Week 11: Princetown VIC - Port Elliot SA

March 29, 2023

Week 11: Princetown VIC - Port Elliot SA

Stats Overview

Kms' Travelled: 1041

Km's Hiked: 14

No. of Campsites: 4

The Adventures

We have had another big week on the road - finishing off our travels through Victoria and making it across the border into South Australia. It has also been another week of cold, windy weather with some rain to round the trifecta out. We have often found ourselves checking out the temperatures in Queensland to compare them to what we are experiencing at the southern end of the country. It is suddenly making sense why everyone heads north for the winter!

We started off the week by finishing off the Great Ocean Road. We visited some more of the natural features along the way with the notable highlights being The Grotto and Bay of Islands. We then finished off Victoria's south-west coast by visiting Portland and Cape Bridgewater. Portland had some beautiful views from their clifftops as well as a port (who would have guessed!) that Will spent some time looking at. Apparently it was a really cool port, however, you will have to talk to him about that because it looked pretty ordinary to me! We also checked out the Portland Botanic Gardens which had a huge dahlia display which we both agreed was very pretty. While at Cape Bridgewater we visited the blowholes and the petrified forest. The petrified forest was a highlight, although it isn't really petrified wood but rather eroded, hollow tubes of limestone which look like ancient trees. The forest was right near the edge of the cliff and was an interesting contrast to the ocean - definitely worth braving the wind and cold to see!

We then headed across the border with our first destination in South Australia being the town of Mount Gambier. The main attractions in Mount Gambier are their sinkholes of which there are plenty! We visited the Blue Lake and Umpherston Sinkhole in town. The Blue Lake is actually the towns water supply and has bright, blue water during the summer months which then fades to grey over the winter period. We had quite a cloudy day while we were there so the blue hue was not as bright as we were hoping, but it was still beautiful to visit. In contrast, the Umpherston Sinkhole has been turned into a beautiful sunken garden filled with cascading vines, green lawns and lots of flowers. This was definitely my favourite sinkhole we saw. We also visited Little Blue Lake which is a mini Blue Lake you can swim in. The water maintains 12 degrees year round so we weren't too keen for a swim on the cold day we visited. Although there were some locals jumping in, mind you they were all wearing wetsuits! Nearby to Mount Gambier is Mount Schank which is a dormant volcano you can hike around. We went and completed the crater walk which took us around the rim of the volcano. There were some beautiful views to see while we were walking, and we both nearly fell off the rim more than once as we kept looking at the views rather than keeping an eye on the narrow path!

After Mount Gambier we headed a little further north to Robe which is a lovely beach town with plenty of beautiful bays to explore. Unfortunately, as seems to be our lot at the moment, we had very cold and wet weather while we were there which meant we didn't get to enjoy the outdoors as we had planned. However, we made the most of the small glimpses of sunshine and were able to do some exploring. We have now arrived on the Fleurieu Peninsula and are going to spend the next few days exploring it. Hopefully we have some decent weather so we can make the most of the outdoors while we are here!

Kodak Moments