Week 24 – Victor Harbor – Mt Gambier – Daylesford – Benalla – Gundagai

Victor Harbor was a nice town, right on the south coast of S.A. The road from Adelaide to Victor Harbor was shocking – bumpy and potholed. After lunch we went for an explore of the town. There is a long jetty connecting the town to an island offshore – Granite Island. Horse drawn trams carry tourists across to the island for a small fee. 

We drove down to Goolwa and headed onto Hindmarsh Island to find the mouth of the Murray River. The Murray forms a couple of large lakes before emptying into the sea at Murray mouth. Lake Alexandrina is one of the largest lakes in Australia.

We explored the beaches nearby, Middleton Point, Port Elliot and Chitin Rocks. There is some swell so Pa might get a surf tomorrow.

The surf was not too bad at Middleton Point. A long, long paddle out and the waves were rolling after the initial break. The water is absolutely freezing. So much so that most of the surfers wore hoods and boots as well – poor Pa.

After Pa’s surf we drove back into town and went on the tram across to Granite Island. There is a penguin colony on the island and they return to their nests at sunset. You can go out then and watch them come ashore to their nests – at no cost! Not like Phillip Island!

We headed for Mt Gambier by skirting Lake Alexandrina and getting the ferry across the Murray at Wellington.

Then we followed the Coorong for nearly 200km. The Coorong is a waterway between the mainland and the strip of land fronting the beach (mainly dunes). It is a National park as it is a breeding ground for lots of different water birds. Storm Boy was written about the Coorong. We crossed the water at one stage at Granite Beach. The waves are messy and large as it is onshore again, and quite cold.

We passed the big lobster at Kingston.

We arrived at Mt Gambier late in the day as it was a long drive. The caravan park is situated between the two main crater lakes on the rim of the crater of an extinct volcano.

The main lake is called Blue Lake as it changes colours with the seasons. In winter the water is mainly grey in colour, but in summer it turns bright blue. The weather is pretty cloudy and cold so it didn’t look very blue. It was also too windy to send up the drone – pity. We visited leg Of Mutton Lake and Browne’s Lake which are in the other crater.

We visited Umpherston Sinkhole which is a huge hole in the ground where the limestone ceiling has collapsed to form a depression. The council has made it into a lovely garden area.

After lunch we went to the Engelbrecht Cave which is right in the middle of the town. The cave is about 600m long and 50m underground, right under a main highway. The cave may be longer but the rock falls have made exploring the cave difficult. It is a diver’s site, in fact most of the divers who helped with the rescue of the boys in Thailand have dived this cave. The water is 8 degrees though, definitely dry suit weather.

We looked out for Uncle Grumpa but the sign must be wrong, Pa couldn't see him anywhere.

But this sign was correct.

We travelled through southern Victoria and were amazed at the greenness of the farms. Lots of canola and wheat with thousands of newborn lambs in paddocks. We passed the Grampian Range but didn’t have time to visit here properly. We aim to come back here in the future. 

We aimed to stay at Lake Burrumbeet just out of Ballarat, but arrived there at 2pm so we went into Ballarat to have a stickybeak. Ballarat is a huge city with not very good signs. We expected to see lots of old mining history but saw nothing but roads and traffic. You can’t even park a van in Ballarat as it is all angled parking. We decided to push on and headed for Daylesford. Daylesford is a spa town in the mountains and is the home of Mt Franklin (bottled water). The caravan park has some huge 150 year old Californian redwood trees. Hope we don’t get too much wind!

We visited the Botanical Gardens high on the hill in Daylesford before heading off to Bendigo. 

Bendigo is a large town again but we found a parking space for the van and headed into the main shopping area. We poked around and had a coffee and cake before heading off to Bendigo Pottery.

We headed across Victoria to Benalla where we would free camp the night. We saw some strange things on our trip but along this road we saw a car leading a horse on a lead out of the window holding up the traffic - strange!

Benalla has a free camp right in the middle of town near a gorgeous lake and park complex. We set up then had a walk around the park before having happy hour next to the lake.

The next day we drove to Gundagai and to one of our favourite caravan parks right on the Murrumbidgee River. Here we will spend the last two nights of our long journey. We visited the lookouts over Gundagai and sampled the local bakery’s cakes before relaxing next to the river.

Pa watched the end of the Bathurst race.

We went out to dinner at the local pub to celebrate the end of our journey. Tomorrow we head for home. Our journey has been fantastic, travelling almost 25000km in 24 weeks. We have seen many awesome places, marvelled at the variety of landforms, been blown away with the daily change in landscape and met many fellow travellers along the way. Now home for a while to catch up with family and grandkids.