Well today is the day, we are off to SA for three weeks. Our first stop for the trip is (obviously) Mount Gambier.
We aren’t really rushing to get everything packed, we are just taking it easy and planning to leave at around 12pm-1pm. I am so excited and I’m sure that the rest of us are too.

We’ll keep you up to date,
Cya,
Leo

22/9/07-Driving

Well after a long day of driving (4½ hrs) with of course a few stops along the way, we are all very exhausted and tired. We finally arrived at Mount Gambier at 6.00pm, although because we crossed the boarder from Vic to SA, we had to wind the time back 30mins, so we really got there at 5.30pm. The place we are staying at is called Blue Lake Holiday Park and so far it’s looking pretty good-there’s a games room, tennis court, pool, playground and heaps of space to play around. We didn’t really do much for tea (since no-one could be bothered) so we just had 2min noodles and toast.

23/9/07-Blue Lakes and Sinkholes

So we are settled in at Blue Lake Holiday Park. This morning Sean and I went for a walk around the place to check it out, then had a game of pool, a game of tennis and kicked the soccer ball around. Then we all went for a walk along the top of the Blue Lake which is 3.6kms and took us about 45mins, Blue Lake sits in the crater of an extinct volcano, so we were walking along the rim and saw how Mount Gambier is built down the sides of the volcano and spread out from the base. After lunch we drove around town until we got to the Visitors Information Centre. That’s where we went on a ‘self guided tour’ and saw fossils that they found all around the Mount Gambier area because millions of years ago it was all under the ocean. Next we went over to some ‘sinkholes’ to see what they looked like. Sinkholes are just big holes in the ground that are formed when the roof of underground caves has caved in. Finally went to Valley Lake which is in another extinct volcano, right next to Blue Lake. We walked a steep track up to Centenary Tower to get a great view of Mount Gambier and the lakes. We had Chili Con Carne for tea and it was nice.

24/9/07-Caves and Wineries

First we got ready to go out driving for a few hrs, then we went out to another sinkhole but instead of just looking at it this time we actually went down it into some caves. Engelbrecht Caves is what they called them; we got to see all the rock formations and the ‘solution tubes’, they are sort of like air holes that are formed in a very strange way: they grow from the bottom (meaning the top of the cave) up to the surface, and they grow in a very round circular shape so if you stand directly under them you’ll see all the way up to the top of it. The leader who took us through the caves told us that a lot of diving experts come down and do some cave diving, as there is a lot of water underground in these caves. He told us that the water temperature down there was 12 degrees Celsius. Although the water looked still he said it was actually moving, very, very slow; and he also explained how the water was heading out to the ocean (28kms away) and will finally get there in 500years time! Mum and I worked out that the water was going 6millimetres per hour!! (you can check our calculations if you like! )

Next stop was Bool Lagoon, it was supposed to be a wetlands with a whole lot of birds flying around… but the ‘wetlands’ was all dry, and there were no birds at all, but then when we were driving back to the highway we found water and birds, so we stopped an had a look for a bit. A few kms down the road we got to the Naracoorte Caves National Park. There we went to two caves, The Wet Caves and Alexander Caves. The first, Alexander Caves, we were guided down them. These caves were more interesting since they had different styles of stalagmites and stalactites growing all over the caves. We even saw a few columns (when stalagmites and stalactites join together). At the bottom of the caves (when we couldn’t walk any further) we had a look at some fossils, but I was kind of getting a bit bored and was losing interest in everything by then. I couldn’t wait until we got out back on the road; it was just driving the whole way back to Mount Gambier. There were a few stops at wineries but I just stayed in the car playing on the laptop while the others went to taste wines.

Tonight was an interesting night; we went out for dinner to a place that had good food and a Play station1, that wasn’t bad. Before we went back to our cabin we went to one of the sinkholes to feed the possums.

Last night I set myself a goal to run around the whole of the Blue Lake… So this morning I got up and did it. It was weird how it felt like there were more uphill parts than downhill, but maybe it’s just because I ran really fast downhill. It took me 17:51mins to run the 3.6kms.

What should have been a short trip became a long day driving and sight seeing because we went via Mt Schank and Port MacDonnell. Mt Schank is another extinct volcano like the Blue Lake, but it doesn’t have any water in it. We were very cautious walking along the narrow steep rim of the crater, but we saw spectacular views from Mt Gambier through to Port MacDonnell on the coast. We travelled on the few kms to Port MacDonnell to view the rugged coastline.

On the way to Robe we passed a wind farm which we reckon had over 100 wind turbines. It is reporting to be the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere. There are many pine forests in the Mt Gambier area and driving along this route we continue through pine forests and see many trucks with loads of logs.  Last night when visiting the sinkhole to feed the possums we were commenting on the smell and lights coming from the timber mill in operation next door. Sean even suggested they were cutting down the pine trees to make tissues.  What do you know…Today we drive past the tissue factory!!(Kimberly-Clark) on the outskirts of Millicent - it is reported to supply most of the tissue products to Australia! Another side trip on along the way, to Beachport where we seek the Pool of Siloam which is claimed to be seven times saltier than the ocean. It certainly tasted it…YUK. But Mum & Dad wanted me to bathe my legs and feet in it. It was freezing!

We finally arrived at 5:30 at our destination which Sean had been hanging out for all day, because Mum had told Sean about the indoor heated pool, games room and jumping pillow at our caravan park. What do you think Sean and I did first?

26/9/07 & 27/9/07-Rainy, Windy Days in Robe

These were our only full days in Robe and the weather wasn’t really the best. Most of the time we were here, we were either in the pool or in the games room. Sean and I ended up playing 4 games of pool over the two days and one of them we played with Dad. Sean was always so keen to go to the indoor heated pool he went in morning and night, but I didn’t go in as much as he did-I just went in at night time.

During the daytime we basically stayed in the caravan park the whole time (obviously because of the weather). But there was once we went out for a walk a long a track beside the beach…it wasn’t really that interesting,  we kept following the track until we got to the shopping centre of Robe, still it wasn’t that interesting but at least we got out of the caravan park for once. To make it interesting on the way back, Sean and I were looking for short-cuts back through the track.

The Jumping Pillow was one of my favourites because it was so fun to play on.  A Jumping Pillow is like a huge trampoline built into the ground, but in the shape of a gigantic pillow. When you jump on it you can go really high. And the good thing is you can have as many people on at a time, not like on trampolines where there are rules like no more than 2 people allowed at a time; on the Jumping Pillow you can have 20 at a time! I really like playing on it when it’s wet, it gets really slippery!

Out of those 2 days I think that the whole Big4 holiday park was enough to entertain us while the weather was horrible.

Well another long day in the car as we headed off to Victor Harbor for 4 nights. Before we actually left Robe, Mum wanted to get some photos of the rugged coastline; we all thought she was going to get blown away it was so windy.

Sean and I basically slept in the car the whole way as we couldn’t get to sleep last night because of the rain and wind. There were a few stops along the way and at Kingston after fish & chips for lunch we decided to see how the Analematic sundial  worked (can you have a guess what it might be? ). Well, Mum stayed at the sundial and worked it out while we all fled from the swooping plovers! Larry the Lobster (the dumbest ‘Big Thing’ in Australia) farewelled us on our way.

We got to Victor Harbor at about 4:10pm and did the usual-unpacked everything out of the car and got settled into to our motel unit. So after getting all that sorted out, have a guess what we did… had a game of pool!

Tea time was near so out we went to look for a place. We found somewhere to go-a pizza and pasta place. I was so hungry that I had a whole Large Aussie pizza! That certainly filled me up. I have to say, that was probably one of the best tasting Aussie pizzas I have had.

When we got back to the motel Sean and I watched a movie on the laptop while Mum and Dad watched their show on TV.

29/9/07-Grand Final Day

You can probably guess what Sean and I did first, as I absolutely love playing pool. That’s why Sean and I are always playing pool. To start the day today, we went for a walk along a causeway out to an island-Granite Island-to check it out. On the causeway we passed a tram which was being pulled by a horse, there were quite a few people on it. I honestly thought it was for the lazy people because it was going so slow that it was quicker to walk!  While we were walking around Granite Island Dad kept getting comments from strangers… he was the only one in town wearing a Cats scarf. One thing I liked on Granite Island was watching the huge waves being splashed up against the rocks.

On our way back to Victor Harbor we saw all of these rides set up for the SA school holiday. Sean and I played a game of mini golf. I won 49-59 which was 3 shots off the male junior record! It was fun.

As Grand Final time was near (Port Adelaide against Geelong), we went and got some party food to have while watching the game. During the second quarter of the game Sean and I went to the pool for a swim. It was fun throwing the mini soccer ball at each other. We came back at the start of the third quarter to see Geelong was thrashing Port Adelaide. We watched until the end to see that Geelong won by 119 points (I kind of felt sorry for Port Adelaide, it must have been pretty embarrassing to lose like they did).

That night we got as many warm clothes on as we could, because it was so cold when we went out to Granite Island again on a guided tour to see penguins. The guide told us that they come back from the ocean from a big day of fishing for food for their families, and the little baby penguins stay home in their burrows (that’s why we don’t see them in day time). We even saw a couple of possums roaming around and two water rats scamper along the rocks.

After that freezing walk we got back into our warm beds and enjoyed another night watching a movie (Storm boy) on the laptop!

30/9/07 & 1/10/07- Wineries and Walks.

These two days weren’t really the most interesting days of the trip. Driving around in the car to all these wineries that Mum & Dad went to taste at was giving me an annoying headache, but at the last one I could get some fresh air as there was a maze we could walk through. That was a bit more fun than sitting in the car waiting for Mum & Dad to hurry up and finish tasting the wines. 

That next day was also a bit boring (well for me at least), the first thing wasn’t too bad going up to the top of Rosetta Head (Bluff), that was just a lookout over Victor Harbor and Granite Island. But the next thing was so boring, we went on a 16km walk along the beach to get to the spot were the Murray River meets the sea (the Murray Mouth). My feet were killing me on the way back. Not only that…. we didn’t walk back along the beach we walked along this track that hadn’t been walked on for months, maybe years (we guessed). Plants were growing all over the track and we couldn’t walk through it in some parts. We were walking through reeds that were taller than me, Mum and Dad! and through scrub and scratchy grasslands. I didn’t even have a clue why we were doing this. I was so exhausted after about 3 hrs of walking. We had walked through the area where Storm boy was filmed (the Coorong) and we saw a few Mr. Percivals, Black Swans, White Ibis, White Faced Heron, Intermediate Egrets, Pied Cormorants, ducks and a Pied Oyster Catcher.

Later we drove onto Hindmarsh Island (over the secret women’s business bridge) to a spot where you could view the Murray Mouth from a lookout!

That night, to cheer me up, we had fish’n'chips. I didn’t have much trouble getting to sleep that night.

Hi there Sean here:

Before leving today, we thought (well at least Leo and I did)  that it would be good to have a last game of pool. We decided that it would be Leo & Mum against Sean and Dad-they seemed fair enough teams and was a very close game (Leave us a comment and say who you think won! )

First we went on a ferry to get to Kangaroo Island and I got to see the cars come on and there were about 36 cars on the boat. It was about a 45 min ride to the island. The sea wasn’t rough and the ferry didn’t sway. Unfortunately we didn’t see any dolphins or whales. When we got to Kangaroo Island we saw that a truck filled with sheep was about to go on… followed by about five others!

On the way to the place we were staying at (which was on the other side of the island) we went to a honey farm to taste some honey and get a honey ice-cream. We got to see a beehive and we had to try and find the Queen Bee. Later on we got to our resort and there was a free mini pool table in the games room and me and Leo played it.

That night the wallabies and possums came out where we were staying.

3/10/07-Walking and Riding

Leo here again:

I kind of really like this place we are staying at. It’s good because of all the free stuff there is included in our accommodation: free internet/wireless as well, mountain bikes, breakfast, games room with mini pool table, soccer table and board games, DVD loans. So as I said we get free breakfast, we just walked into the restaurant whenever and got whatever we want from the buffet.

It wasn’t a long drive to the Information Centre at Flinders Chase National Park, where we saw these birds flying/walking around that (to me) looked like geese with a duck’s face, but they were called Cape Baron Geese. We were on the lookout for some echidnas, kangaroos/wallabies, and reptiles (goannas or snakes) on the walk. But we didn’t see anything; Mum spotted a Superb Fairy Wren and a Scarlet Robin (both small birds). Basically what we were doing on the walk was looking for some platypi in the rivers, unfortunately we didn’t see any.

Something I absolutely love doing we got to do today, that was mountain bike riding. We rode the mountain bikes around the place, finding a bush track that we knew went 10.5kms down to the beach. We rode down until we got to a point were we got tired of riding and started heading back. The track was more for 4WD’s than mountain bikes but it was pretty good. We saw our first echidna for today when we stopped to turn back; it was just waddling across the track looking for ants. We didn’t do much after that; it was good because I was getting tired.

Sean and I went off playing another few games of pool. It’s pretty interesting playing a really mini game of pool, it’s really easy to hit the ball, and they are really bouncy as well.

While Mum and Dad went out to the restaurant where we are staying, Sean and I watched a movie back in our room and had some toasted sandwiches. We also finished off the evening feeding the wallabies (and the scavenging possums), that appear at dusk where we are staying.

4/10/07-Sea Lions and Caves

Straight away after we finished our breakfast, guess what Sean and I did?………. We had a game of pool!! But not for long because we had to get ready to go to out. I thought what we were going to do was pretty boring-‘Sea Lines’-is what Mum had told me (I didn’t even know what they were). But then later when we arrived at Seal Bay, Mum explained (with a laugh) that we weren’t looking at ‘Sea Lines’, we were looking at ‘Sea Lions‘!!

Sea Lions turned out to be more interesting than Sea Lines anyway; Sea Lions are just like seals. We saw them all down on the beach, some were swimming, some were fighting and some were just resting in the sun. To me they looked very lazy, but the guy who was leading the tour said that they sometimes go out fishing-up to 3 days at a time and swim 30 km out to sea. So they come back to the beach to rest.

Kelly Hill Caves were next, we found a lot of stalactites and stalagmites, and we even saw a couple of helictites. I didn’t quite understand how one could start off as a stalactite and spiral back up on itself and then appear to be growing upwards.

That night we went out-again-but to somewhere else that wasn’t too far away. The ‘Nocturnal Tour’ is what they called it. For 1.5 hrs we were outside in the bush from dusk until it was really dark-we basically saw possums, koalas, wallabies and kangaroos. Something really weird happened with some of the koalas, first we heard a female koala (but couldn’t see it) screeching as loud as it could (I first thought it was just a cockatoo), we didn’t have a clue what it was until the guy told us that she was marking her territory, her tree for the night. We also saw another koala (but male) climbing up his tree for the night, so he obviously made his grunting noises to mark his territory. At the end of the tour we had a good view of the stars- we could see Scorpio, the Southern Cross, Jupiter and the Milky Way. We were unable to find a satellite but every now and then we saw a meteor (shooting star)!

5/10/07-Rocks and Fur-Seals

I am always the last one to get to breakfast each morning (I like my sleep!). The thing is, breakfast goes from 8.00am-9.30am so the latest I can get up is 9.00. Most of the time we have been getting up at 8.00am because Sean is always waking us up so he could get there early (probably because he is hungry all the time).

Driving through a recently burnt section of Flinders Chase National Park on the way to the “Remarkable Rocks”, from a distance they looked like some of the Devils Marbles that had rolled down south. As we got closer we saw that the rocks were eroded and funny shaped, some were curved over to look like waves, there were big ones, small ones and one had this funny shaped hole in it that we could fit through.

The New Zealand Fur-seals we saw next at Admirals Arch seemed different to the Australian Sea-lions we saw at Seal Bay. Sea-lions are a paler orangey colour (like lions)and have whiskers, whereas fur-seals are just like…well…normal seals, dark grey, slimy fur (it’s not really slimy, that’s just what it looks like when it’s wet)and whiskers. We drove to a lookout to where we could see some fur-seals on the rocks, most of them were swimming in the water and some catching the waves, but there were a few just lying around in the sun. There was a bit of a bush walk up to a lookout to get a good view of the beach where the seals all were.

I don’t have a clue how “Snake Lagoon” got its name, seeing there weren’t any snakes anywhere along Rocky River. It wasn’t all that exciting walking along it anyway-I just wanted to go back to the Retreat (where we were staying) and rest. The walk was too the mouth of the river, there was a sandy part at there end of the walk- Sean and I amused ourselves chucking huge rocks into the river.

6/10/07-Two Roll Overs

Straight after a good meal of Coco-pops, juice and a croissant we had a little time to go on the internet before we were off to the north western tip of Kangaroo Island to Cape Borda. Driving on a dirt road to get there, we saw a car that had rolled over. We think it happened because a kangaroo ran in front of the car causing them to lose control.

There was a lighthouse and a canon on the top the hill, and we went on a tour inside that small square lighthouse. The guy just was telling us about all the ships that come by and what the best direction is for them to go if they were to pass KI (Kangaroo Island). I wasn’t really that interested and half the stuff he was talking about I didn’t understand! It was a bit more interesting watching them set a canon off at the end of the tour.

We drove east now to a more northern part of the island. At Parndana-a small town- we got petrol and some ice-creams. About an hours drive down the road we got to Stokes Bay – but before that, we saw another car that had rolled over, This time it was more serious as the car had crashed into a tree as it rolled and the people were more injured. There was ambulance, police, and fire brigade there. To get to the beach we had to walk though the cracks between a whole lot of huge rocks it was more of a climb than a walk. On the beach Sean, Dad and I were kicking the mini soccer ball around. We kept moving along the beach until we got to some rocks and headed back to the car.

Driving back along the dirt road that took us to the main highway, we saw all the police and ambulances had gone, and the car that crashed had been towed up the road a bit. We could see how both front side panels were smashed in, one of the side mirrors had broken off, the front windscreen was all shattered, the windscreen wipers were wrecked and one of the wheels had been taken off. Basically the whole front of the car was in a mess!

That night after some more mountain bike riding on the bush trails aound our place, Sean and I played a couple games of pool, we also used the internet while we had it for free – well at least I used it.

7/10/07-Exploring KI

This was our last full day in Kangaroo Island we were just visiting some places we hadn’t yet been to: Emu Bay; where we had a picnic lunch watching pelicans on the beach- Emu Bay is a holiday spot for locals. We just looked around Kingscote-the main town on KI, and we found a park on the foreshore that Sean and I kicked the soccer ball around on. Some local girls came along and showed us a penguin burrow on a steep cliff, there was one penguin in it sitting on his/her 2 eggs.

We had a bit of an early tea that night (or afternoon) because on the way back to the Retreat we came to a store that we got local whiting burgers/fish’n'chips from. As we were staying in a remote area in the western end of the island it made sense to get our tea as we were passing through Vivonne Bay which is the nearest general store about 40km away.

 Today was the day we had to leave Kangaroo Island. After packing it was a one hour drive to Penneshaw so to entertain myself I was listening to “Just Tricking!!” on CD. It was then the same 45mins by ferry back to Port Jervis as it was when we were going to KI.

The whole way to Adelaide-which wasn’t to far-I listened to “Just Stupid!!” on CD, it was good because there weren’t any stops on this trip (apart from the ferry), so I could just lay back and listen without any distractions. When we got to Adelaide we noticed how busy it was-we hadn’t seen so many people and cars for a while (we had been in KI for 6 days with no traffic). The main freeway into town was only taking traffic out of town as it was peak hour, so we had to take a detour to get to our apartment.

At our place we stayed at, we had a pool and spa, tennis court, gym and wireless internet access-although we have to pay for it. Dad was off to his conference that night; the conference goes for all 4 days we are here in Adelaide, so we won’t get to see much of him. The rest of us went and go some burgers and chicken‘n’chips for tea.

9/10/07, 10/10/07 & 11/10/07- Nice Sunny Days in Adelaide.

Adelaide is the place where we have been resting; mostly we’ve been to the beach or in the pool. To get to the beach we didn’t drive but we caught a tram, which goes from Victoria Square to Glenelg (where the beach is). On the beach we kicked the soccer ball around, played volleyball and lay in the sun. And the weather was great, nice and warm. We kept on hearing all these planes that were landing at the airport which wasn’t far from us. At the end of the first day I think we saw/heard about 20!

Getting the tram back to Victoria Square, instead of heading back to our place we went to the ‘Central Market’ and bought some stuff. It was mainly Mum buying fruit and veg but I bought something once. (There was one lolly shop.)

Back at the apartments Sean and I played tennis when we weren’t in the pool, spa or the gym.

This was probably the longest drive on our trip that we will have done, and this was our final destination. We’ve already been to Halls Gap in the Grampians before but it was about 3 years ago, we’ve been there quite a lot so we know the little place quite well. We had to get up a bit earlier this morning (which I hated), to leave at 10.00. There was only the one stop along the way, and that was to a lookout at where we could get a great view of Adelaide. The city doesn’t seem as big as Melbourne but still… we could see heaps.

In the car I was listening to ‘Just Disgusting’ on CD, I listened to all 3 discs until we got to ‘Grampians National Park’ and then we were only about 30mins away from Halls Gap. After a long day of driving, we finally got to our little apartment. As we were unpacking the car, when I was inside our room I heard a very familiar voice, it sounded like my Pa, but I didn’t see how it could be. As soon as I turned around the corner to see who it was it actually was our Nana & Pa!!! I burst into questions as soon as I saw them “…how come?” “…why?…” “…what are you doing here?…” The answer I got was something like: “well we thought we didn’t have anything on so we came to visit you in Halls Gap and see what you lot are up to.” I was amazed to see them come up here all the way from Geelong, and they were in the apartment right beside us!

That night Nana had made us a delicious spag bol (Spaghetti Bolognaise).

13/10/07-The Last Full Day of the Trip!

It was a bit exciting today, but also a bit of, well, ”ohhh, why does the trip have to finish now? Now we have to go back to school and everything”, that kind of thing . I decided that we should make the most of this last day we have, Sean and I went down to have a hit of the tennis ball one last time. We were playing some different types of board games with Nana & Pa that Pa had brought over, then Mum & Dad called us over to get ready for the big walk up to the Pinnacle. There are a whole lot of walks and climbs in the Grampians that we usually do when we come down here, but the most common one that we do is the Pinnacle. I like this one a lot because there are some good bits where we have to climb up over some rocks, it was pretty fun. Along the way to the top of the Pinnacle walk, we did stop quite a bit, our first stop was at splitters falls, we stopped to have a look and to have a snack.

On the hard bits to climb over and a track wasn’t so easy to spot, there were arrows or markers pointing in which direction to walk. Sean and I had an attempt at counting all of them but it was too hard when we were trying to concentrate on the track as well. I got up to 60 markers and stopped but I reckon there were over 100. The walk took us 5hrs so we were certainly puffed out after that, we got back and found Nana&Pa in their room playing games. Then when we had a little rest Pa, Mum, Sean and I went to get an ice-cream each and went to see some kangaroos that were coming out, some of them had joeys.

Soon we tested out the pool to see if it was the same as it had always ben when we come here. We found out that the pool was freezing (it’s usually heated) and we had to pay to go in the spa. We didn’t stay in there for long!!

Today was the day, today we had to leave and go back home.

But before actually leaving we all (including Nana&Pa) went and played a game of mini golf. This Adventure mini golf place was probably the most exciting one I’ve been to, there were mini tunnels, sand bunkers, big and small hills, tricky obstacles and bridges, some with holes in them. It was so fun to challenge ourselves. When we got there we saw the leader board, we saw mine and Sean’s Uncle (or Mum’s brother) in the lead! Bryan is a really good golfer so that’s why he got a great score of 58 on 18holes. It took the 6 of us to finish the course in 2hrs, at the end we saw a ‘Jackpot Hole’ Looking on the Jackpot winners list we saw Bryan there again! He won $163 for getting the ball in the tricky hole, Sean and I had a few goes at it but we didn’t have any luck.

We said Bye to Nana & Pa as we left to go home (I guess it wouldn’t be long before we see them again in Geelong.) It was quite a long drive back to Geelong, I just slept the whole way, there wasn’t much to see anyway. The next thing I new I woke up seeing us driving into Geelong, we first went and visited our other Nana&Pa who live close by to us, next stop was HOME!! What do you reckon the first thing we did was???

Leo