Fleurieu Peninsular/Mighty Murray River

Thank you for your comments. Much appreciated and valued and makes us feel that we are connected to you all in the rest of the world! I know it seems that we have done the first part of the journey like a “bat out of hell”, but I guess partly the Nullarbor takes up a large part of it, and partly we have seen a lot of SA before. Also we were unfortunate to have a big heat wave for the first two weeks which was difficult for Colleen as she hates the heat and wilts. So hiking or staying in hot places was no go as she just wanted to head out to the cooler climate. We are now in Victoria -3/8 States/Territories of Aus and the weather is gorgeous - 20deg at 8.00pm, last night saw thousands of bats emerge from their cave after sunset, today toured a cave, tonight nestled against a mountain with cloud covering the top, birds roosting, hot shower, beer, prawns and nice drop of wine from the wine tour we did. The scenery is spectacular and there are lots of interesting places for us to see. We are now starting to get into it and our pace will slow dramatically. We are not really “desert “people, and while we can appreciate the rugged ranges and remote outback, we really want to be in the green and treed parts of the country. As Frank from London says 60% are grey nomads been on the road years on average and loving it 20% Overseas visitors in camper vans. Vans from ours to one as high (18ft) as ours is long from tow bar to back and 11 metres long made in Canada, one year old.

Colleen says “We decided to drive to a beachside caravan park in Adelaide in the hope of getting some sea breezes in this awful heat wave. We drove through the Clare Valley which is renowned for excellent wineries, but it was too hot to stop, and even the being right on the beach in Brighton gave no relief to the 37 deg. The next day we decided to do some admin things like our early vote (very efficient, they had the voting papers ready with candidates for our constituency right there ready..what a pleasure). We also had to do some things for our caravan (the gas struts on the pop top packed in..they quoted us a huge amount, but Paul is so clever he sourced a re- gas guy and did the whole job himself in two ticks).After a couple of days of doing things we had to, we just had to get out of the big city and somewhere quieter and cooler, so decided to go to the Fleurieu Peninsula, which is south East of Adelaide..What a discovery. Not only was it much cooler, it was So beautiful..lovely hills, valleys with huge trees, fields with crops and fat cows, vinyards and wineries, gorgeous old buildings dating back to 1820 (don’t laugh you poms..thats old for here!) and spectacular beaches with icing sugar sand which squeaks when you walk in it. Our caravan park was right on the beach, surrounded by wonderful views and bluffs, and everywhere we looked there were art galleries and historical sites. It was the Margaret River of Adelaide, and it was 23 degrees..I was a happy camper again! We took a drive around the Peninsular and stopped at Victor Harbour where there was a lovely little island which had a causeway across the sea which we had a Clydsdale horse tram ride across which was very interesting. There we saw seals and fairy penguins and wonderful granite rock formations with the southern ocean crashing into the bays. We were very taken with this whole area and every new turn brought a wonderful view. We only stayed 4 days cos would you believe it, it was “schoolies week” this weekend and this is the Dunsborough of Adelaide and was about to be invaded by schoolies ( the hundreds of school leavers who go away to celebrate the end of their school life by being totally wild for a week). We left the area sadly and stopped by a charming little village called Strathalbyn which was settled by Scottish immigrants in the 1800 and so all the names and character of the village was from that country ..ie Angus River. Lots of art galleries and gorgeous old buildings. The Fleurieu Pen ends at a place called Cape Jervis where you can take a Ferry to Kangaroo Island. It is the third largest island in Oz..Tasmania is the largest. It is 13 kms across the sea and is about 150 kms long. We toyed with the idea of going over, but in the end decided against it. The scenery was spectacular and there were seals, koalas, penguins etc..but frankly nothing we had not seen before.

Murray River
Colleen Says “We went to Murray Bridge which is a town with a huge bridge over the Mighty Murray..the biggest River in Australia and the fourth largest River system in the world according to the blurb. It is about 3 and half thousand kms long and its catchment area encompasses the Snowy River project and the Murrumbidgee and Darling rivers. It starts in the Vic Alps and its mouth is near Murray Bridge in a series of wetlands of international importance for migratory birds..the Coorong. It’s not a particularly wide river, but considering that it waters huge areas of farming lands, Adelaide, dams, weirs and all sorts its no wonder..and of course the awful drought that the area is having is having an impact. We were going to take a Paddle Wheel cruise but the area there is flat and marshy so we drove upriver instead to see some of the wonderful red cliffs as it meandered to the coast. You can hire a house boat from 2 people to 50 in various levels of luxury and people hire these and go for weeks upriver stopping at all the little historical towns along the way. But at every lookout there were dozens of houseboats chugging up and down the Red Gum lined river. I could see that it could be quite relaxing to just float along with the fishing line out the back. From there we drove through the limestone coast area which has extensive farms and vineyards all irrigated by extensive artesian wells. We came to a place called Naracoorte which has Limestone Caves which are World Heritage listed. The reason is that they have found extensive fossils in the areas caves which tell of the climate in the prehistoric areas as well as many animals that lived then, specifically Megafauna. ..ie gigantic kangaroos, wombats and koalas etc! They have a wonderful centre which recreates these animals in a lifelike tropical forest..huge wombat things that are as big as a baby elephant, marsupial hippos, giant goannas of several meters long with huge jaws and claws, and of course giant kangaroo type animals. VERY interesting and informative. There are series of limestone caves and guided walks ...also a bat cave which thousands of Bentwing bats emerge at sunset. We walked into the bush after sunset to see the bats emerge, and after waiting awhile watching kangaroos hopping around and the many parrots of the area roosting, the bats finally emerged in their thousands. Nearby the bat cave was a Bat Informative Centre where tourists could go during the day and view the bats in their cave with infra red light and get talks about them. As we walked past we noticed a light on, and peering around the door we saw a young zoologist looking at the bats with the powerful cameras in the cavern. We asked a few questions and he obligingly told us that the previous night he had seen a bat mother give birth and he was trying to find her again. As I watched the hundreds of bats flying around I thought what a hopeless job, but then he told us that it was extremely rare to see anything this, and it was a world first to have filmed an endangered bat being born..in fact in the scientific world it was a breakthrough and was going to be in the newspapers (local and international) the following week. He then replayed the video of it and we watched fascinated while the mother gave birth to this tiny bat which clung to her as she fluttered around , showing the new arrival to the interested “aunties” that gathered around.Talk about being in the right place at the right time! We also went on a Fossil Cave tour of 500 metres where they showed the actual fossils of these prehistoric Megafauna and where David Attenborough had filmed one of his series.
After this onto the Grampians in Vic. Only been gone for 3 weeks and cant believe how much ground we have covered and what we have done already.