In which we drive south of Perth again, cross the Nullarbor, explore Adelaide (a bit) and follow the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne.
So, just to recap a little, we’re in Perth, Western Australia (WA) having spent some time in the city visiting my relatives and whatnot after a trip up the Coral Coast to Exmouth, then Karijini National Park and back to Perth again.
Today is the first day of our next mini trip (arranged through Greyhound Australia). We had a bit of an early start – made less bearable by a particularly grumpy taxi driver – to get to the meeting point (the tourist bus stop near the station) where we were picked up by Simon (a.k.a. Simmo) our guide and driver and cook for this nine day trip south and east across the Nullarbor Plain to Adelaide, South Australia (SA). By the time we’d made a second stop to collect a couple more passengers (Richard and Danuta from the Karijini trip) we were a very full bus of 20. Same sort of mix as before: mostly Europeans plus two US citizens, but no Asians this time.
Simon drove us south along the Great Southern Highway via another of WA’s vast wheat-growing regions, this one providing up to 60% of Australia’s wheat, when there isn’t a drought like the one they’ve been experiencing for the last 15 years. We past through the towns of York (very pretty and WA’s first inland settlement) Corrigin (10 times winner of Western Australia’s Tidy Town competition and many times holder of the ‘most dogs and utes in a queue’ world record) to iconic Wave Rock, where we had lunch. On the way, Simon suggested that we contact our nearest and dearest and tell them we’d be out of reach for a while, and expressed the hope that we’d charged all our electronic devices, because, save for the bus’s single lighter socket, we’d be without electricity for the next six days. He also explained that we’d be without beds or a roof over our heads for the whole nine nights, all of which gave us something of an insight into what lay ahead.
After lunch (sandwiches – it’s always sandwiches) we drove on to Stokes Inlet National Park, after passing through the Fitzgerald Biosphere, incorporating the Fitzgerld River National Park, which is, according to Dr. Bernd von Droste of UNESCO, “…without doubt the most important Mediterranean ecosystem reserve in the world. It stands out for its scientific, conservation and educational values in the same way that the Galapagos Islands do.” You can’t build on it, put a road through it, or even so much as put a sign up in it. Why then, we wondered, is there a stonking great Chinese-owned nickel mine in the middle of it. (Did someone say ‘Ker-ching’?)
That night we dined on Kangaroo mince fajitas, which was excellent – Simon is an RAAF trained professional chef amongst many other talents – and slept under the stars in our canvas swags. In all honesty, I can’t recommend sleeping in swags, romantic though they may seem; they’re heavy, uncomfortable, old-fashioned, claustrophobic, non-breathable and poorly insulated,
The next stop after lunch was Eucla, a very small town (pop. <100) right on the coast. Eucla was an important telegraph repeater station in the 1870s where messages sent between Victoria and Western Australia were translated. Apparently while WA used International Morse Code, Victoria used American Morse Code. We visited the old telegraph station, which is now ruined and half buried under sand dunes that began to encroach inland after the great rabbit plague of the 1890s, during which most of the vegetation there was eaten by this none native pest, which lead to the destabilisation of the dunes.
From there we drove on to the WA/SA border, where we had to put our watches forward two and a half hours in one go, followed by a stop at the Bunda Cliffs in the middle of the Great Australian Bight. At 60m to 120m high, they rank amongst the tallest sea cliffs in the world.
The final stop of the day, and our home for the night, was the Koonalda homestead: an abandoned sheep station and roadhouse/fuel stop/mechanics. It was abandoned when the Eyre Highway was re-aligned by only a hundred metres or so in the 1970s and lost all its trade overnight. Now it’s a ghost station (supposed to be actually haunted) surrounded by an automobile graveyard.
Nearby, there’s a sink hole which we visited before dinner. At the bottom of it is the entrance to an extensive cave system with some of the oldest (20,000+ years old) aboriginal rock paintings in Australia. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to climb down into the sink hole to see them, which was a bit frustrating.
As a special treat, after dinner, Simon cooked some sweet Damper bread to have as a sort of pudding. Damper is an unleavened bread made with just flour and water and was a staple of stockmen who travelled in remote areas with only the most basic of rations. It’s cooked in the ashes of a camp fire or formed round a stick and held in the flame. Simon’s version had some baking soda, sugar and dried fruits in it. This wasn’t just damper, it was Marks and Spencer’s luxury fruited damper. Basically, it was a scone without the fat and quite tasty with jam and butter.
Days 239-247 (Perth to Adelaide)
So, just to recap a little, we’re in Perth, Western Australia (WA) having spent some time in the city visiting my relatives and whatnot after a trip up the Coral Coast to Exmouth, then Karijini National Park and back to Perth again.Today is the first day of our next mini trip (arranged through Greyhound Australia). We had a bit of an early start – made less bearable by a particularly grumpy taxi driver – to get to the meeting point (the tourist bus stop near the station) where we were picked up by Simon (a.k.a. Simmo) our guide and driver and cook for this nine day trip south and east across the Nullarbor Plain to Adelaide, South Australia (SA). By the time we’d made a second stop to collect a couple more passengers (Richard and Danuta from the Karijini trip) we were a very full bus of 20. Same sort of mix as before: mostly Europeans plus two US citizens, but no Asians this time.
Simon drove us south along the Great Southern Highway via another of WA’s vast wheat-growing regions, this one providing up to 60% of Australia’s wheat, when there isn’t a drought like the one they’ve been experiencing for the last 15 years. We past through the towns of York (very pretty and WA’s first inland settlement) Corrigin (10 times winner of Western Australia’s Tidy Town competition and many times holder of the ‘most dogs and utes in a queue’ world record) to iconic Wave Rock, where we had lunch. On the way, Simon suggested that we contact our nearest and dearest and tell them we’d be out of reach for a while, and expressed the hope that we’d charged all our electronic devices, because, save for the bus’s single lighter socket, we’d be without electricity for the next six days. He also explained that we’d be without beds or a roof over our heads for the whole nine nights, all of which gave us something of an insight into what lay ahead.
After lunch (sandwiches – it’s always sandwiches) we drove on to Stokes Inlet National Park, after passing through the Fitzgerald Biosphere, incorporating the Fitzgerld River National Park, which is, according to Dr. Bernd von Droste of UNESCO, “…without doubt the most important Mediterranean ecosystem reserve in the world. It stands out for its scientific, conservation and educational values in the same way that the Galapagos Islands do.” You can’t build on it, put a road through it, or even so much as put a sign up in it. Why then, we wondered, is there a stonking great Chinese-owned nickel mine in the middle of it. (Did someone say ‘Ker-ching’?)
That night we dined on Kangaroo mince fajitas, which was excellent – Simon is an RAAF trained professional chef amongst many other talents – and slept under the stars in our canvas swags. In all honesty, I can’t recommend sleeping in swags, romantic though they may seem; they’re heavy, uncomfortable, old-fashioned, claustrophobic, non-breathable and poorly insulated,
***
The next morning, after a relatively uncomfortable night, we drove on to Esperance, a pleasant sea-side town, which, due to the hour, was largely still closed. Having made use of the loos in McDonald’s – they were open, of course – and stocked up at the bottle shop, which was also open (of course) we drove on to our next campsite in Cape Le Grand NP, which Simon left us to explore on our own a bit. Meanwhile, he drove the bus back to Esperance to get the air-conditioning fixed, which had packed up that morning, the morning of day two of our nine day trip across one of the most inhospitable deserts in Australia with a sealed road through it. Apparently, he’d previously made two crossings of the Nullarbor sans a/c and wasn’t about to make a third, especially not in Summer.
Before driving back to town, Simon dropped us off at Thistle Cove and pointed us along a foot path that took us up and over a headland and down into Lucky bay, just below our campsite. We had a very pleasant walk along a well way-marked path with some terrific views of gleaming white beaches and 100s of tiny islands beyond.
Along the way, we passed by a memorial to Mathew Flinders, a British navigator and cartographer, who was the first to sail all the way round Australia. During his circumnavigation, he stopped off at Lucky Bay, which is said to have the purest (90+ percent) whitest sand of any beach anywhere in the world. It’s so fine, we were told, that NASA used it to polish the mirrors of the Hubble space telescope.
Back at camp, we met up with another group on an east-west tour with the same company. Some of our group were heading back to Perth with them and some of them were coming to Adelaide with us. That evening was quite lively with both groups combined sharing the same meal. That night – our second in swags – we got slightly more sleep than the previous, having learned a bit about how to make the best of these canvas body bags. I’m still not a fan, though.
***
After saying bon voyage to the Perth-bound group, we had another walk the following morning, this time from Rossiter Bay back to camp. The walk – a little longer than the previous day’s – took us through more stunning scenery and afforded us more great views. From there we drove back to Esperance – where Simon had failed to get the a/c fixed the day before – and on, after lunch, to Norseman.
Norseman the town takes its name from a seem of gold found nearby, so the story goes, by a horse who, after pawing at the ground where he had been tied up by his owner, one of two Sinclair brothers, unearthed a huge chunk of the shinny stuff. The horse – and so the seam – was named Norse-man, and there’s a statue to him in the town.
After a long, hot drive drive along the Eyre Highway, we made our camp at a place called Afghan Rocks, named for a camel driver – who where known as Afghans, but actually came from India – that was murdered following an argument between him and a group of settlers who apparently took exception to him bathing in what was for them an important source of clean drinking water.
That night, after admiring the amazing display of stars at this remote spot on an almost moonless night, we decided, instead of enduring another night in swags, to pitch our tent and, consequently enjoyed a light-weight, comfy, hi-tech, spacious, well ventilated, temperate and private night’s rest. Aaah: that’s better.
***
After an early start, we continued east across the Nullarbor – which is Latin for ‘no trees’, by the way – along the Eyre Highway towards our lunch stop at the Mundrabilla Roadhouse, which is about half way between Perth and Adelaide. On the way we drove along several stretches of long straight road, including a 90Km section that is the longest bit of road without any kind of bend or curve in Australia, and several sections that had ben widened and were marked as emergency runways for the Royal Flying Doctor Service: a vital, yet non-state funded organisation, made possible by charitable donation only. Reminds of the our own RNLI, which also receives no state funding for its similarly life-saving work. We also passed through a small place called called Belladonna.
In 1979, NASA’s space station, Skylab was set to tumble back to earth and, or so it was planned, fall safely into the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, something went wrong during its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and, while it began to break up over the ocean, it ended up smashing into Western Australia. Of course, the wreckage covered quite a large area, but it’s Belladonna that claims to be the actual crash site.
The next stop after lunch was Eucla, a very small town (pop. <100) right on the coast. Eucla was an important telegraph repeater station in the 1870s where messages sent between Victoria and Western Australia were translated. Apparently while WA used International Morse Code, Victoria used American Morse Code. We visited the old telegraph station, which is now ruined and half buried under sand dunes that began to encroach inland after the great rabbit plague of the 1890s, during which most of the vegetation there was eaten by this none native pest, which lead to the destabilisation of the dunes.
From there we drove on to the WA/SA border, where we had to put our watches forward two and a half hours in one go, followed by a stop at the Bunda Cliffs in the middle of the Great Australian Bight. At 60m to 120m high, they rank amongst the tallest sea cliffs in the world.
The final stop of the day, and our home for the night, was the Koonalda homestead: an abandoned sheep station and roadhouse/fuel stop/mechanics. It was abandoned when the Eyre Highway was re-aligned by only a hundred metres or so in the 1970s and lost all its trade overnight. Now it’s a ghost station (supposed to be actually haunted) surrounded by an automobile graveyard.
Nearby, there’s a sink hole which we visited before dinner. At the bottom of it is the entrance to an extensive cave system with some of the oldest (20,000+ years old) aboriginal rock paintings in Australia. Unfortunately, there was no way for us to climb down into the sink hole to see them, which was a bit frustrating.
As a special treat, after dinner, Simon cooked some sweet Damper bread to have as a sort of pudding. Damper is an unleavened bread made with just flour and water and was a staple of stockmen who travelled in remote areas with only the most basic of rations. It’s cooked in the ashes of a camp fire or formed round a stick and held in the flame. Simon’s version had some baking soda, sugar and dried fruits in it. This wasn’t just damper, it was Marks and Spencer’s luxury fruited damper. Basically, it was a scone without the fat and quite tasty with jam and butter.
***
Simon gave us an extra hour in bed this morning – which, with the time change, actually meant an hour and half less. Before we left Koonalda, Simon drove us to a spot he knows above an underground cave where a small hole in the cave’s roof leads to the surface. He demonstrated an atmospheric effect where air is either blown out of the cave through the hole or sucked in, depending on the temperature (and therefore pressure) of the air in the cave relative to that of the outside air.
As we continued towards the eastern edge of the Nullarbor Plain, we saw several wild Dingoes. Apparently, they are not a native Australian species, but arrived from Indonesia several millennia ago (estimates vary) but are now considered a vulnerable species (and therefore protected) in some states, whilst controlled as a pest in others.
Once out of the Nullarbor Plain, trees returned to the landscape almost immediately. We stopped to take pictures in front of a much photographed road sign warning of Kangaroos, camels and wombats on the road and some more of part of a five kilometre dingo-proof fence: the longest man-made structure on earth. (No, you can’t see it from space.) Where the road crosses the fence line, there is a double size cattle grid. There’s a culvert running beneath the grid, and several of our group got underneath it to take photos as trucks run over them.
Next stop was Ceduna, the first town east of the Nullarbor, where we had to give up all our fruit and vegetables at the quarantine inspection station. After a quick visit to an aboriginal art gallery (good but pricy) we drove on to Streaky Bay, so named for discolorations in the sea there, caused not by freshwater entering the sea, as Mathew Flinders thought, but by natural oils released by certain varieties of seaweed.
After a quick stop to sea a life-sized model of a record breaking Great White Shark caught by a local man, and a look round the town while Simon shopped to replace the veg we had to give up at the check point, we drove on to the tour company’s head quarters, Coodlie Park Farm.
As well as being a working farm, they have a variety of styles of guest accommodation. As we were due to stop there for a couple of nights, Juli and I decided to take a break from camping and upgraded to a cottage with en-suite bathroom. This meant we got a comfortable bed, some privacy and could wash off the road grime we’d accumulated without having to queue for one of just two shower the others had to share between all of them. It cost us about £85 for the two nights and was worth every penny.
They gave us a good supper of local lamb before taking us out on a sort of night safari to lamp for some of the nocturnal animals they have there abouts. We saw a feral cat, a couple of rabbits, lots of kangaroos (actually crepuscular rather than nocturnal) and a single wombat, which – and you probably knew this already – is about the size of a badger and lives in a burrow very similar to a badgers set. Unlike badgers, however, they’re marsupials with an interesting adaption: their pouch faces backwards so they don’t fill it with dirt when they’re burrowing.
***
The next morning, we all drove out to Sceale (pronounced ‘scale’) Bay. Some of the group had a surfing lesson while others – us included – enjoyed a leisurely stroll up and down the beach. Whilst there, we spotted a large pod of dolphins just clear of the surf. Later, we learned that some of the surfer set had the rare pleasure of experiencing the dolphins swimming amongst them.
The group split up again after lunch at Baird Bay, with one group paying to go snorkelling with sea-lions (and maybe dolphins) while our group went to Point Labatt to see a colony of sea-lions lounging around on a small but protected outcrop of flat rocks. We saw maybe a couple of dozen adults and pups from our vantage point atop the cliffs above the rocks, but were rather too far away to get a good look, having stupidly left my monocular back at camp. (Sorry, library girls.)
From there, we drove on to some impressive granite formations known as The Haystacks. They would look impressive at any time, but with dark rain clouds behind them – somewhere was getting a soaking – they were doubly so.
When we got back to the farm, having met back up with the others (no dolphins) we discovered, much to the horror of the swag campers, that ‘somewhere’ included there. They’re swags and sleeping bags, which they had been assured would be fine left out, were soaked through and nobody at the farm had thought to bring them under cover. Actually, that’s not quite true: one of the staff members actually started to do just that, but, inexplicably was told not to by the one of the husband and wife owners. Well you can imagine the swaggers reactions to that piece of intelligence: they were not happy campers. Fortunately there was still quite a bit of warmth left in the day and, spread out and hung over fences, their kit soon dried. However, quite understandably, the mumbles of discontent rumbled on for some time. That, added to the existing grumbles about the lack of a/c on the bus, quite a bit of dissatisfaction with the quality and variety of the food and accommodation we’d had during the trip plus some unexpected variations to the published itinerary, it was almost enough to spark a mutiny. It seems the aforementioned owner got wind of this and refused to pick-up the phone or come to the door to answer to the charges laid against her. Consequently, it was poor Simon who caught most of the flack, though, truth be told, he was almost as fuming with his employers as his passengers were.
***
The next morning, we left the farm and headed for Venus Bay, which our nocturnal guide from the first night at the farm had renamed ‘Love Bay’, as it was where she met her partner. Together, they live in a shack and scratch a living between tour groups by cutting brush, which they tie into bundles for brooms and fence panels. Actually, she was one of the items on some people’s list of complaints, and I must admit, her rather curious ‘I-know-more-about-this-so-I’m-going-to-talk-to-you-like-you’re-a-six-year-old’ delivery plus her habit of calling people by their country of origin rather than their name was, at least initially, somewhat irking.
At Venus (a.k.a. Love) Bay, we went for a walk along the rocky coastline there. The object of the exercise was to see the dolphins, which had, thus far, mostly alluded us. Sadly, none was to be found there either. In fact, the sea was uncommonly, we were told, flat and featureless: no wind disturbed its mirror like surface. As we walked, we saw fossilised tree rings, lines of poisonous caterpillars pretending to be a snake, strange succulents clinging to the rocks and dramatic sea cliffs rising up from crystal clear waters.
From Venus Bay, we drove to Talia Bay to explore a partially collapsed limestone cave know as The Tub with many differently coloured layers of rock on which barnacles and, unexpectedly, beehives now grow.
Next stop on this very busy and very hot day was a tall sand dune: perfect, if you’re prepared to brave the scorching hot sun and climb back up the dune afterwards, for having a go at sand boarding. Juli had another go at it, but I magnanimously offered to stay behind and look after the bus.
A quick stop for bread from a tiny bakery in the middle of nowhere and lunch a bit further down the road was followed by a long hot drive to Port Lincoln, a tuna fishing town with more millionaires per capita than any other town in Australia. The tuna industry suffered something of a down turn when stocks of Southern Blue-finned Tuna decreased near to the point of extinction, but is now booming again. The Tuna are caught and kept alive in great circular holding nets out to sea, waiting for foreign – mostly Japanese – factory ships to collect, kill, gut and fast freeze them in a process that takes moments and ensures this valuable commodity is kept as close to perfect as possible.
Port Lincoln was also home to a British-bred, Australian-trained thoroughbred called Makybe Diva who famously won the Melbourne Cup three years on the trot, so to speak. Apparently, this was a very big deal locally and a statue to the horse, unveiled by a state politician no less, has pride of place in a waterfront park there.
From Port Lincoln we drove to Fisheries Bay for a much needed dip in the sea to cool off, and from there to our camp for the night at Mikkra Station: a campsite that comprises a large field, two loos – one for men, one for women – but only one shower for both men and women to share. It also has lots of wild koalas: so far the only place we’ve seen koalas in the wild during our whole trip round Australia. We’ve seen lots of signs warning you not to run them over, but these are the only ones we’ve actually seen outside of the wildlife park Juli’s cousin took us to.
In the evening, we drank lots of gin and tonic, enjoyed Simon’s signature dish, Spaghetti Carbonara, and listened to the deep growling sounds of wild koalas doin’ what comes natur’lly.
***
Day 246 and the start of week 36 of our gap year saw two of our group (not us) leaving very early in the morning to go cage diving with great white sharks. The rest of us – sanity still mostly intact – had a bit of a lie-in while we waited for Simon to come back and take us to Whalers Way nature reserve: a lovely spot, full of dramatic coastal features including some of the oldest rocks in South Australia and several deep crevasses, one of them, Theakstone’s Crevasse, which we visited, is around 13 metres deep. We also had a good look at an area of cliffs, caves and rock pools called Whalers Grotto and stopped at a spot called Cape Wiles, which was named by the aforementioned Mathew Flinders after the botanist, James Wiles, who accompanied Flinders on his circumnavigation.
After there, it was back to Port Lincoln for lunch and a bit of a look around, followed by a quick visit to a small zoo come wildlife park called Glen Forest Tourist Park. Here we fed parrots, petted Kangaroos and took photographs of lots of other animals, including dingoes, emus, lamas and ostriches.
Last stop of the day (and our last camp of the trip) was a camping and caravan park by the beach at Port Neill. There’s a peer there with steps down into the sea at the end of it. Juli and I are both going to be fifty this year, and have been working on our lists of things to do before your fifty: little or large experiences we’ve never had and feel we should before making the half century. One of the things on both our lists was jumping off the end of pier. Well, suffice it to say: tick.
***
The next morning, the last of the trip, we drove to Port Augusta to visit their Outback Museum. It’s an award winning interactive museum that has lots of information about the forming of the continent, its fauna and flora plus aboriginal myths and legends as well as exhibits on the lives of the early European explorers and pioneers, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, The School of the Air and lots more besides. I’m sure it’s a wonderful collection, but, to be honest, we were all just too tired to appreciate it. One point in its favour though: it did give some respite from the 40 degree heat of the day and our mobile oven of a bus.
Our last lunch was a short drive out of town – “If we’ve got it, you can eat it” – before the final, two and a half hour push for Adelaide and our lovely, air-conditioned hotel. Give or take, four thousand kilometres from Perth.
A shower and a lie-down later and we were ready to head out again for supper. Our motel – Princes Lodge in North Adelaide – was quite close to the main eateries street: O’Connell Street. We walked the length and breadth of it looking at the many different kinds of restaurant there, offering food from all round the world, before settling on an Indian with no customers. Not normally a good sign, but the guy there was very friendly and his prices were bit more reasonable than some of the other establishments.
After an excellent meal, back at the hotel we sorted through our photos of the trip ready for uploading the next day. Sleep came very easily that night, I can tell you.
Days 248 – 251 (Adelaide, the Barrosa Valley and Glenelg)
Day 1 in Adelaide was spent doing all the life admin type things we have to do after a trip: Laundry, e-mails and, for me, a day of blogging. Juli went out a bit today (another scorcher) to do some shopping, but I stayed in all day until we both went out for supper: a Thai stir-fry with lots of green veg, something we’d been missing during the trip.
***
I’d been up ‘til very late the night before finishing off the post, so had a bit of a lie-in in , while Juli was up and sending more e-mails. Aside from keeping in touch with friends and family, it amazing how much travel admin there is to do, even when everything was booked, confirmed and even paid for before before we left the UK.
Later in the morning, we took a free city connect bus, which runs all round Adelaide, to get a flavour of the place and its sights. After lunch – excellent burgers and the best chips we’ve had since the cruise – we walked back into the city via St. Peters Cathedral, which had just finished a three hour bell ringing marathon. The church, though obviously not old in English cathedral church terms, is nonetheless and interesting mix of old and new and definitely worth at least half an hour of anyone’s time.
From this great house of God, we moved on to the rather less spiritual Garden of Unearthly Delights to pick up some information about the Fringe Festival currently underway that precedes the Adelaide Festival proper in March. On the way we walked through a pedestrian precinct, where some of the fringe performers were doing their thing by way of a tease trailer for their evening shows.
Next stop was the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. City botanical gardens have become something of regular activity for us, and this one, though smaller and undergoing quite a bit of work, was no less pleasant to walk through. One of the highlights was a very large and modern green house that they are currently transitioning from a tropical hot house to something more sub-tropical, mostly to save running costs, but also to reduce their environmental footprint.
In one corner of the gardens, there is a small area of grape vines alongside the National Wine Museum, which has information about the history of winemaking in Australia and the many hundreds of wineries large and small all around the country.
After a quick drink at the Curious Squire – same chain of pubs as the one in Perth where we met Max – we headed back to our hotel via a stop off at a supermarket for the constituent parts of a bed picnic, an idea we got from Adam and Corinne, the Brit couple we travelled and cruised with who have emigrated to Australia. Whilst enjoying that, we watched several episodes of The big Bang Theory and an 80s movie called Toy Soldiers staring a very young Sean Astin of Lord of the Rings fame. (Also Wil Wheaton, who you may remember played young Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: TNG and also featured in one of the episodes of The Big Bang Theory we watched.)
***
Today we went on our pre-arranged wine tasting trip to the Barossa Valley. Originally, the area was to be named the Barrosa valley after a famous battle there during the Peninsular War of the early 1800s (part of the Napoleonic Wars) during which a single British division defeated two French divisions and captured a regimental eagle. unfortunately, due to a misspelling somewhere along the line it ended up with its present name. That little nugget was courtesy of our friendly and knowledgeable driver and tour guide, John, who took us to five wineries.
The first stop of our tour was at the Wolf Blass winery, a large an impressive operation that produces 100s of thousands of bottles a year, although even this figure pales in comparison to Jacobs Creek, who’s production is counted in millions.
Next, John took us to Maggie Beer’s Pheasant Farm. Maggie Beer is a well known Australian TV cook, author, restaurateur and champion of fine food. We had a lovely time sampling many of her products, including wine, which she produce in very small quantities and only sells very locally. We came away with a few treats we hope will survive the journey to Sydney, so we can enjoy them on the balcony of our cruise ship stateroom.
Third on the itinerary was the Barossa Valley Estate, where we again sampled half a dozen wines and enjoyed a delicious (and included) lunch of local produce.
Our penultimate stop was the Langmeil Winery, where they believe they have the oldest surviving Shiraz vineyard, which dates back to 1843. This may seem strange since there are many older wineries in Europe, but many of them where decimated by a tiny pest called Phylloxera in the late 1800s, but didn’t effect South Australia. We had a brilliant guide from their winery, who explained all about the largely manual processes they employ there and, of course, got to sample some of their excellent output, including two wines which sell for over $100 a bottle. Yum.
Last, but not least, we visited Chateaux Tanunda, another award winning winery set in the grounds of a grand old blue-stone building. Here again, we tried several of their wines and narrowly avoided parting with a three-figure sum for a Turn Decanter, an ingenious conical-based vessel you can roll around without spilling a drop of the wine inside that aids aeration and would make a fun centre piece for any diner party table.
We had a great day out and finished off the day with a steak diner at an Italian restaurant back on O’Connell Street.
***
The first part of our last day in Adelaide was another ‘at-home’ day of blogging and washing, but later in day, we took a tram out to Glenelg, which is sort of Adelaide-on-sea... sort of. We took a tram from Adelaide city train station, which terminates right on the front at Glenelg. Glenelg is quite seaside-y but has a beautiful mix of buildings old and new, low and high-rise a large memorial to the first South Australian settlers and a jetty. We walked out along the jetty, but resisted the urge to jump off, though many others were doing just that.
After walking up and down the front a bit, we walked to and through the marina to Sammy's, a famous seafood restaurant there. Unfortunately, the prices were a bit too much for our pocket, but there are several others near by and we found one a bit more our speed and booked a table for 8.00, which gave us just enough time to walk back to the jetty to watch the sun set out over the ocean.
Back at the restaurant, where they'd reserved a table right on the boardwalk, so we could watch all the beautiful people go by. We ordered a seafood platter to share, which still had a fair old price tag associated with it, but we were more than happy to have paid it when the brought out this huge stack of plates on a thing like a cake stand. We had prawns, oysters, mussels, squid, scallops, octopus, white bait, some other grilled fish a bit like plaice as well as a huge bowl of chips and another of salad. All of which we washed down with a delicious bottle of Viognier, one of Juli's favourites.
By the time we taken the tram back into the city and then walked back to our hotel in North Adelaide, we were more than ready for our bed, especially as we had to be up bright and early the next day to take all our luggage in a taxi back to the city train station ready to be picked up at 7.00am.
After walking up and down the front a bit, we walked to and through the marina to Sammy's, a famous seafood restaurant there. Unfortunately, the prices were a bit too much for our pocket, but there are several others near by and we found one a bit more our speed and booked a table for 8.00, which gave us just enough time to walk back to the jetty to watch the sun set out over the ocean.
Back at the restaurant, where they'd reserved a table right on the boardwalk, so we could watch all the beautiful people go by. We ordered a seafood platter to share, which still had a fair old price tag associated with it, but we were more than happy to have paid it when the brought out this huge stack of plates on a thing like a cake stand. We had prawns, oysters, mussels, squid, scallops, octopus, white bait, some other grilled fish a bit like plaice as well as a huge bowl of chips and another of salad. All of which we washed down with a delicious bottle of Viognier, one of Juli's favourites.
By the time we taken the tram back into the city and then walked back to our hotel in North Adelaide, we were more than ready for our bed, especially as we had to be up bright and early the next day to take all our luggage in a taxi back to the city train station ready to be picked up at 7.00am.
Days 252 – 254 (Adelaide to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road)
Our tour bus - much like the others but with a/c - arrived bang on time and, after a few more stops, was soon full (20) with the usual mix of travellers from all over the world, including Natasha from the Nullarbor trip. Brian, our driver/guide, then took us out of the city and onto the south east highway, which leads through and over the Adelaide Hills, crossing the Murray River as it goes, which was not quite as impressive as I had imagined for Australia's longest river at 2,375 kilometres (1,476 mi) in length.
Our first stop was for breakfast at a place called Tailem Bend, a sleepy little town with nice little bakery where I chose a Tailem Dog. Not, as I had imagined, a type of wild animal, but, rather less exotically, their take on your common or garden hotdog with the addition of cheese. Not quite the treat I was hoping for.
Anyway, after breakfast we hit the road again and drove through miles and miles of wheat fields, heading for the Grampians National Park. On the way, we crossed the WA/SA border, which we almost missed, and stopped for lunch at Kaniva, another small town, this one featuring lots of painted sheep. Well, why not?
At the Grampians, we went on a short walk down to Mackenzie Falls, which are definitely worth a look. Even in the Summer, there was plenty of water pouring over the top into a picture post card perfect pool at the bottom, in which several visitors were swimming, despite signs telling you not to. That's Australia for you, right there: beautiful, outdoors-y and casually lawless.
From there, we drove on along a lovely twisty road to Reeds Lookout, high above the park, from where we could see the front of a huge bush fire in the Victoria Range sending up clouds of smoke on the other side of a large plain. Apparently, the fire had been burning for some days, but in an inaccessible part of the park, which meant that fire fighters couldn't get to it. From where we stood, near to a fire watch tower, we could smell the smoke and wondered how close you needed to be before worrying about your own safety. The answer seems to be, it depends on the wind, but bush fires are just a fact of life, and most people seem quite happy to go about their lives and wait to see what happens, because, in fact, they have no choice about it.
Our bed for the night was in a hostel within the park's boundaries at a place called Brambuk. Juli and I paid a small upgrade fee to have a room to ourselves with our own shower. After helping prepare dinner (Spaghetti Bolognaise) Juli and I sat outside, listening to the cockatoos and watching wallabies nearby, while we started on a bottle of wine we'd brought with us from Adelaide.
The next morning, after a good night's sleep, we all got back on the bus and took the short ride into Hall's Gap, where the group went on a short walk up to a rocky lookout point. While most of the group went on a bit further to the top of the hill, we decided to turn round and head back to the bus and had a very pleasant walk on our own listening to and look at the wildlife there, including, kangaroos and wallabies, lots of birds I couldn't identify and some tiny lizards that were as small as just an inch and a half in length from nose to tail tip.
Back at Hall's Gap, we waited for the others to return while we had a relaxing Sunday morning coffee outside, watching the birds there squabble amongst themselves over discarded scraps of food. From there, once the others had returned, Barry took us back to Brambuk and the National Park and Aboriginal Cultural Centre there. This amazing building has lots of displays and information that gave us a better insight into the terrible experiences of the aboriginal groups in that area at the hands of the early settlers, and how that continued right through into the second half of the 20th century.
After an hour or so, we moved on through and eventually out of the park to our lunch stop at Dunkeld and then on to Warrnambool on the coast for a another quick supermarket shop, followed by three stops along the coast from there. First stop was the Bay of Island National Park, which has a variety of limestone cliff features including several impressive stacks. Next was Martyrs Bay, which used be know as Massacre Bay for an incident that took place there, where several Aborigines were shot and/or forced off the cliff at gun-point by a group of settlers. Last was London Bridge, which is two stacks connected by an arch that used to be connected to the main land by another arch. Unfortunately, the arch nearest to the main land collapsed in 1990 stranding two tourists in the process. What remains is now know as London Arch. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?
From there, we drove on to our second night's accommodation at Princetown. Here we were given a double room to ourselves, which is better than sharing a dorm, but we still had to share the shower room. After a quick supper at the pub, we drove out to the 12 Apostles, or rather the 7 Apostles as they now are, to watch the sun go down. The low orange light of the last few evening rays really enhanced the various hues of the layers of rock there and coloured the layers of cloud perfectly. We were also lucky enough to see a small group of fairy penguins returning to their nesting site on the beach.
That night was very noisy in the hostel, with some young backpackers making a bit of a nuisance of themselves until well after midnight, so we were a bit grumpy the next morning when we had to get up before six for our last day on the Great Ocean Road. First stop was a place near the 12 Apostles called The Gibson Steps, where the local land owner had carved a flight of steps into the cliff face so he could get down to the beach to fish more easily. Second stop was at Loch Ard Gorge, named for a ship, the Loch Ard, that foundered there in 1878. She went aground there at the end of a three month voyage to Australia from England, with the loss of all but two of her 54 passengers: Tom Pearce, at 15 years of age, a ship's apprentice, and Eva Carmichael, an Irishwoman immigrating with her family, at 17 years of age.
According to memorials at the site, Pearce was washed ashore, and rescued Carmichael from the water after hearing her cries for help. Pearce then proceeded to climb out of the gorge to raise the alarm to local farmers who immediately set into plan a rescue attempt. After three months in Australia Carmichael returned to Europe, four of her family members having drowned that night. Pearce was hailed as a hero, and continued his life at sea. Sadly, he drowned several years later in another shipping accident.
The arch of the nearby Island Archway collapsed in June 2009. The feature now appears as two unconnected rock pillars, which have since been officially named Tom and Eva after the two teenage survivors of the Loch Ard shipwreck.
From the gorge, we drove on to Melba Gully, a bit of rainforest in the Otway Range, which was until quite recently a logging site, was named after Dame Nellie Melba, the famous Australia operatic soprano. We went on a lovely walk through the trees there, listening to the hum of insects as we went. It rather reminded us of similar walks we'd been on while in Queensland. On the way, we thought we saw a Redback Spider. I took a photo of it to show Brian and confirm our identification. However, although it was undoubtedly a spider with a red back, confoundingly, this was not a Redback, which are apparently mostly black with a single red strip down their backs. You'd think, given our experience of Australian naming conventions, it should be called a Red-striped Black Back or some such, but we've learned that this is often the way with the more deadly of Antipodean fauna. For example, the also venomous Red-Bellied Black Snake we were shown at the wildlife centre near Brisbane we visited, actually had a yellow belly. Not helpful.
After a bit more driving and lunch at the Koala Cove Cafe at Kennet River (good burger and chips) we finally got to drive along a bit of the Great Ocean Road that actually goes alongside of the great Southern Ocean. Soon, though we were at the eastern end of the road, which is marked by a large wooden archway over it and stopped to take more photos. Some of our younger fellow travelers decided it would be a good idea to stand, as a group, in the middle of the busy road under the arch and have their photos taken. Wonder how many of them will make it to be older travelers.
Finally, after a few last hours of driving and what should have been a last quick supermarket stop, which became a lengthy delay when one of our group went AWOL, we rolled into Melbourne, where we were met by Dennis, a man we'd met whilst on a trip together in Sri Lanka a few years ago. He had very kindly offered to put us up for a few days at his home in a village near Mornington, south of Melbourne, and it is from there that I am writing the last few of these paragraphs. We spent a very jolly evening in the company of Dennis, his wife Carolyn and his two teenage children, Tanzin and Nelson, not forgetting Jasper the dog, who has just had her final summer hair cut.
More of what we did during our two weeks here in Melbourne next time, but for now...
TTFN - N
Our first stop was for breakfast at a place called Tailem Bend, a sleepy little town with nice little bakery where I chose a Tailem Dog. Not, as I had imagined, a type of wild animal, but, rather less exotically, their take on your common or garden hotdog with the addition of cheese. Not quite the treat I was hoping for.
Anyway, after breakfast we hit the road again and drove through miles and miles of wheat fields, heading for the Grampians National Park. On the way, we crossed the WA/SA border, which we almost missed, and stopped for lunch at Kaniva, another small town, this one featuring lots of painted sheep. Well, why not?
At the Grampians, we went on a short walk down to Mackenzie Falls, which are definitely worth a look. Even in the Summer, there was plenty of water pouring over the top into a picture post card perfect pool at the bottom, in which several visitors were swimming, despite signs telling you not to. That's Australia for you, right there: beautiful, outdoors-y and casually lawless.
From there, we drove on along a lovely twisty road to Reeds Lookout, high above the park, from where we could see the front of a huge bush fire in the Victoria Range sending up clouds of smoke on the other side of a large plain. Apparently, the fire had been burning for some days, but in an inaccessible part of the park, which meant that fire fighters couldn't get to it. From where we stood, near to a fire watch tower, we could smell the smoke and wondered how close you needed to be before worrying about your own safety. The answer seems to be, it depends on the wind, but bush fires are just a fact of life, and most people seem quite happy to go about their lives and wait to see what happens, because, in fact, they have no choice about it.
Our bed for the night was in a hostel within the park's boundaries at a place called Brambuk. Juli and I paid a small upgrade fee to have a room to ourselves with our own shower. After helping prepare dinner (Spaghetti Bolognaise) Juli and I sat outside, listening to the cockatoos and watching wallabies nearby, while we started on a bottle of wine we'd brought with us from Adelaide.
***
The next morning, after a good night's sleep, we all got back on the bus and took the short ride into Hall's Gap, where the group went on a short walk up to a rocky lookout point. While most of the group went on a bit further to the top of the hill, we decided to turn round and head back to the bus and had a very pleasant walk on our own listening to and look at the wildlife there, including, kangaroos and wallabies, lots of birds I couldn't identify and some tiny lizards that were as small as just an inch and a half in length from nose to tail tip.
Back at Hall's Gap, we waited for the others to return while we had a relaxing Sunday morning coffee outside, watching the birds there squabble amongst themselves over discarded scraps of food. From there, once the others had returned, Barry took us back to Brambuk and the National Park and Aboriginal Cultural Centre there. This amazing building has lots of displays and information that gave us a better insight into the terrible experiences of the aboriginal groups in that area at the hands of the early settlers, and how that continued right through into the second half of the 20th century.
After an hour or so, we moved on through and eventually out of the park to our lunch stop at Dunkeld and then on to Warrnambool on the coast for a another quick supermarket shop, followed by three stops along the coast from there. First stop was the Bay of Island National Park, which has a variety of limestone cliff features including several impressive stacks. Next was Martyrs Bay, which used be know as Massacre Bay for an incident that took place there, where several Aborigines were shot and/or forced off the cliff at gun-point by a group of settlers. Last was London Bridge, which is two stacks connected by an arch that used to be connected to the main land by another arch. Unfortunately, the arch nearest to the main land collapsed in 1990 stranding two tourists in the process. What remains is now know as London Arch. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?
From there, we drove on to our second night's accommodation at Princetown. Here we were given a double room to ourselves, which is better than sharing a dorm, but we still had to share the shower room. After a quick supper at the pub, we drove out to the 12 Apostles, or rather the 7 Apostles as they now are, to watch the sun go down. The low orange light of the last few evening rays really enhanced the various hues of the layers of rock there and coloured the layers of cloud perfectly. We were also lucky enough to see a small group of fairy penguins returning to their nesting site on the beach.
***
That night was very noisy in the hostel, with some young backpackers making a bit of a nuisance of themselves until well after midnight, so we were a bit grumpy the next morning when we had to get up before six for our last day on the Great Ocean Road. First stop was a place near the 12 Apostles called The Gibson Steps, where the local land owner had carved a flight of steps into the cliff face so he could get down to the beach to fish more easily. Second stop was at Loch Ard Gorge, named for a ship, the Loch Ard, that foundered there in 1878. She went aground there at the end of a three month voyage to Australia from England, with the loss of all but two of her 54 passengers: Tom Pearce, at 15 years of age, a ship's apprentice, and Eva Carmichael, an Irishwoman immigrating with her family, at 17 years of age.
According to memorials at the site, Pearce was washed ashore, and rescued Carmichael from the water after hearing her cries for help. Pearce then proceeded to climb out of the gorge to raise the alarm to local farmers who immediately set into plan a rescue attempt. After three months in Australia Carmichael returned to Europe, four of her family members having drowned that night. Pearce was hailed as a hero, and continued his life at sea. Sadly, he drowned several years later in another shipping accident.
The arch of the nearby Island Archway collapsed in June 2009. The feature now appears as two unconnected rock pillars, which have since been officially named Tom and Eva after the two teenage survivors of the Loch Ard shipwreck.
From the gorge, we drove on to Melba Gully, a bit of rainforest in the Otway Range, which was until quite recently a logging site, was named after Dame Nellie Melba, the famous Australia operatic soprano. We went on a lovely walk through the trees there, listening to the hum of insects as we went. It rather reminded us of similar walks we'd been on while in Queensland. On the way, we thought we saw a Redback Spider. I took a photo of it to show Brian and confirm our identification. However, although it was undoubtedly a spider with a red back, confoundingly, this was not a Redback, which are apparently mostly black with a single red strip down their backs. You'd think, given our experience of Australian naming conventions, it should be called a Red-striped Black Back or some such, but we've learned that this is often the way with the more deadly of Antipodean fauna. For example, the also venomous Red-Bellied Black Snake we were shown at the wildlife centre near Brisbane we visited, actually had a yellow belly. Not helpful.
 |
| Not a Redback |
After a bit more driving and lunch at the Koala Cove Cafe at Kennet River (good burger and chips) we finally got to drive along a bit of the Great Ocean Road that actually goes alongside of the great Southern Ocean. Soon, though we were at the eastern end of the road, which is marked by a large wooden archway over it and stopped to take more photos. Some of our younger fellow travelers decided it would be a good idea to stand, as a group, in the middle of the busy road under the arch and have their photos taken. Wonder how many of them will make it to be older travelers.
Finally, after a few last hours of driving and what should have been a last quick supermarket stop, which became a lengthy delay when one of our group went AWOL, we rolled into Melbourne, where we were met by Dennis, a man we'd met whilst on a trip together in Sri Lanka a few years ago. He had very kindly offered to put us up for a few days at his home in a village near Mornington, south of Melbourne, and it is from there that I am writing the last few of these paragraphs. We spent a very jolly evening in the company of Dennis, his wife Carolyn and his two teenage children, Tanzin and Nelson, not forgetting Jasper the dog, who has just had her final summer hair cut.
More of what we did during our two weeks here in Melbourne next time, but for now...
TTFN - N
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