Easter Monday 28/03/2016

To say my hands are cold whilst I am typing this, is an understatement! Whenever we hit the road on our next journey, I put the time (try) to good use to get my blogs up to date.   They are currently a week behind and barking at my door to be completed!   We seem to see and do quite a bit and my recall abilities can certainly be put to the test. Nothing to do with old age!!   Or is it?

I do have to tell you though, before I go much further, that I love the comments posted by those of you who have the time to.   It really gives me/us a buzz to know that you enjoy the read.   Thanks heaps!

Anyway, I digress, back to the cold of South Australia.   It is around 10 degrees and 10am and we are bidding farewell to the beautiful city of Mt Gambier.   With its amazing volcanic cones and craters, its sunken gardens, awesome historic and old, beautifully maintained, sandstone houses and city buildings, fantastic visitor centres and everything incredibly top notch in bringing the beauty and history of the city to the tourist and enticing them to stay longer.   We did!   Paid for two nights, then booked another two and then another one.   Although we are coast people and love to be on or close to the water, Mt Gambier has so much here to see and do and is such a beautiful place.   Don't ever pass it by if you are in the region!   Top notch place!

And so we drive west once more but not all that far.   Robe is our next stop for 4 nights.   On the coast and only 130km.   It is Easter Monday and the Easter weekend campers will not be leaving our next park on time for sure.   That gives us some time to stop a little places like Millicent and Beachforth on the way.

The inland drive is beautiful even though the day is bleak and grey. The radiata pine forests add a bling of deep green with the bluey grey tinge of the eucalypt intermingling on the roadside.   The whole area reminds me of NZ.   Out of the forest, on to the plains;  lots of sheep (really white ones), cattle, green pastures, macrocarpa, pine, tee tree, poplars just starting to change colour and willows.  

Millicent was closed, not a soul in sight with only a seeming convoy of caravans passing through town.   No coffee stop here.

We arrive in Robe on yet another bleak and windy day.   It is bloody freezing, even for this Kiwi.   So we set up camp, lots of room and no-one on either side of us.   Nice!   The caravan park is 2 minutes from Long Beach – yes it is long – 10 km.   Beach driving is very easy with hard compact sand.   There are three cuttings along this stretch with the first two being more for fishing and the 3rd for surfing.   Very on-shore, very mixed up and messy, freezing cold even with a full wet-suit. Nah, don't think so!

We drove to the Obelisk, not a lighthouse, but a conical shaped building which housed rescue gear for ships foundering on the nearby rocks.    Rockets, with baskets attached, were fired to the stricken folk and if they were lucky enough, they could clamber into the basket and be winched to safety.

The headland was stark and soooo cold and windy.   Totally rugged up to explore and take in the rugged beauty of this coastline.   While we are standing on the point looking at the rocks and the crashing sea below, Bill spots numerous seagulls hovering over the ocean.   Something had to be there!   And so there was;  a lone seal was ducking and diving for his dinner and the gulls were waiting for any fishy morsel he didn't eat.   We were so excited at the privilege of witnessing this, something that may never happen in a lifetime.   Bill was lucky enough to get some shots but the seal didn't come out of the water much however only one good shot is all it takes.   And he got it!

Bill yet again set up the camera for a selfie of us.   All pics you see with the two of us, Bill has set up with short time delay, and then quickly scrambled into the shot.   No mean feat sometimes I can tell you.   Anyway, we found later that this shot was indeed remarkable!   Even though I lark around 'holding up' or ‘leaning’ on huge buildings, lighthouses etc, this shot was not a set up and there I am, in this pic, leaning on the obelisk with Bill.   Hahaha, a great shot!