Victoria - The Great Ocean Road

Great Ocean Road and the 12... no 11..... wait.... 10 Apostles.

South Australia was dry and flat to the very end. We crossed the border and only a surveyor would have known the difference.

Wind Farm on the Victorian Coast. This was one of the first, and with 14 windmills it is quite small.

Port Fairy lighthouse. Most of the light houses were built in the mid to late 1800's. The first major act of the state governments working together prior to federation was the management of the light houses.

Kate and the boys at Port Fairy. Callum ended up with sand in his eye.

Warrnambool

Flagstaff Hill - a replica 1880 port. Good fun and quite low key.

A volunteer dressed as a teacher.

At night there is a sound and light show based on the the 1880 wreck of the Loch Ard. There where only 2 survivors from the 56 people on board. There were many wrecks, but this one captured the public's imagination as the two survivors where a young woman and a young man who spent the night together on a lonely beach.. scandalous!

The Bay of Islands. This coastline is know as the shipwreck coast. Over 200 Ships have gone down between Warrnambool and Melbourne.

London Bridge. The joining bridge collapsed in 1990 stranding 2 people out on the island.

The Arch.

Loch Ard Gorge.

The fair maiden and the two suitors.

Mitch at Gibson steps.

An airborne Cal. He actually jumped right over my head.

Who let the dogs out?

The Apostles.

Damper on the fire at Cape Otway.

Station Beach - Cape Otway.

A dinosaur and that guy from Fat Pizza.

The Otway fly

Hard to show but this was a cantilever walkway with a clear 30metre drop below.

The Cape Otway Telegraph station. This was build in the mid 1800's as part of a Telegraph cable link to Tasmania. It was the primary communication link to Tassie.

Cape Otway Lighthouse. Built 1846.

Where's Mitch and Callum.

Blanket Beach. This campsite is only available by ballot - lucky for us someone had failed to turn up for their site so we camped overnight.

The Otway forest. Cold climate rainforest.

Appollo Bay.

The Great Ocean Road between Lorne and Appollo Bay.

Clams

Skink

Koalas are common in Cape Otway. Kept us awake at night... all that grunting and and snorting.. the noisy buggers.

South Australia - Wine and Sea 3/1/08 -13/1/08

Callum and the grand Murray River.

Burra is an impressive old town with many buildings from the mid-1800s.



It was a copper mining town that saw a boom from 1850 - 1900.

The old shaft mines were open cut in the 1970's, but much of the 1800's equipment was preserved.











A farmhouse outside Burra. I have alread used this picture in an earlier blog, however we discovered this picture is also in Explore Australia book.

The "Industry" a steam driven paddle wheeler that used to run up and down the Murray. We went of a ride on this and won the raffle - a framed picture of the "Industry" - very handy when travelling in a campervan.

The water in the Murray may be suffering in the drought but it is still an impressive sight when you first come across it. We joined the river at Morgan, which is at the western end of the South Australian fruit farms.

The water level in the Murray is controlled by 14 locks - even in times of drought the level stays static, but the flow drops dramatically.

Richard and Mitchel go for a paddle to look for birds.

Our neighbours at the campsite ask us to go for a ride in their speedboat. The boys where thrilled.

Richard was happy to get wet too, Kate rode in the boat!


Renmark - very popular with skiers - peaceful early in the morning.

Lock 5 of 14. The lock system preserves the irrigation supply. Over 40% of Australia's food is grown along the Murray.

The impact of the drought and irrigation takes it toll. The river flow is down to 1000 Megalitres a day - this figure is off the bottom end of the typical flow charts, should be 10 times this at this time of year. This is near Loxton.

Large shallow pools, normally flooded with water have been cut off from the river to reduce evaporation. This is near Berri.

Near Loxton - a healthy pool.

The Herseys .... again. These very kind people invited us into their home when we were stuck in Katherine. Six weeks later and over 2000kms away, while passing through Loxton we ran into Dean outside the bakery. A freakish coincidence... the Herseys where visiting Jo's family. It was great to catch up with them again and we look forward to bumping into them again somewhere else.

Naracoorte Caves - a world heritage listed cave system that has yielded some of the best fossil remains in Australia. Mitchel, Callum and Richard went on a very good adventure caving tour that had us crawling through many a tight spot. Callum particularly enjoyed this.

The Limestone covers a vast area of south western SA. The area is famous for wines, caves and volcanoes.. a heady mix.
Coonawarra is just south of here. ( I recommend the Rymill Shiraz ).

Robe - and the Obelisk.

It was a beautiful cool day, all going well until Kate fell and badly stubbed her toe. No medical services in Robe and it was two days later in Mt Gambier before we could get it x-rayed. Although very swollen and painful it was not broken.














Beachport, we came her on Richard McNulty's recommendation - a good one it was.


Great bike ride along the coast.

Wind-farm outside of Millicent. This farm has over 100 turbines and they claim it can deliver up to 1/8th of the SA load in good conditions. The towers are 80 metres tall and blades around 30metres long. Each device could supply around 1100 homes with power.

Mt Gambier and the Blue Lake. This weird lake is an improbable blue and is also the towns water supply.. not sure I'd like my kids drinking all that colouring. The strange thing is it turns from grey to blue over a very sort time period as the weather warms.

South Australian crash markers. Morbid.. but does it work?

Farewell South AustraliaA lace monitor at Banrock Station winery. They have drained the famous winery wetland due to the drought.


Why did the Tiapan cross the river...? To get to the other side.