and pine plantations filled with millions of fully grown Xmas trees waiting to be turned into cheap coffee tables. Once across the Glenelg River in Nelson, you're on the Limestone Coast. The beach sands become pale and the land flat coastal plains with surprisingly green pastures.
Port MacDonnell claims to be the rock lobster capital of Australia. A beach town where all the houses are built of limestone blocks and a large arc of breakwater protects the boat harbour from the Southern Ocean. Outside the customs building sits a WWII German sea mine that washed up on the beach in 1943. We picked up some rather ordinary fish and chips to eat at the picnic tables on the beach. If you eat fish and chips on any beach, you're going to end up with an insistent entourage of seagulls. Potato chips have become the natural diet of seagulls everywhere. Eventually they will evolve to be potato gulls.
Mount Gambier was only thirty kay away. The Blue Lake was its' usual incredibly vivid self and we spent a little time getting reacquainted with the Umpherston Sinkhole Garden before a mad dash across Western Victoria, through Casterton and Hamilton and Dunkeld, which has a spectacular view of the Grampians. Home by seven pm and take away pizza for comfort food. Yes, it was a very exhausting day, but a lot of fun. Kind of extreme motor tourism. Not the sort of thing we'd do every Saturday, but great fun. If you try anything like this, remember, lots of music on CD. Radio reception can be patchy in the forests of south western Victoria.
Port MacDonnell claims to be the rock lobster capital of Australia. A beach town where all the houses are built of limestone blocks and a large arc of breakwater protects the boat harbour from the Southern Ocean. Outside the customs building sits a WWII German sea mine that washed up on the beach in 1943. We picked up some rather ordinary fish and chips to eat at the picnic tables on the beach. If you eat fish and chips on any beach, you're going to end up with an insistent entourage of seagulls. Potato chips have become the natural diet of seagulls everywhere. Eventually they will evolve to be potato gulls.
Mount Gambier was only thirty kay away. The Blue Lake was its' usual incredibly vivid self and we spent a little time getting reacquainted with the Umpherston Sinkhole Garden before a mad dash across Western Victoria, through Casterton and Hamilton and Dunkeld, which has a spectacular view of the Grampians. Home by seven pm and take away pizza for comfort food. Yes, it was a very exhausting day, but a lot of fun. Kind of extreme motor tourism. Not the sort of thing we'd do every Saturday, but great fun. If you try anything like this, remember, lots of music on CD. Radio reception can be patchy in the forests of south western Victoria.
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