We went into Penola bright and early this morning to discover that the tourist office wasn't open yet...whoops, so we went for a brew and a walk around the town. There's something going on in town at the moment. Everywhere we look are random things covered in knitting. The statues, the lampposts and even the benches. Although the bench had a nice little knitted cat on it too lol. The lady in the cafe said it was Knitting bombing similar to photo bombing. I thought ok...never seen anything like this before.

The tourist office provided us with a map of the Coonawara region and a list of wineries in the area. There are A LOT but Bea only wants to go to a few so that should be ok. The first place we went to was a place called Parkers. The lady in there was lovely. Very helpful and talkative, she told us a few other places we should visit too. I'm only trying white wines today but I had some merlot to see how it was and it was quite alright.

Next up we went to Patricks. Now this one is for me! When we were sat in the coffee shop I noticed that Patrick's do their own cider! So we went in there with the intent to just try the cider, which by the way was so lovely I bought a bottle! It reminded me of a cheesy pool hall with a bar on the side though, not sure why but I didn't like the winery. This I think was the beginning of my dislike of some of the wineries in the region.

We then went into a winery called Katnook. It looked very nice from the outside and the inside was pretty impressive too but the lady inside didn't seem interested in speaking to us much and looked a little bored.

Majella was next and we learnt some interesting things about the wine bottles that they use. They actually import some of the bottles from Europe as they have a different design and shape. The lady in there was sweet but I thought she might be a little forgetful as she kept telling us the same things over and over again lol.

Wynn's has to be another really good one from the day. The lady in there was really talkative and the winery itself is actually quite informative. Giving you a brief history on the region and how wine came to Coonawara back in the day. The wines were nice too, but we're just tasting and not buying anything today.

The last winery we went to was Penley's Estate. I did not like any of the wines I tried in here and thought the lady was disinterested in us until some other people left and she then started talking to us about them and their 'dodgy' relationship. She did however tell us about the old railway station in Coonawara which after we had a small spot of lunch we went to visit before punting down the freeway to Mount Gambier.

First impressions Mount Gambier is nice, there is a funky old ship at the Lady Nelson tourist office. We decided to try and take in some of the sights today so we went to the Umpherston sink hole just on the edge of town. The sink holes in this area were all made by volcanoes. This one has been transformed into a garden with a small water feature at the bottom. In here we saw another wild possum which nearly came and sat on my leg I managed to get it to come so close! We messed about here for a bit before taking a walk into the town. We went into a shop called Dan Murphys and I couldn't believe how much alcohol they sell in here that we no longer get in the UK. Who remembers Oranjeboom!?

We were just killing time really till the evening when we were waiting to see some light shows in the centre of town. The first one was meant to showcase a volcano that was to light up the entire building like a lantern. Yep...ok. It was a naff video played through the windows. The second one was at the cave garden and it was a projected video which showed the history of Mount Gambier and the local water. After seeing about 10 minutes of people paddling about in their swimsuits we promptly left. The sink hole was good but I cannot but wonder what the lady in the tourist office was on. She made it sound so spectacular when it wasn't! Oh well. Tomorrow sees us doing some hiking around Mount Gambier.