Sunday the 10 saw the arrival of friends from Camden, meeting us and travelling with us to the Denniliquin CMCA Rally. It was great seeing Trisha and John again and there was non stop chatter catching up on all that we had all done.
11 APRIL
We headed off to Denniliquin, cold and wet so not looking promising for the rally. Arriving in Denni we soon met up with the long, long line of motorhomes waiting to get into the rally. Once inside it was a slow procession to our site, oh boy it was muddy. After two days of rain and mud we were ready to leave but the sun came out and dried up all the rain.
The rally was great, met lots of great people, attended two craft classes, Shashiko and Candlewicking, both a lot of fun. We went on two tours. one to see a rice farm, hear about the process and to see the huge factory, the other tour was to visit an old established farm, with plenty of history attached. the property was known as Mundiwa and we were able to view the homestead from the outside and to see some of the historical documents.
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| Rice Growing |
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| Mundiwa Homestead |
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| Small Motorhomes on the grass |
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| The Lady & The Larrikin |
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| Uniting Church, Deniliquin |
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| Deni Courthouse |
Our last night at the Rally we attended the Black and White Ball and actually dressed up. We had a lot of fun and it was a great way to leave the rally.
17 APRIL
Pack up time as we are now heading off to Penola to do our first Farm sit. On the way we stopped over in Bendigo to visit some long lost rellies. We spent a fantastic time with Carol, Warren and two lovely daughters. Sadly we had to leave and headed to Ballarat where we did a free night camp on the side of the road.
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| Grampians |
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| Grampians |
18 APRIL
Headed off to Penola and on the way passed through the town of Colaraine where there is a famous chocolate shop. Yes we stopped and bought chocs, still enjoying them. We found the farm about 20 km out of Penola and managed to find a parking spot.
Our first day learning about feeding trout, where all the paddocks were and getting used to cold wet weather.
20 APRIL
Today we killed and processed 200 trout ready for transportation to Adelaide. Every Wednesday while we are here we will do the same routine.
Mike's birthday so we grabbed a day off and into Mt Gambier to buy warm clothes and rubber boots. We checked out the famous Blue Lake which is the water supply for Mt G. It is an extinct volcano and very impressive. There is a road that goes right around the circumference of the lake and the views are fantastic. Mt G is an amazing place and has many sinkholes, lakes and underground caves. The area is known as the Limestone coast and there are many marvels to see even caves in the middle of town and under many homes. I only hope they don't have anymore earthquakes or goodbye Mt G.
Finally a dry day so took the bike and off to Millicent, a milling town that is now being threaten by the Govt as all the pine plantations in the South east of SA have had the timber forward sold to the Chinese for the next 100 years. There have been several paper mills in operation but all these are now closed down so feelings are not so good in all these mill towns.
From Millicent we were off to Southend, our first sight of coastline for a long time. Beachport was our next port of call and here they lay fame to having the second longest jetty in SA.
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| Beachport Jetty |
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| Robe Marina |
Out of Beachport there are several lakes and not far from Lake George there is a famous cutting known as Woakwine Cutting and this was a result of two men wanting to drain land on the other side of a huge rocky hill. It took 3 years to complete the large drain, it is 1km long, 3metres wide at the bottom and at it's deepest point is 28.34 metres. All this took place using a D 4 dozer and dynamite. An amazing feat and today there is 40 Ha of lush farmland that is irrigated in the summer.
From this area can also be seen the largest wind farm development in the southern Hemisphere.
On from here we went to Robe, another coastal town and after a feed of Fish-n-chips we headed back to Penola. My what a day it turned out to be and poor Mike was exhausted by the time we arrived home (450 K's). As it has turned out it was our first and last bike trip while in Penola.
28 APRIL
We finally said goodbye to Pete and Kaye.
6MAY
Graham(guy who helps with the fish kill) very kindly gave us a day off today so back to Mt G to check out the shops .
9MAY
Another day off so off to Naracoorte, not much to see or do but it does have some interesting caves. We didn't visit any but there is a fossil cave as well as many limestone caves. On our way back to Penola we came across some people carved out of trees. this was extremely well done and depicted Father Woods and Mary MacKillop and there many trips out in the bush. It seems the Mary MacKillop started her Nuns life here in Penola and with the help of Father Woods they set up schools all over the place. In our travels we have come across many places where Mary MacKillop had a finger in a school.
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| Entrance to Naracoorte Caves |
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| Father Woods & Mary Mackillop |
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| Coonawarra Grapes for miles. |
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| Penola Town |
On the way back to Penola we went through acres and acres of grapevines, this area is the renown Coonawarra Wine region (right on our doorstep).
16 MAY
We managed another day off so off to Port MacDonnell and Nelson in Victoria. Port MacDonnell is the closest beach for Mt G and is the Lobster capital of Australia. Enjoyed our trip along the coast and into Victoria, quite a lot of dairy farms along the coast.
Out at the Port I spotted this sign and it makes you realise we really are a long way from anywhere.
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| Rugged Coast (Camel Rocks in centre) |
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Out at the Port I spotted this sign and it makes you realise we really are a long way from anywhere. |
21May
A very special day today. Mike and I have been married 45 years today and we are still happy and enjoying each others company.
