Port Campbell to Melbourne

Wednesday 5th October
For anybody who has been following this every day, I have finally added the baby kangaroo pictures in the blog entitled 'Cooper Pedy to Quorn' and the iPhone pictures in the blog entitled 'Quorn'.

We didn't have too early a start today, we left after breakfast at 7.30 and set off for the Gibson Steps for an alternative view of the 12 Apostles. There are steps right down the cliffs to the beach.

Then we headed inland for the town of Otway. We climbed into the Otway range of mountains, and drove through rolling hills not entirely unlike the South Downs. There were lots of dairy farms, and everything was very green and fertile.

This was not surprising because apparently the area has a very high rainfall. Our destination was the Otway Fly - a wonderful treetop walk in an area of temperate rainforest.

This was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. The whole forest is lush, full of tree ferns and shrubs at a low level, then much taller trees, and some forest giants. The tallest trees are the Mountain Ash, which can grow to 140 metres but in this forest, which has suffered numerous fires, there probably aren't many over 50 metres. Another forest giant is the Blackwood, a type of Acacia. We first walked on a long path through the forest, descending down into the valley.

Then we entered the walkway, gradually climbing again until we were 25 metres above the forest floor. The forest giants are still above, but the walkway is above many other trees. It is interesting to be that high in the trees, a view you don't usually see.

Towards the end of the walkway, there is a tower which takes you right up to the canopy, so you can see the tops of the forest giants, though they still tower above you.

The tower sways along with the trees, and you can feel it move whenever somebody starts climbing up the spiral stairway. I didn't stay long - I felt quite insecure. There was also a cantilever walkway, which swayed along with the trees. Some people liked making it sway but I didn't, we were still high above the forest floor. The end of the walkway descended gently to the forest floor, near a little stream that ran along the valley and which we had been able to hear but not see when we were up on the walkway.

Then it was a long steep climb back out of the valley and back to the visitor centre where the walk had started. Paul and I really enjoyed it, we loved looking at the different plants, trees and lichens, and listening to the sounds of birds and frogs. We could have stayed much longer, but it was time for the tour to depart.

We weren't finished with the temperate rainforest though, we had a very scenic drive through the Otway National Park, a wonderful twisting road through the Otway range with superb views down over the valleys. Unfortunately, there were no stopping places, so photographs were not a success.

We drove back down to the coast and had our lunch in a place called Apollo Bay. East of Apollo bay, there are black volcanic cliffs, so the rest of the drive along the Great Ocean Road was very scenic. Again, there was no stopping allowed, and our bus was on the inside lane, and the viewpoints were on the outside lane. Vehicles are not allowed to cross to the other lane to access the viewpoints - only vehicles coming from Melbourne can stop to appreciate the views.

As we drove through some of the tall trees lining part of the road, we noticed that some were quite bare of leaves; apparently, the leaves have all been eaten by koalas, and we did spot a couple of koalas in the trees.

There are small villages all along the coast road, mostly with British names. We noticed one called Wye River, which had a nice beach, and we stopped to take photographs at one called Cumberland River, also with a nice little beach

and made another stop in a very smart and pricey one called Lorne.

We also stopped at Torquay, apparently the surfing Mecca, to look in some rather disappointing discount shops. Then it was on to Melbourne, where our driver battled the traffic for almost an hour and a half to get us to our hotel. We said farewell to everybody else on the bus, some of whom have been our travelling companions since Darwin. We are the only ones going on to Sydney tomorrow.

Halls Gap to Port Campbell

Tuesday 4th October

I seem to be having more iPad problems. I can't post anything with pictures in it using BlogPress, though it has worked perfectly for some time. It doesn't seem to work using either 3G or wireless, so I am back to using both the iPad and the PC. I will try again with a good wireless connection - this one I am using is rather weak.

We woke this morning to find it was absolutely freezing. So I started the day wearing a vest top, a short-sleeved shirt, a long-sleeved warm shirt and a fleece. So much for Australia being a hot country!

We began the morning at 7 a.m. by climbing the mountain behind the little town of Halls Gap. It was both steep and rocky, so I didn't find it easy, but there were some spectacular views from the top.




We were back down by 9, and set off on our long drive to the coast. We drove along the southern part of the Great Dividing Range, and eventually we passed the most southerly mountain in the range. Then we were onto a volcanic plain, where the only hills were extinct or dormant volcanoes.

We visited one called Tower Hill, which is now a National Park. The crater sides are made up of layers of ash from progressive eruptions.

The crater is quite wide and contains a lake.

You can drive right in and there is lots of wildlife. We stopped to photograph emus, but the real treat was the little koala. He was sitting quite low down in a tree beside the road, and didn't seem to mind people, he didn't even object to being patted by everybody. He really just wanted to sleep.

Our next stop was the town of Warnambool for lunch, then right down to the coast for the start of the Great Ocean Road. Our first stop on the road was to photograph what is called the Bay of Islands; the islands are stacks, the coast is limestone and has been gradually eaten away by the sea, until only some really hard islands of rock are left.

East of that is the Bay of Martyrs, so called because of all the shipwrecks that have taken place there.

Along this coast there have been Over 600 shipwrecks, mostly between the Bay of Islands and Otway. In the days of sailing ships, maps were poor, and the coast is notorious for very thick fogs.
The town of Peterborough, through which we drove next, has most of its streets named after the wrecked ships.

Our next stop was to photograph something called London Bridge. It was originally a headland with two arches which were completely undercut by the sea, but quite recently, one of the arches collapsed, so only one is left now, and it is no longer a headland but an island.

Apparently a couple were marooned on it when it collapsed, and had to be rescued. Press arrived to take photos which caused the couple some embarrassment, mostly because they were married, but not to each other!
We drove through Port Campbell, where we were later to stay, in order to walk around Loch Ard Gorge, which is so named after the ship the Loch Ard which was wrecked just off the coast there. Only two people survived the wreck, and were washed up into the gorge.

Our last stop was to photograph the Twelve Apostles, some stacks just off the coast which are a popular tourist spot. There aren't twelve, there are 8, or 9 if you count the remains of one which fell down recently. Alternatively, if you count some others nearby, there may be about 16!

By the time we had walked all round and taken photographs, and 2 of our number had taken a short helicopter trip, it was time to return to Port Campbell where Paul and I are in a very nice motel.

Adelaide to Halls Gap

Monday 3rd October

I can't believe I am still having iPad 3G troubles. When the 1Gb Vodaphone ran out I moved to Telstra, and I have a good 3G signal. However, BlogPress won't post any pictures; if I just have text, it's fine. But once I put the pictures in, it won't post at all. And I am in the middle of nowhere again, so there is no access to any help apart from the internet, and the web site isn't very helpful.

We were picked up just after 6 this morning, and set off towards the Grampians, where there are some walks. We drove out of Adelaide through the expensive suburbs, and there were some very big houses. It was quite odd to see mock Tudor houses with corrugated iron roofs. There are some tile roofs, which we have not seen before, but the majority are corrugated iron, though usually painted a sort of roof tile colour. It also seems to be the fashion to have fancy metal lacework over the verandah.

As we left Adelaide, we ran into quite a bit of mist and fog, and it continued very cold. We got a warning to beware of koalas crossing the road, there are lots of wild koalas outside Adelaide, but sadly the only one we saw was one lying dead at the side of the road.

It was a longish drive, with a stop for a late lunch, and then a brief stop to look at a collection of albino kangaroos.

We next arrived in the Grampians National Park, where there were two walks on offer. It was cold and the sky looked very threatening, so I opted for the slightly shorter walk, which was charming. It was a very quiet track with a profusion of spring flowers which wound its way up the hillside to an aboriginal site. It was overlooked by high red cliffs.

The aboriginal site just has the handprints of generations of children, and lots of examples of animal tracks.

There were wonderful views of the surrounding countryside, as we were high above the plains on one side and overlooked by the beetling cliffs on another.

After the walk, it was not too long a drive to where we were staying, some little wooden cabins in the village of Halls Gap.

We had been told this was a good place to see wild kangaroos and went out to look for some as soon as we had unloaded our suitcases. We were soon rewarded by finding a big mob of  more than 50 grazing on some open fields nearby.

They were wary but had no real fear if humans and we were able to approach quite close to some of them, and by going very slowly and talking reassuringly, I was able to get quite close to this mother and baby.

We were greatly amused by all their antics - several of them were boxing, others were playing and some were quietly grazing. One big male was sniffing round a number of lady kangaroos and kept getting the brush-off, but he just kept trying.

Adelaide

Sunday 2nd October

We have only 1 day in Adelaide, and part of it had to be spent trying to get 3G connectivity for the iPad. I ran out of allowance on the Vodaphone SIM, and was so unsatisfied with Vodaphone I decided to go with another provider. This was probably a mistake, because I don't seem to have been able to activate the SIM, and it has cost me a very expensive phone call from the hotel because neither the local phone nor the iPhone seemed to be able to call the number. I may have to pay to put the iPad on the wireless network tonight. I can't go back to the shop and complain as it's Sunday and everywhere is shut. And we leave tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.

All that seemed to take quite a bit of the morning, but we were able to have a walk round the botanic gardens, which were very interesting. There are many exotic plants, mostly, as far as we could see, from South America or Africa.

We were quite taken with the Amazonian waterlilies.

And some of the trees we quite spectacular.

We walked back along the main shopping street, where there is quite a bit of public sculpture,

did some lunch shopping and came back to the hotel to make ourselves a sandwich.

After lunch, we enjoyed a walk round the main streets (those we hadn't already seen while shopping) and looked at the many fine old buildings. The South Australia Museum had something in common with a French chateau

While the South Australian Ary Gallery looked not entirely unlike the one in Edinburgh

The big posters are for a Saachi exhibition - they seem to be everywhere!

We went to see a historic house called Ayres House which used to belong to Henry Ayres, a man who arrived in Australia in 1840 as a very humble person, but became very rich, went into politics, became Premier seven times and was eventually knighted by Queen Victoria.

The house was originally built in 1855, but then was much altered and became very grand.

The rooms inside (no photographs allowed) reflected his wealth and status, with hand painted ceilings and stencilled woodwork, chandeliers and gasoliers and lots of late Victorian furniture. The kitchens and servants areas in the basement reminded us of others we had seen. 

That wooden item at the bottom of the picture is a travelling bath! I was far from certain I could fit myself into it to have a bath, and having got in, I doubted I would be able to get out! 

We had an hour long tour of the house, so afterwards we were glad to walk down to the river and have a cup of tea in a cafe there.

Quorn to Adelaide

Saturday 1st October

We passed rather a cold night. I do not think I have brought sufficient warm clothes with me, and may well have to buy more if cold weather persists. Our bed was supplied with electric blankets, and I made use of mine last night, so at least I passed a warm night. In the morning, I dressed again in long-sleeved shirt on top of short-sleeved shirt, topped by my fleece, but still was not exactly warm. I have only one jumper with me, and am told that the temperature in Adelaide today will reach 17 degrees - probably more jumpers will be necessary. Our bodies, which 2 days ago were suffering the heat of 37 degrees must now contend with 17 degrees (and a lot less at night.)

The rain fell merrily as we breakfasted, so I determined not to walk. When we arrived at the foot of the walk, The Dutchman's Stern, the sun was shining weakly, so everybody but me elected to walk, in spite of the threatening clouds. A number of extremely sharp showers of heavy rain while I was sitting quietly reading in the bus made me glad I had decided to stay inside.

The walkers returned somewhat wet, so it was decided to return to the Mill for hot showers and to make lunch. While the lunch was being made, I found a few minutes to walk round and find out a bit about the mill, which is quite picturesque.

It was built in 1879 by somebody who owned a lot of mills, but I was not able to find out whether it was driven by wind or water, and it has been extensively altered since it went out of use so it was hard to work out.

After lunch, we set off on the 4 1/2 hour trip to Adelaide. For some reason I fell asleep - I don't usually sleep in the bus, I am too interested in looking for wildlife, and there have been a lot of wild grey kangaroos and emus to spot amongst the rather grey scrub. So I fell asleep in Australia, surrounded by scrub and kangaroos and woke up about 90 minutes later to find it looked as if I were in the south of England! I was surrounded by green rolling hills and lots of sheep and English looking cows - we had rather got used to the hump-backed Brahma type cattle, so ordinary ones were quite a shock.

However, it soon became apparent we weren't in England - if the rather different looking trees weren't sufficient, it was the large number of vineyards and wineries. We were in the Clare valley, which centres on the town of Clare. We made a brief refuelling stop and were offered a winery tour and wine tasting, but nobody was interested in going, not even Paul, so we pressed on to Adelaide.

As we neared Adelaide, we found ourselves on a dual carriageway, the first we have seem since Brisbane I think, and it was not long until we were driving around Adelaide, where we said farewell to most of our bus, who were not taking the next bit of the tour.

A quick walk round Adelaide before we got started on the huge pile of laundry revealed some interesting old buildings.

Many of the shops are shaded like this to protect people from the heat. We needed protecting from the cold this time though, the wind is very cold and I thought longingly of last night's electric blanket.

Quorn

Friday 30th September

We are staying at The Mill in Quorn, and making various visits during the day. For reasons of utter stupidity, I left my camera in our room, and had to rely on the iPhone for photographs. So some are not great.

This is our first experience of cold for many days, and I think my body is quite confused. It is warm in the sun, but there is a really cold wind. I am wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a long-sleeved shirt on top, and then my fleece, and taking off and putting on clothes as required!

Our first visit was to the ruins of Kanyaka homestead, which was built in the late 1840s or early 1850s for a sheep farm, during a prolonged wet period of about 20 years. In the early 1860s, there were more than 40,000 sheep. Three quarters of the sheep died in the drought of 1867, and the farm had to be sold. It was never really successful after that as the area reverted to its normal dry state and the homestead was not used and gradually fell into disrepair.

Our next stop was the Yourambulla caves. It was a steep rocky climb to the caves, and the entire hillside was a haze of blue with the spring flowers, though this does not show up well on the pictures.

After 15 or 20 minutes we were high up on the hillside where there were amazing views over the surrounding countryside. The final climb to the main cave was up two long steep ladders. The cave itself was not so much a cave as an abri - just a sheltered rock overhang. The walls had been used for paintings about aboriginal initiation ceremonies, though without the explanation board, the painting would have been impossible for me to understand.

There were some feral goats high on the hillside, though I was mostly too busy watching my feet to think about watching for the goats I could hear bleating. I felt a bit like bleating myself as I stumbled down the very steep and very rocky hillside.

After that walk, we made a brief stop at the small town of Hawker to re-fuel. It reminded me of small African towns of my childhood, though I don't seem to have taken a picture that illustrates that very well!

The landscape outside the town is very scenic, with green trees and rolling hills on one side of the road, and towering rocky crags on the other. However, it is impossible to photograph properly from the fast moving bus. We saw quite a few kangaroos on the way to our next stop at Wilpena, but with no zoom my pictures are ridiculous. Our driver took some better ones.




Once we arrived, we were lucky enough to see a father emu with babies, the babies like little fluffy mint humbugs. (This is our driver's picture as well).




I did manage some pictures of them, though it took time and patience to avoid 12 other people determined to photograph them too. They got stuck on a little traffic island which had a fence round most of it, which the father emu jumped and the babies couldn't. It took some time to herd the babies to a gap they could get through to be re-united with dad. (Apparently, emus are like cassowary, dad does the childminding while the flighty mum goes off to have a more interesting life!)

As we lunched, the rain started, but we were using a lunch stop that was properly set up, with a roof, sink, heated barbecue, table and benches, so we stayed more or less dry. After lunch, we drove off to the start of a 2 1/2 hour walk to Wilpena Pound. We drove down a narrow road along a creek, with some very big old gum trees. At the start of the drive, higher up the hill, some of the trees were so old they were hollow and in one a little kangaroo was sheltering from the rain, looking quite damp and peering out disconsolately through the curtains of rain.

At that point, I decided not to walk, so I lent Paul my rain poncho as he was quite keen to walk, along with about half of our fellow travellers. The remaining 6 of us stayed in the bus. It was not long before some of the walkers, looking very wet, were back, and we were soon joined by the rest. Those who had stayed out longest had gone only as far as the first lookout, and had looked out on nothing except mist and rain, before giving up and returning. Nobody had made it as far as Wilpena Pound, which is a geological feature that apparently looks much like a meteor crater. Most people who had started the walk were too wet to care.

We drove back to the Mill, peering occasionally at the landscape through the rain. We had biscuits and hot chocolate, and watched a DVD while the rain hammered down outside. Sometimes it was so loud it was hard to hear the film. Nobody is particularly looking forward to tomorrow's 2 1/2 hour walk unless the rain stops.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Coober Pedy to Quorn (near Port Augusta)

Thursday 29th September

We had a marvellous experience last night, visiting Josephine's Gallery and Kangaroo Orphanage. There was a lot of Aboriginal art, mostly the dot paintings, which I find interesting but Paul doesn't like. The main attraction though was the baby kangaroos, which were quite delightful. We couldn't see the 2 big kangaroos because they had had to be brought out of their outside enclosure and into the house to escape the dust storm. Apparently they were watching CSI on the TV! There was no room for 15 of us in the house, and the big kangaroos were not normally brought into the gallery, but the babies were smaller and probably not capable of damaging the gallery, so we saw them.

The kangaroos sleep with the dedicated couple who run the orphanage, the 3 babies actually in the bed and the 2 big kangaroos at the foot of the bed. The babies are kept in little pouches made by Jo,

and Terry buys dog carrying bags which have long handles to go over your shoulder, so the babies are easier to carry round. The kangaroos are all orphans, some found in the pouches of mothers killed on the road, some in the pouches of mothers killed by aboriginal hunters, and the latest one, Heidi, found wandering in town having lost her mother. They are released back to the wild if possible, or to a private kangaroo sanctuary. Quite a few homesteads are fully fenced, and the owners like to have red kangaroos on the property because they help to contain the indigenous plants and bushes by grazing them. A hand-raised kangaroo may not be able to survive in the wild and may be in danger from being hunted. Heidi is kangaroo number 71 to be raised by Jo and Terry, and we were delighted by seeing them bottle fed in their pouches,

and then being released to leap about the gallery. Alice, who was the littlest, soon wanted to go back into her pouch, but Heidi was so excited by all the new things she found, including delicious pot plants to nibble, that she bounced up and down, exploring everything and refusing to go back into her pouch.

A male older kangaroo came out too, but he was a bit big and might damage things, and didn't stay long.

This morning, we packed and left Coober Pedy, taking the opportunity to photograph the sign at the south entry to the town, which shows a typical mining machine.




Today was largely a day of driving. Out first real stop, for lunch, was at Glendambo, a sheep station, also a roadhouse and a caravan park; there is an outdoor kitchen as well, which we used for lunch. I have about nothing further to say about Glendambo that has not already been said very eloquently by the sign.





The next stop after that was Lake Hart, a salt lake. The Ghan passes close by, and we were able to take photographs as we crossed the rails - the Ghan only runs 3 times a week.




This gives some idea of the desolation of this area. We walked onto the surface of the lake, treading through progressively thicker layers of salt, but we never got to any water.




As we walked further out, the salt became progressively thicker. Where I walked, it was 3 or 4 inches thick, crunchy like snow and just as white.
Out on the lake are some wooden posts, the remains of a wooden structure that used to be a viewing platform, for viewing rocket launches from Woomera.



Woomera was our next stop, a strange ghost town of wide avenues and boulevards that originally had a population of several thousand, but now has only 400 inhabitants. It was a joint British/Australian centre for rocket and missile testing, though the Americans seem to have had a considerable part in it too.



It was created in 1947, and ceased to be so used in 1982. It is now just a mining town. There is an interesting outdoor museum with some of the aircraft, rockets and missiles, and Paul and I could easily have spent all day there. But it was a 30 minute stop, then we were off for Port Augusta and the sea.




The landscape was changing from semi-desert back to scrub and trees. We also started to see wild emus, to our great excitement - we've only seen captive ones before.

At Port Augusta, we were back at the sea, so we have travelled from coast to coast, right from the north to the south of Australia. We stay at Quorn tonight, about 30 km outside Port Augusta, where there is no wireless Internet and no Vodaphone service.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad