BarossaValley to Coonawarra Wine region

After another amazing breakfast, we reluctantly left the Blickinstal B&B and set off for our overnight stop in Robe, on route to the Coonawarra wine region.Today is the longest travelling day we have along the coastal road where we stopped occasionally to take photos of a pink lake, a giant red lobster and a lighthouse!!

For more than 25 million years, this area now known as the LimestoneCoast consisted of a series of ancient coastlines submerged beneath the Southern Ocean.Tonnes of marine crustaceans and shells fell to the sea floor to form the soft, white porous rock known as limestone.When the sea retreated about 1 million years ago, nature's chemistry blended the remaining sand dunes and limestone deposits to produce a labyrinth of caves and sinkholes, along with world renowned soils which are credited with the region's wine and agriculture industries.

Like something out of a 1950s B-movie, a huge red crustacean looms over the entrance to the town of Kingston SE - this huge lobster is a concrete and fibreglass construction standing 17 metres tall from tail to the tip of its feelers. The Big Lobster apparently weighs in at four tonnes - and it is unfortunate it's not real (although you'd need a truckload of Mornay sauce to appreciate it fully).

The Big Lobster, or 'Larry' as he's affectionately called by locals, was built in 1979 by the owners of the Big Lobster restaurant. Originally designed to be much smaller as a rooftop ornament, somewhere along the line the instructions got mixed up and the lobster was built in metres instead of feet. Seeing the wonderful potential for tourism though, a gift shop was soon opened with all your big lobster needs, including postcards and snow domes.

Our stop for the night was in a seaside town called Robe where we had just enough time to take a quick drive along the coast for some pictures of the obelisk before settling in for the night with a rather large Chinese take-away!!Robe was originally one of the LimestoneCoast's largest ports and the Cape Dombey Obelisk was built in 1853 as a navigational aid to assist entry to the bay.

The next morning we continued our journey and headed inland to Penola, the start of our tour of the Coonawarra wine region.Coonawarra is known as "Australia's other red centre" and the name comes from the Aboriginal word meaning "honeysuckle rise".Some of the wine makers and wineries are not as well known as those in the Barossa although Coonawarra grapes are used extensively in world famous wines such as Penfolds and Jacob's Creek.Measuring only 20km in length and 2 km in diameter, there are more than 24 cellar doors of which we managed 4!!!The best was Hollick Wines who produce a sparkling Merlot which I am drinking as I write this!!!

Our accommodation tonight is at The Barn in MountGambier in a luxurious king suite with a 42" flat screen TV - unfortunately we couldn't afford to eat in their famous steakhouse next door so Ant sneaked in 2 Dominoes pizzas from the local garage!!