There are two walking track options to reach the summit. We chose the Adventure trail a 5 kilometre strenuous up-hill track from the Waterfall Gully Carpark. After a false start, which lead us in the opposite direction heading back towards the carpark we doubled back, found the correct track and were on our way. The track traverses for 5 kilometres, dirt tracks and fire trails then eventually connects with the original track closer to the summit for an epic practically dead-straight up-hill slog before reaching the top in a climax of burning calf muscles, beetroot red faces and sweat-stinging eyes that are half blinded by the beaming white obelisk at the top, called Flinders Column, glaring back at us in the bright afternoon sun. Once at the top we opted to descend via the 4 kilometre original track that is now mostly sealed, but still very very steep. I'm not sure what was harder going; up or down... The walk to the summit was energising and being serenaded by sweeping views over Adelaide city and the surrounding suburbs felt like an achievement and was well worth the burning calf muscles. Admittedly we could have driven to the summit, but where's the adventure in that...
On one of our days in Adelaide, we took a short 60 kilometre drive to Victor Harbor. It's a town with quite an interesting history, which all began at Encounter Bay. The bay that Victor Harbor sits on was first discovered by Matthew Finders in April 1802 while he was surveying the southern coast of Australia from the west. The most interesting part is he spotted French explorer Nicolas Baudin in Le Georgraphe near the Murray Mouth several kilometres away. The French and the English were at war during that time, both ships had documentation from each other's nation’s government stating they were not ships of war and were purely on scientific missions. The ships banked ashore and shared paperwork. From that day where they banked, it was named Encounter Bay by Matthew Flinders. In 1837 Captain Richard Grozier anchored off Granite Island just across shallow waters of where the town is today. He named the isolated waters Victor Harbor, after his ship HMS Victor. Not long after, two whaling stations kicked off at Rosetta Head and Granite Island, putting South Australia on the map for whale oil exports. The town of Victor Harbor was laid out on the beach in 1863 after the horse drawn tram extended it’s services from Goolwa. On the drive towards Victor Harbor, we pulled in for a look at the Hindmarsh falls. A short drive off the Hindmarsh - Tiers Road takes you to a hidden gem in the dry country. Dark green vegetation and running water make for a pleasant water fall. We made our way into Victor Harbor, parked up at the esplanade and went for a stroll around the town. Heritage listed buildings like the savings bank, telegraph office, cinema and railway stations aide you to imagine what the town was like back in those days. Its a tidy town and a breeze to walk around with its relaxed atmosphere. Granite IslandWe headed out for a walk across the bridge to Granite Island and were quite shocked to see the horse drawn cart still happening. This idea of transport worked great for back in times without electricity or internal combustion to transport granite and whale products. To be using this primitive idea now to move sloths across the bridge who couldn’t be bothered walking is completely impractical. The horse looks like it breaks it’s back towing the tram along the tracks, it wouldn’t be good to know how bad it was for them when they were dragging granite and other goods around. We walked around Granite island on the walking track. The leisurely stroll makes for splendid views across the waters of Victor Harbor back into the town. Some artworks on the way kept us entertained alongside some of the birdlife doing their daily routine. On the easterly side of the island was some more views out towards sea eventually bringing us back to the bridge. We also noticed a couple of penguin chirps on our walk, a colony used to beach on Granite Island, over the years the numbers have declined drastically to a growing New Zealand seal population and vandals. We finished off the day with a delicious sweet potato fritter from McLaren Vale and made our way back to Florence. We did enjoy parts of Victor Harbor, pleasant heritage buildings and a walkable island were certainly the highlights. A few of the tourist attractions seemed well past its prime, the penguin viewing area looked like it hasn’t been used for years and the Horse Drawn tram feels like Victor Harbor’s last tourism hope, which looked a little depressing. The easy going pace made for a relaxing day in Victor Harbor, not a bad place to visit, but not again.
Around Town
The newly settled immigrants, including an additional 14 families who were already in South Australia named their new town, Hahndorf or Hahn's Village, after Captain Hahn, who assisted the families in acquiring the land. Hahndorf, now a heritage listed Germanesque town is located approximately 30 kilometres east of Adelaide in the picturesque Adelaide Hills. The Cedars - The House of Hans HeysenSir Hans Heysen OBE, born Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz Heysen in 1877 was a German immigrant, a prolific painter, a husband to Sallie and father to their eight children who lived at The Cedars in Hahndorf from 1912 until his death in 1968. Hans was known for his water-colour paintings of landscapes and eucalypts, of which many he painted at the The Cedars, but he also had immense talent for painting still-life. Most notably a painting produced for his wife depicting grapes, fruit and a vase of flowers, as left on his front verandah by a friend as a thank-you gift. The painting is titled, 'Zinnias with Autumn Fruit' or 'Flowers and Fruits' and when the famous Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova saw it whilst attending a dinner party at the Heysen home, offered Hans a blank cheque for the painting. Hans kindly refused, after all it was a gift to his wife, and still to this this day the painting remains eloquently displayed in the dinning room of The Cedars for viewing; whilst on the tour of the house, studio and grounds. Shovel and I took the guided tour of the property on a recommendation from the caravan park, knowing nothing of the artist or his work, but left feeling spiritually full-filled. I say this not with any religious connotation, because as far as we were lead to belief Hans himself wasn't religious, but the atmosphere of the grounds and interior of his studio and home were captivating with an alluring charm. The studio is the oldest purpose built studio still available for viewing in Australia, and was constructed by Hans after purchasing The Cedars, of which he used the proceeds from one of his first exhibitions. Hans dedicated his life to painting, his family and to conservation. He acquired many of the surrounding properties, not with the intent of felling the trees for agriculture, as many others were doing at the time, but rather to preserve them and natural environment, as subject matter for his paintings. Hans ceased painting still-life when he realised his daughter, Nora had a talent for painting and was interested in still-life. Nora went onto become a prolific artist in her own right, but possibly without the same flare and attention to detail as her father. Art however will remain forever subjective and as they say 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder', but Hans's 'Zinnias with Autumn Fruit' as seen in real-life I believe is absolutely stunning with many intricate details and gorgeous layers. It is easy to see why Anna Pavlova wrote a blank cheque for it. Although Hans did not give up his precious gift to his wife he did paint a similar picture for Anna and sent it to her in Russia. She returned the painting with a note saying, 'If I can't have the one I want, I don't want any at all.' Quite foolish you might say given Hans's immense notability. Hans remained an enigma in the art scene, rarely taking up invitations and although he travelled to Europe in his younger years to paint and ventured to the Flinders Rangers on several occasions, was content painting within his home town of Hahndorf, surrounded by his adoring wife and family. Today we learnt of a beautiful story, told by an endearing tour guide, that forms a fascinating part of our Australian Art History.
Photos can only be taken inside the studio and through the grounds. Therefore, if you want to see a few of his paintings on display and the interior of the house you will need to get yourself to Hahndorf. South Australia was officially declared an English colony on 28th December 1836 near where the “old gum tree lies in the suburb of North Glenelg. Colonisation history took a different path to the likes of Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane. The approach to South Australia was a planned colony of free immigrants, promising civil liberties and freedom from religious persecution. Land would be surveyed and sold at a rate too expensive for labourers and journey man, this was to raise funds to immigrate working class settlers. These ideals were originated by Edward Gibbon Wakefield after reading about Australian settlements when he was serving time in prison for attempting to abduct a heiress. The ambition of a free settler colony was to create a utopian style crime free civilisation. Not even a Gaol was in the plans. This changed quickly in 1837 when there were reports of escaped convicts on the run from New South Wales on the South Australian Register. While a temporary Gaol was put on the cards, a burglary, a murder and two attempted murders occurred, this forced South Australia’s first governor John Hindmarsh to make the decision to employ the state’s first ever police force in 1838. Adelaide was off to a slow start economically until wool and livestock imports arrived in 1838 from Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. By 1860, wheat farms expanded as far as Encounter Bay to Clare, alongside producing wool, fruit, meat and wine, which were all strong exports in Adelaide. Through the mid 1800’s Adelaide was seeing large economic growth through it’s exports, the boom brought gas lighting, a university, a couple of reservoirs and the South Australian Art Gallery to the city. The 1890’s brought on an economic depression, the value of South Australia’s exports almost halved leaving their two main exports as wine and copper. Mining towns like Burra and Broken Hill lent an economical hand with Copper, Lead and Silver. The 1900’s brought in electric lighting and a tram network to Adelaide. The finish of World War 1 started a prosperous postwar boom, its growth made Adelaide the third most populous metropolitan area in Australia. The boom was short-lived with the droughts and great depression in the 1930’s. World War 2 times transformed Adelaide’s industry from agriculture to manufacturing. Companies like General Motors took advantage of Adelaide’s more safer location to bring the manufacturing industry to life, driving the city into the 20th century. The 1950’s brought an Airport and the Murray River pipeline, the 60’s was Flinders University and Medical Centre. The 1970’s started a social reform with the Adelaide Festival of arts, which created a cultural revival in the city. More recent highlights for Adelaide was being the host for the Formula 1 grand prix in the 80’s and V8 supercars to now, which shuts off parts of the city for cars to paint the roads with tyre marks. South Australia has had quite a progressive history, leading the nation and the world by example. It was the first Australian capital city to be connected to London by telegraph in 1872. In 1895, South Australia was the first place in the world to allow women to stand for parliament, in that year women were also granted the right to vote. In 1936 Adelaide was the first city to generate public housing for families in need known as the South Australian Housing trust. The first Aboriginal flag was raised in 1971 on Victoria Square to support land rights for Aboriginal people. In 1975, South Australia was the first state to decriminalise homosexuality. In 1977 South Australia introduced a 10 cent refund on every can or bottle recycled, which was a first. In more recent times, South Australia is still reputable for a progressive approach to combat issues. In 2017, U.S Company Tesla installed the worlds biggest lithium ion battery pack just outside Jamestown to combat wind power outages around the state, its response rate to power outages is within milliseconds beating its hydro, coal and gas competitors by well over 2 minutes. Although South Australia gets forgotten about by its east coastal neighbours, they’re a step ahead of the country. On our first day in Adelaide, we took a train into the city to do a walking tour. Our guide Graham met us at the Parliament building steps away from the train station.Graham took us around the city and enriched us with his knowledge on Adelaide’s history. We started off with no idea about Adelaide and South Australia and finished the tour with a new founded appreciation of Australian History. Our walking tour inspired us to visit the Adelaide City Library, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australia Museum. The Art Gallery journeyed us through many eras of art ranging from Ancient Egyptian Art right up to modern contemporary art. Its variety of paintings and sculptures take you on a trip around the world and back in time with out a plane ticket. Adelaide’s South Australian Museum is filled with a wealth of natural history knowledge. The museum had an impressive display of taxidermied animals from around the world, the realness of the specimines leaves you waiting for them to come to life. The museum features a level of Australian Indigenous History and a level of Papua New Guinea History, all filled with paintings, clothing and beautifully handmade tools for hunting and gathering. The four story high squid keeps you interested, although just a plastic replica, it is 11 metres long and based on a real squid caught in New Zealand, the largest one caught at that time, the most recent largest recording stands at 13 metres. After hours of fuelling our minds with art, culture and science, we went for a walk around the Mortlock Wing, the first building of the Adelaide library. The Library was opened in 1884 to the public, and now still stands strong with a collection of 23,000 books. Every part of the library is so well preserved it feels like it hasn’t aged since the day it was built. Walking through the entrance feels like you’ve blasted through a time machine making you feel a part of the history. Its a beautiful inspiring place to wonder around, relax or maybe even read a book. On one of our days in Adelaide, we took a walk up to Mount Lofty, Adelaide’s lookout. The track begins at Waterfall Gully, named for obvious reasons, it has two running waterfalls which flow elegantly at the start of the track. It made for a very active day out in Cleland Conservation Park’s nature. Nestled on Adelaide’s shore is the coastal suburb Glenelg, its gorgeous town hall and Anzac memorial was surrounded by unfortunate lifeless feeling beach apartments. While walking around Glenelg we felt like it lacked a lot of atmosphere, shops lacked colour, cafes lacked taste and people lacked excitement of being there. Adelaide has spoilt us with a large amount of convenience. Everything to do there was just…..easy. Everything there just felt so easy to do, getting to a beach, getting to the city, getting groceries, a franchise acai bowl cafe we loved called Delicia would pop up every where we go and even to park a car somewhere, barely a sweat! Although Adelaide can lack hype compared to its other cities, it filled our days with some good solid chill.
On our 350 kilometre journey from Robe to our next destination of Christie's Beach, south of Adelaide, we marvelled at a giant Lobster at Kingston, stopped for sheep herding, drove past a pink lake, traversed The Coorong (a narrow 140 kilometre stretch of coastal dunes, lagoons and wet lands) learnt about a bushranger Emu at Meningie and ate lunch at Tailem Bend before heading into the outer suburbs of Adelaide along the M1. We completed the trip in about 6 hours arriving at Christie's Beach about 2pm, and were stoked we had time up our sleeves so to speak as once we'd driven Florence into her new site we noticed she had a flat tyre. Shovel did an amazing job changing the tyre and fixing a leak, before we relaxed and made plans for our days in South Australia's Capital City.
The Cape Dombey ObeliskThe Obelisk now over 160 years old, was last painted in 2002 and at this stage will not be painted again, as the job has become too risky and expensive; one firm in 2015 quoting $100k. The scaffolding alone was quoted at $58k. When it was last painted in 2002 the job only cost the council $3,500. But since then the point on which the Obelisk stands has become incredibly unstable with the council expecting the Obelisk to topple into the ocean at anytime. Needless to say there is no access to the Obelisk and can only be viewed from a distance. It's a fascinating structure that has played a big part in the Limestone Coast's maritime history. The lighthouse was built in 1972 to replace the Obelisk as a navigational device and to replace the lighthouse at Cape Jaffa near Kingston, about 50 kilometres north of Robe.
By 1859 Robe had become the second busiest port in South Australia, second to Port Adelaide. South Australian Governor Frederick Holt Robe choose Robe as the site of a port and settled the town in 1846. The region was first recorded as being sighted by French explorer, Nicolas Baudin in 1802, naming the bay, Guichen Bay. During the Gold Rush era in the 1850's the Victorian Government legislated a new £10 tax on persons entering Victoria with the intention of heading to the goldfields in Bendigo and Ballarat. Subsequently, Chinese migrants made their way to the newly established port town of Robe and opted to walk the 300-400 kilometres to the goldfields instead of pay the tax. During this time more than 15,000 Chinese descended upon Robe. Since the early 1900's Robe has predominately been a tourist and fishing town, retaining many of the original limestone buildings and selling fresh lobster to holiday makers. Escape.com.au listed Robe's Long Beach as the most spectacular beach in South Australia.
The journey from Mount Gambier to Robe was only 130 kilometres along the Princes Highway (B1) but felt much longer as we tackled a dodgily maintained road with little to no shoulder, as trucks roared past at 110 kph and the caravan mirrors required constant adjustments. On a more positive note, I was completing wrapped with myself, backing Florence into her new site first go, with Shovel's amazingly calm guidance. Check out that straightness... We splashed out, pun intended, spending $47 a night for a caravan site right on the water at the Sea Vu Caravan Park in Robe. The location was amazing, albeit for the storm, which had us bunker down for a day, extending our stay from 3 to 4 nights. It was beautiful listening to waves crash during the night against the jagged cliff edges and feeling the sea breeze drift through the open windows, all prior to the storm that is.
Blue LakeAs far as we can learn no one exactly knows why the blue lake in Mount Gambier turns blue, apparently it's only this consistently rich cobalt blue colour during the months of November and December, so we've timed our visit coincidently as during the other months the lake appears apparently dark grey in colour. At it's deepest point this volcanic crater lake plummets about 200 metres and is on average about 80 metres in depth. This is the town's water supply and is of a high quality and purity. The colour reminded us of the Mary Kathleen mine, an old abandoned uranium mine between Mount Isa and Cloncurry that is filled with water very similar in colour to the blue lake in Mount Gambier. Although the purity I'm sure wouldn't be of the same quality... We ventured around the 3.8 kilometre circumference of the lake taking in the gorgeous blue from every angle and were thankful to feel the sun's rays.
Umpherston SinkholeThis sunken garden was created in 1886 by the then owner of the land, James Umpherston in a sink hole. There was a residence on site, however this was demolished in 1964 after the Department of Woods and Forestry purchased the site constructing a timber mill behind the garden on the site of residence. The Mount Gambier council now maintain the garden as a tourist attraction.
Lady Nelson Visitor CentreThis quirky info centre museum definitely reminded us of the Riversleigh Fossil Centre in Mount Isa. I wouldn't be surprised if they were designed back in the 1980's by the same curators. Penambol Conservation Park - Caroline Sink HoleFor the record from what we've seen so far South Australia do not do National Parks well. We've definitely been spoilt experiencing amazing National Parks in both Queensland and Victoria, yet South Australia despite their half-arsed attempts appear to be more focused on industry than conversation. We saw a lot more forestry plantations than we did native fauna, but having had my rant what he we did find near Mount Gambier was visually impressive and worth making the effort to track down, literally. Limited navigational information had us make a wrong turn and end up 4WDriving it until we reached sand turning around and heading back to the main road to get our bearings and have another crack on a different road. The attractions are not well sign posted, which meant we had to do a bit of guess work, but found two sinkholes with viewing platforms and a bit of forestry propaganda convincing us they are doing their bit for nature. Honestly though had these sinks hole not been there, the native bushland wouldn't be either, as both sink holes are surrounded by forestry plantations making for an eerie, desolate and war like environment.
We crossed over the Victoria - South Australia border today on our journey from Warrnambool to Mount Gambier. The trip today of only 185 kilometres took just under three hours to complete with a lunch stop at Heywood, just north of Portland on the A1 Highway. We even gained half an hour crossing the border and were again grateful for a level caravan site at the Pine Country Caravan Park that just happen to be drive through. The set up definitely had us jumping for joy.
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The JourneyChoose Curiosity The Catalogue
November 2023
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