We spent the following morning, Tuesday, cleaning the screens on the roof vents and windows with our nifty new little vacuum cleaner. It was quite a mission removing eleven months of dust and bug residue. Perhaps I should not confess that it was the first time. However there are some cleaning jobs that require specialist equipment, and I had been averse to us buying one more appliance to store. This new acquisition rides in the back of the cruiser with the outdoor cooker, the chairs, the table and a host of other bits and pieces that cannot live in the caravan. I do recall many decades ago when we used to pack all sorts of equipment into our little camper trailer when we travelled, however these days I like to have order in the caravan all the time, even when we are on the road.
The afternoon was spent sitting about a doctor’s surgery; Chris had relented and decided that a health check was a good idea after all. Unfortunately his details were lost in the computer system there and he was telephoned after sitting in the waiting room for an hour to remind him that he was late for his appointment. We were not amused, however everyone was most apologetic and after all, what else were we going to do on this sunny afternoon?
On our return to the camp, we managed to catch up with my parents, Kit and Olly so it was a very successful catch up day.
Wednesday morning dawned even better than the day before, in line with our expectations. Lunch was already cut and in the fridge and the salad for the evening’s entertainment prepared in advance.
We were on the road heading south soon after nine, joining the masses on the Main South Road. We detoured east to McLaren Vale, delighted to discover that the Vale was indeed a wide fertile valley, green and lush with grapevines, serviced by the modern rural centre of McLaren Vale. Already road markings and signage herald the coming of the Santos Cycle Tour Down Under which will put the spotlight on this location and many more we have travelled through over the last couple of weeks. It will be a wonderful race route and we will delight in following the tour on television once it is underway in January.
The detour took us on through Willunga, on the edge of the valley. This is an older settlement, established in the oh-so-popular-date of 1839 and much more quaint and delightful than McLaren Vale.
We rejoined the southern highway, wending our way through rural pastoral lands, over hill and over dale, noting the occasional vineyards tucked in amongst the sheep farms, and the odd large herd of alpacas, finally descending to Victor Harbour, on the southern coast on Encounter Bay. The Bay is named for the fact that the English explorer Matthew Flinders and the French explorer Nicholas Baudin met amicably here just at Victor Harbour in 1802. Very little else is mentioned in dispatches about this meeting however it would seem that no shots were fired, and that both parties were more interested in botanic discoveries than laying claim to any piece of land. The reality however is that whalers and sealers had been active in this area all though the 1790s, subsequent to Captain Cook having publicised the existence of the continent. Whaling remained the raison d’etre for settlement on this southern coast right up until it was banned in 1931. It is also a lovely sea coast, and people have always sought out places of leisure, so it did not remain only a centre of whaling through the centuries.
We walked about the town and along the foreshore busy with sideshows and fairground machinery; merry go rounds, bumper cars and ferris wheels, and watched as the crowds of family holidaymakers grew during the course of the morning. Chris patronised the local barber and I soaked up the warm sun while watching the passing shoppers.
Here at Victor Harbour, there is a horse drawn tram that runs between the main land and Granite Island, just 700 metres across a causeway where there is a permanent population of Little Penguins. There is also a steam train that runs from here east to Goolwa which in turn connects with a 100 year old authentic paddle steamer, which in turn plies the Lower Murray River.
We drove west along the southern shore and parked at the western end of Rosetta Head (aka The Bluff) and watched surfers while eating our lunch. This small bay is surrounded by rugged rocks and we wondered at the wisdom of their efforts.
From Victor Harbour we then drove seventeen kilometres eastwards to Goolwa, through the very lovely Port Elliot, which we considered more attractive than Victor Harbour. Port Elliot was earmarked in 1854 as the major export port for Murray River produce, however this all turned to custard. A battered breakwater is all that remains of the failed attempt to construct a safe shipping harbour. But Goolwa did become a thriving river port, the last on the Murray River before it reached the Southern Ocean. It does have a history of a successful wooden boat building industry which apparently continues today.
Goolwa is also the far western end of the Coorong National Park. This rather peculiar national park is a 145 kilometres stretch of coastline, recognised internationally as a vital breeding ground and refuge for waterfowl and migratory waders. It is a string of salt water lagoons and sand dunes on the southern perimeter of Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, the catchment of the Murray River which would essentially be more like a delta if it were not for the barrages linking the islands damming the river outlets. These were constructed back in the late 1930s to establish reservoirs of fresh water for irrigation and other uses. Over the years of drought and / or flood and redirection of water further upstream for irrigation, when in some years there has been not even enough to reach the barrage in askance of discharge, the captured water has become brackish and unacceptable for healthy biology. This is the essence of the problem that is being furiously debated through the three states the Murray River flows today. Determined not to enter the debate, Chris and I wondered whether the water I watched passing by in the McIntyre River when I went for my daily walks on the cotton farm had yet reached this reservoir. We recalled that we had learned just days ago in a documentary on the television that it took four months for water to reach Lake Eyre from the headwaters when flood waters are running with flood time vigour. Was seven months enough for water to flow from Boomi to Goolwa?
Hindmarsh Island off Goolwa, just 15 kilometres long and 6 kilometres wide, is reached by a bridge across the Lower Murray. To view the Murray Mouth, one needs to cross to the island and drive almost to the eastern end of the island. This we did, detouring to the marina development on the south western coast of the island. Grand modern buildings are shooting up everywhere; however there are an awful lot of sections still for sale around the marina canals. It is a lovely development, as all such are. It came as no surprise that the bridge across from Goolwa had only been opened in 2001, hence the fact that all buildings, apart from those in this development, are baches previously reached only by barge or ferry or those relating to the grazing over many years.
We returned to Goolwa, and headed further east across the pastoral and grain growing land to Milang, situated on Lake Alexandrina. In the late 19th century, this was the largest inland port in South Australia, providing a busy trade and produce hub for road transport from Melbourne. Today it is a quiet backwater for fishermen and birdwatchers.
Heading north for just more than twenty kilometres, we arrived at Strathalbyn, a town established in the magic year of 1839, but this time by settlors from Scotland. Here there are some delightful old buildings, many appropriately housing antique shops. The town is situated on the banks of the sluggish Angus River, with beautiful manicured gardens and the impressive St Andrews Church, built in 1844, added to in later years, previously Presbyterian of course, now a United Church. We walked about here, surprised at the busy pub mid-afternoon and mid-week and put it all down to the need to celebrate pre-Christmas.
Once again on the road, we headed for Mt Barker twenty seven kilometres further north, stopping at the Scottish restaurant for ice-cream sundaes before heading back to camp via the Princes Highway, now a well-worn route.
We were back in time to tidy ourselves up for our own pre-Christmas party, the caravan park sausage sizzle, which turned out to be an excellent do, generously hosted by the management who turned on the meat, pavlova and trifle. We all contributed toward the salads and provided our own drinks. It was an opportunity to meet other residents here; some long term and others doing as we are. We both enjoyed ourselves immensely and I enjoyed the opportunity to dress up and apply some effort to this often neglected face of mine.
Thursday morning saw us moving to another site in the park, because the one we have been on since we arrived has been booked for Christmas. This turned out to be more of a mission than it ought to have been. The new site is not really a caravan site, but simply a car park for a cabin currently out of service. Chris backed into the uneven spot, I chocked it high to level the caravan, Chris unhitched and then the caravan started to roll forward over the sharp edge of the large plastic chocks. After some rather foul language for once used in context and much scurrying about, we hitched back up and started all over again. Finally set up, perched on high legs and blocks, we decided that it actually is a better site than that we left, providing an illusion of privacy we lacked before. There are however some rather large ants about which may need to be fenced out with talcum powder.
After settling in, we drove up to the Medical Centre in Blackwood, chasing results from Chris’s tests. This time he was in and out in a reasonable time for us to then head for the Wittunga Botanical Gardens just down the road from the village centre. After lunch, we wandered about the fourteen hectares of parklands, planted out with both Australian and South African natives, generously donated by the Ashby family in 1965. There are a couple of small lakes filled with rather dubious looking water, however the birds don’t seem to be too fussy about it nor the frogs we tried to spot, drawing us toward them with their booming drum like calls.
I learned a few interesting facts about agapanthas, lovely purple headed flowers that engulf our garden of the house we once lived in and hopefully will be currently delighting our tenants. Their common name is “Lily of the Nile” and there are ten species all native to South Africa. They have been in cultivation as garden plants for the last three hundred years.
We were back in camp by early afternoon where we spent the rest of a rather warm afternoon, the temperature at about 34 degrees, sitting reading under the awning, something we don’t seem to have done for a while.
This morning was again spent dealing with medical issues; however we were at the Glenalta Railway Station by 11 am, soon heading into the city of Adelaide. We sat in the gardens of the State Library to eat an early lunch before venturing inside to find out why tourists are encouraged to visit. We wandered through an art exhibition of very modern aboriginal art but skipped the exhibition of aboriginal basket weaving in the same room, then found ourselves in a great hall of history. The floors above were lined with books, but the walls all around the ground floor were covered in exhibits, stories and memorabilia explaining once more the history of Adelaide. It was very well done and most enjoyable, but so cold in the air-conditioned hall.
The last place of education on our must-do list was the Migration Museum, separately housed behind the Library and Museum of South Australia. This was also excellent, however by the time we had explored this from one end to the other, we felt rather saturated with South Australian history.
We caught the train back to camp, finding an influx of caravans on our return. Gone is the peace and quiet of this bush side camp on the edge of the city; it is now a family summer holiday camp full of yapping dogs and crying children. Alas, the grumpy old woman is here again.
As is so often my habit before dinner, I picked up our emails and found that Christchurch had been again hit by another earthquake 5.8 on the Richter scale and that Darwin is quietly sitting waiting for a cyclone to hit on Christmas Day. The television news confirmed that there had been no loss of life in Christchurch this time and further emails and Facebook confirmed that my nieces had safely arrived in the North Island for Christmas. It makes our annoyance with the spaniels seem so trivial.
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