Friday 20 April
Coorong National Park South Australia
Bill finished with us leaving the Rutherglen in Victoria and heading west. We left our rather pedestrian caravan park in Bundalong and headed along the Murry River to Echuca. (Never did figure out how to pronounce that name). We settled in for a few days of "urban tourism".
Echuca is a major caravan holiday site with twelve big parks in Echuca and Moama (just over the border in NSW). The big deal in Echuca is taking a paddle steamer cruise on the Murray River, so we did. We cruised on the Emmy-Lou, a wood-fired paddle steamer that used to be used for freight and towing timber, that dated from the early 1900s. Although the cruise was relaxing and provided a lot of interesting history, I was disappointed that the Murray River at that point is more like a deep muddy ditch than a mighty river. I was very interested, however, in the number of little paddlewheel boats that people have built or restored for private use. There were also numerous huge houseboats for rent, with all the mod-cons including a huge hot-tub on the upper deck.
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| Small private paddle boat at Echuca |
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Commercial paddle steamer Canberra
The next morning we went for a bike ride on paths along the edge of the Murray that basically followed our steamboat cruise route to the junction with the Campaspe River. This took about one third of the time that the cruise did. (Mainly due to the fact it was very cold and I was peddling as hard as I could to keep warm.)
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After Echuca, we headed for the Grampians with a brief overnight stop at Melville Caves Campground. This area in Kooyoora National Park was the hideout of a bushranger named Captain Melville. We did an unexpectedly long morning hike (6K instead of 2) due to poor signage. The rock formations were fascinating, however, and I was quite taken with the womens' toilet block in the picnic area that looked like modernist architecture colliding with a boulder.
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| Melville Caves, Captain Melville's Hideout (boardwalk added after time of Captain Melville) |
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| Womens' Toilet Block, Melville Caves |
We then headed for The Grampians National Park, via the pretty little country town of St. Arnaud, and Stowell, home of the Stowell Gift footrace. We missed it by about a week.
The Grampians are basically a huge pile of rocks that stick out of a very flat plain. They probably attract so many visitors as they are one of the few interesting features in landscape. The Grampians are a very old (late 1800s) and popular Victorian National Park. They are also one of the few National Parks to have a lot of 4WD tracks running through the park. (Although I'm not sure they need them as some of the so called gravel access roads were pretty rough.) We spent our time hiking and sightseeing, including a 12 kilometre hike around and to the top of Mt. Stapylton, which ended in a scramble up a short, narrow chimney to the summit. On a more genteel note, we also walked down a very steep 750 metre flight of rock stairs to view the lovely Mackenzie Falls. The Grampians also had the very civilized "bush showers" for any campers who cannot do without their daily shower. (A bush shower is basically an enclosure with a bucket which you raise on a pulley to have a shower. You have to provide your own hot water).
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| Mackenzie Falls |
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| Interior of The Grampians from Reid's Lookout |
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| View over surrounding farmland from the summit of Mt. Stapylton |
After the Grampians we headed to the Coonawarra area of South Australia. Although we had not yet consumed the spoils of our wine buying spree in the Rutherglen, we could not let a wine producing area, especially one with such nice reds, pass without sampling. Unfortunately, sampling leads to buying. We sampled and bought at Rymill, Redmann and Leconfield wineries. Rymill was particularly nice as we had a coupon for a free bottle if you bought over $60 worth of wine. We camped at Bool Lagoon, a seasonal wetland that is one of the world listed RAMSAR Wetlands to protect migratory birds. It was, however, low water time and much of the lagoon was dry. We did not see many birds, but it was a quiet place to camp.
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| Rymill Winery, Coonawarra SA |
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| Bool Lagoon, Coonawarra SA |
We made an overnight stop in Mt. Gambier to fill up on water, do laundry etc. The caravan park we selected was one of the less expensive ones, but it was filled with little hoons on bicycles racing around the camp. Turns out the BMX championships were being held in Mt. Gambier. We did not stay to watch.
Since then we have travelled along the SA coast and are camped at The Coorong NP. There is supposed to be 4 wheel driving on the beach here, but it is very narrow and boggy. Bill was interested in having a go, but I chickened out. Didn't want to be stuck without any help and the tide rising. Even swimming looks ugly as there is a big gutter and dumpers on shore. I haven't swum in over a month, but can't bring myself to go in. We did a short hike to Chinaman's Well, a well from the gold rush days that provided water to Chinese travelling overland from SA to the Victorian goldfields. They used this route to avoid the 10 pound head tax levied by Victoria on immigrants. The well was built of local stone cut from the bottom of salt lakes and you can still see where the stone was cut.
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| Chinamans Well |
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| Lid for the well cut in one piece from this sandstone lake bottom site |
Thats all for now folks. We are off to Kangaroo Island on Monday.
