Kangaroo Island to Nelson, Victoria
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We made the ferry with no problems. Helps to be sleeping 200 yards from the ferry terminal. Another fascinating experience watching them load the ferry. It’s quite an operation. Primarily large trucks on this trip, which are especially fun to watch load. It’s amazing the precision these drivers can achieve. We were the second to last ones loaded which meant we got to be the second ones off and could get out ahead of all the trucks.
The water was really calm and there was no wind (unlike the other crossing). A beautiful day. Almost too warm for a sweatshirt. We spent the trip up in the front. For a brief moment we saw a pair of dolphins leap out of the water. Too fast to photograph. We thought that would be the end of it. But about 15 minutes later, they showed up again. Jumped 3 or 4 times. We were sure that was going to be it. But then Les spotted them under the boat. The ferry is a catamaran and they were flying right underneath the right hand hull. You could just see their noses in the front, where I was. But off to the side where Les was you could see them under the water and he managed to get a few shots. They ran along with us for a minute or two. Really great. And none of the wimpy passengers who were inside sipping their coffees and talking on their cell phones got to see them. So there.
So a driving day. We had some time to make up. We headed up the Fleurieu (Vanna, I’d like to buy another vowel) Peninsula, at a much more sedate speed then we headed down it the other day. Very pastoral. Lots of hills and dales. Trees but not forests.
We stopped in Yankalilla for gas and some water and sodas at the store. Coming out of the stores over a fence behind us, we saw the telltale signs of lawn bowling (a series of white hats with red bands around them all clustered together). Lawn bowling is big here. Almost every town and hamlet has one (along with an “Oval” which we think is for Australian Rules football). We went over to get a few pictures. This is apparently what the ladies of the town do who aren’t working. It’s so cute. They’re all dressed the same and they take it all very seriously. I’m sure there is talk in the clubhouse after about how Mabel did this or Esther did that.
We cut off towards the east at Myponga (love these names). And headed off down a series of country lanes in an effort to get up and around Lake Alexandria and on to the main coastal highway to Mt. Gambier. We passed a number of forest “parks” that are actually tree farms. At first they look like regular pine forests but then we noticed that they were all in neat rows, like crops. It was an odd feeling. Almost normal but not quite right.
We managed to not get lost, but not without some effort. As we continued east, the landscape changed from pastoral hills and dales to coastal marsh and a huge vineyard. It seemed to stretch for miles. Then in Wellington, surprise! The road ends at a ferry crossing of the Murray River. We’d passed I don’t know how many “river” signs that were basically bridges over areas where people hoped water might some day pass (see River Parananacooka picture). Even if full, we would call them a creek or a brook. But this was a real river. And the ferry was free. Good on ya!
This whole stretch of road was interesting for all the micro-climates. This is something we’ve really noticed throughout the trip. Every 100-200km sometimes, the climate changes. From trees to scrub to forests to something else. This stretch went from pastoral fields to Nevada-looking scrub to vineyards to forests in only about 300 km.
From Wellington we headed due south through the Coorong National Park. The “Coorong” is a long, thin, shallow inlet protected by barrier islands creating a marshland/estuary. This stretched for about 140 km. Along the way, we spied a flock of pelicans and stopped to get their photos. And emus too on the other side of the road.
We are behind. We should be in Melbourne today and we’re probably not going to make it tomorrow. So we bit the bullet and decided we just needed to drive until dark. We were shooting for a town called Portland (why not) but fell short and landed in Nelson. We took the coastal road part of the way and made an effort to look at the towns we passed and maybe try to salvage something useful from the afternoon. But it was mostly just driving. We passed 6000 total kilometers today and crossed into Victoria, our third state.
A couple of highlights though. In a town called Kingston SE (don’t know what the SE is for) we came across “The Big Lobster”. A 25-30 ft tall crustacean made of a steel and chicken wire frame covered in paper mache. Just about everyone who wasn’t a local stopped for pictures. We stopped at a place called “The Granites” to see what it was and it turned out to be 3 pieces of granite at a beach. The beach was really long, easily a mile or more. But the rocks weren’t worth the stop.
The other big attraction was in Millicent where we missed a turn and stumbled onto a car wash where we finally got the road grime off the van. Now we can show up at the rental place and claim we were never off the paved surface, like good boys.
The caravan park in Nelson is just someone’s back yard they’ve set up for campers. Very nice guy. We had a little chat with him. His wife was in the middle of making dinner and Les was joking about him inviting us. Turns out he had lived in the states for a few years and we talked about some of the differences we had seen. He had a cat! The first one we’ve seen since we’ve been here. In fact, the guy said the local city council wants to ban them because they’ve become so prevalent they are destroying the local wildlife. But so far, we’ve only seen the one. The park overlooks where the Geleng River reaches the ocean. Very pretty spot.
Tomorrow we’ll be driving the Great Ocean Road. The “most spectacular stretch of coastline in Australia” (third time’s a charm). So we likely won’t make it to Melbourne but we’re going to try. We did about 580 km today. Irish stew for dinner.
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