PENOLA PLEASE

G’day! I did say we were heading to Penola didn’t I? Yes, well, we did indeed go to Penola, for one whole day – actually that is not quite true – I don’t think technically you could even say we stayed a day as it wasn’t quite 24 hours. You know when this bloke of mine makes his mind up, it’s pretty hard to shake him from his course.

I really liked what I saw of Penola and it is firmly on my list of ‘do agains’ when we come back this way again. I guess part of the charm of Penola, for me at least, is due to my love of the Swan Valley back home where I feel my roots to be. Mind you the Swan Valley is tiny in comparison to the acres upon acres of vines in the Penola & Coonawarra Region.

The town of Penola is small, quaint and pretty. The buildings generally epitomise the beautiful old stone buildings that are so prominent in SA and everything is predictably neat and tidy. Picturesque and old world are the words that come to mind where Penola is concerned. I had not realised this part of the country is Sister Mary MacKillop territory and I would have dearly loved to visit some of the historic sites involved in that wonderful story, but.........................oh well, he is a good boy as my mum often said, but he can be a little stubborn from time to time! We were in a hurry it seems!

In DD’s defence, he did have some good reasons for leaving Penola is such an unseemly rush. One of the reasons we went to Penola was to visit a very good mate, the mate in fact who sold us Jezabelle. Now this mate, who for his own sake shall remain nameless, used to be married to the sister of DD’s ex wife. At that stage I suppose the two gents would have been deemed in laws. Now neither of them is married to either sister and I like to think they are now out-laws instead. This erstwhile mate of ours, loves a drink and sadly, my lad can be all too easily lead astray. The good thing is that he knows his own weaknesses and we both agree that more than one night spent in the company of our mate would not be good for DD’s health. He will try to keep up and quite frankly his capacities are nowhere near the legendary levels of our friend.

Our mate has had a palatial home built for himself in the township of Penola, needless to say within strolling distance of both the pubs there. The house was something else, replicating an old SA homestead with all the fixtures and fittings belonging to a bygone era. Quite special! We met at his home, had a guided tour of the house and then wandered down-town to one of the locals where we had a pleasant counter lunch. We ate, our mate had a liquid lunch. After lunch we meandered back to the CP had an LLD (little lie down) and then drove back to the house for a cuppa. True to form, our friend treated us royally and took us out to dinner at a very nice little restaurant in town – quite up-market in fact. The meal was low on quantity but very high on quality, or so it seemed. After the meal we strolled back to the house and DD and our host partook of several more luscious reds before I drove my hero home to the CP. We had a lovely day and evening but I guess the decision to leave was a good one, as too much of a good thing, as they say and all of that.

Incidentally the luscious red we were quaffing was called The Tax Collector and it was absolutely delectable. Stupid here did not find out which winery produced the stuff tho, and perhaps that is just as well.

In the morning we both woke feeling a little odd. DD more than me, and no, it wasn’t an overdose of The Tax Collector, but rather some strange tummy bug that lasted a couple of days. We cannot help but think it was something we had either for lunch or dinner as we both came down with the same symptoms simultaneously. Perhaps the evening meal was not as good as we had thought!

Our host had mentioned some ‘chain saw’ carvings worth seeing so in the morning before hitching up the van we drove around 20ks out of town to see the carvings of a famous priest, Father Woods. The stories surrounding the priest were impressive and interwoven with stories of Sister Mary MacKillop. Father Woods wrote a book which I really wanted to get hold of but sadly as we whizzed past the local information centre where I’m sure they would have been available DD assured me I would be able to obtain them also from the Mt Gambier Information Centre. As his tummy was rumbling loudly at us at the time, I didn’t feel I was in a position to argue.

We did deliberate about staying a further day so that I could explore more of the fascinating region, but the state of our tummies and the potential danger to DD’s liver won out in the end and we hitched up the van and headed off towards Mt Gambier.

As it is only around 50ks down the road, we will see you there very soon.....in the meantime, appreciate your mates and watch what you eat......Steph.

Incidentally the CP at Penola was quite good and surprisingly had a number of ensuite sites.

Robe........Really?!!

Family Friendly Beach at Robe

SO................off we went to Robe, through the little town of Tailem Bend, albeit not as small as Doug remembered it. It is funny how many things his memory of in SA are totally off the mark – he does seem to forget that it is quite a few years since he lived here, and even then, he generally traversed the land while working and paid very little attention to the countryside itself.

As we travelled through Kingston SE and eastward towards Robe, we were kept company by The Coorong; The Coorong, DD tells me, is a body of fresh water running parallel to the ocean for some hundred ks. The Coorong is fed by the Murray River and runs into Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. I have to own up to a certain amount of scepticism here, as the water did look like salt to me, but DD is adamant, so I will have to bow to his superior knowledge. For those literary buffs amongst you, DD tells me that the Australian novel Storm Boy was written around and about The Coorong.
<

Glimpses of the Coorong from the Car

The countryside along the way was generally flat and uninspiring. Fairly typical coastal stuff really – low lying and very scrubby! This was the first time I was unimpressed with the scenery. It is hard to express the difference between WA and SA countryside. Generally both have undulating golden wheat and stock paddocks, reaching away into the far distance. The WA colours tho’ tend to be vivid and often stark, whereas in SA the colours tend to be muted in comparison. The sky here is a softer blue and the wheat fields are a more gentle gold. The trees around the Flinders are majestic and huge, whereas most farming country in WA has smaller more scrubby trees such as Mallee. In WA the fields drift away into nothingness, in SA there is almost always a line of blue and purple ranges in the distance. If I had to categorise, I would say that in WA the countryside is vibrantly striking whereas in SA it is softly beautiful. Bit like the difference between an oil colour and a water colour I would say!

Watercolour Hues of The Coorong

In due course, the countryside greened up and started looking a little more interesting and we lumbered into the seaside township of Robe some 340 ks south east of Adelaide. Typically hilly and windy roads wound past a strangely ‘soapy’ lake and a couple of other small ponds, and into bedlam! They say in the Tourist Guide that the population of Robe is around 1200, what they don’t say in that same publication is that population must expand to somewhere around 10,000 during school holidays. The main street was a manic mix of cafes, eateries, clothes shops, souvenir shops, curiosity shops, general yuppyish style establishments and shock horror, people!!! What had we managed to get ourselves into? We avoid these tourist traps like the plague. Oh well, for some reason our brains left at that point and we continued on searching for our planned destination at the Family Park Caravan Park. It was not particularly easy to find but eventually we did track it down, overshooting the mark somewhat. We pulled the rig over to the side of the road and I phoned the erstwhile establishment to see what our chances would be. You see, the park had been recommended to us and so....., well - a very cheerful and pleasant young woman answered the phone and when I enquired if we could have a really nice bay with ocean views – one that would suit a largish rig, she went to have a look. My request for 1 week met with considerable mirth, but she did say she had a lovely bay for us (due to a sudden unexpected departure) and we could have it for 4 days. Great!! With some difficulty DD managed to turn the van around in the rather narrow road and back we went. The same lovely young woman served us and with beautiful smiles and wonderful customer service gave us our pass numbers and directions to our new bay. Hmmmm, the roads inside the park were narrow, windy and steep. Vans and cars were crammed in to every little crevice and cars were parked largely on the already conjested roads. Oh well, we had told her our van was 23ft so she understood we needed a little room, so on we went; well we entered our road which was a dead end of some 40 metres. In this short road there must have been somewhere around 20 bays. Our particular bay had a steep ramp to one side, complete with hand rails and rock face sides etc. On the other side was a van which was encroaching a couple of feet onto ‘our’ site. Immediately across from our bay were two large camps which due to the multiple tents, canoes, boats, cars, bikes, kids, rabbits and goats taking up every spare inch right up to the curb. Oh alright, there were no rabbits and goats, but there could have been in amongst all that chaos. The story with Robe, we had already been told by the lovely young woman at the counter, was a regular group of Victorian families flock there every Christmas and they all consider it their home away from home. These families are exactly that, young upwardly mobile parents of multitudes of exuberant children and hormonally disturbed adolescents, all of whom transfer everything from their upwardly mobile homes to their seaside campsites.

Zed & Jezabelle crammed in to our site

Now, I know there are multitudes of very competent couples out there who would probably not have turned a hair at the prospect of getting Jezabelle into that tiny tight bay, and you know we have travelled a little now and are not too bad at manoeuvring Jezzy. We were however,to put it mildly, somewhat nervous. Did I mention how shallow these bays are? The bays could only have been 26ft deep – we take 25ft from one end to the other! There was a very high rock wall behind each bay as the whole park is steeply terraced. Due to the shallow and narrow nature of all the bays, everyone is compelled to park their car in front of their van. This meant that the road was littered with large 4wds. There was not even room to drive the van down the road in order to back up and into the bay. Oh well, we employed our wonderful fail safe van parking method and with a surprisingly small effort we were safely in the bay. Admittedly two of our neighbours were kind enough to move their cars so that we could move but it wasn’t a bad effort. Have I told you what our magic fail safe method is? No.............ah......it is a male female thing folks. Up until fairly recently we would do it the traditional way with DD behind the wheel and yours truly with 2 way in hand giving succinct and intelligent suggestions and directions. Of course a fair bit of wild gesticulating would be in order as well. I have to say, the wild gesticulating happened when DD inevitably completely ignored my clever instructions and tried to out-think me and Do It His Way. This meant that it did (just sometimes you understand) take a little while to get the van in place. The longer it took, the wilder my gesticulating would become and the louder and louder my under-breath muttering would become and the more DD would ignore my instructions. I can’t understand how he could misinterpret that particular hand signal dears!!



Picturesque Coastline at Beachport

 Anyway, one fine day after one of these enlivening sessions, I had a bright idea – yes, once in a blue moon I have one of those – I would jump behind the wheel and DD would do the wild gesticulating. We do this when we hitch up and we have that down to a fine art. Why does this work so well? Because I actually follow DD’s instructions! I don’t profess to know the first thing about backing a van and so rely 100% on DD ‘s instructions. I do not try to second guess his instructions, I do not look at the back of the van and think that he is wrong, I don’t believe in my deepest phsyche that I am way more intelligent than him (not that I would admit to anyway), I don’t think I can do it better - I just simply do what I am told. I do, before we begin, point out any odds and sods that I think are important, just in case DD’s eagle eye misses them, and then I just obey, obey, obey. Essentially, aside from my blind obedience, Doug is far more patient than me and is prepared to run around the van looking at it from all sides. Me, I tend to position myself in one visible position and then direct. Doug’s way is far better than mine and being a woman, I obey far better than he. This way we capitalise on our individual capacities and it is a winner.

Once in, we could not be complacent, as we knew that in 4 days time we could have to extricate ourselves, and as we had a rock wall and railing on our right side and our exit was on the right, we knew it was going to be a tall order. Anyway, we decided to take it all in our stride and enjoy Robe while we were there. Sadly that didn’t happen. DD became morose and gloomy and that mood stayed with us the whole 4 days we were in Robe. A caravan can be a very small place when one of the occupants is not happy. I tried to overcome DD’s mood, but the obvious antagonism wafting in from the van on our left side (you know the one encroaching onto our bay) combined with DD’s poor mood and the whole thing just was not a good scene.



Placid Scenes at Southend

 Speaking of good scenes, we had none. Due to the chronic over-crowding at the park all we had were small glimpses of sparkling turquoise ocean between all the canvas and car top canoes. Our unhappy neighbours were peed off with us because Zed was parked in front and off to one side of our van as we had literally nowhere else to put him. They had a far smaller van and had managed to squeeze their vehicle down the side of the van (probably due to pinching some of our space) and had set up a table across the A Frame at the front of their van. Our vehicle really made it far less pleasant for them to sit out the front of their van and sunbake. Yes, they were pom- sorry English middle aged sunworshippers who should have known better. They were the sort who would stop any unsuspecting passers by and regale them with tales tall and true of their various worldwide travels, in very loud and extravagant voices. Not us tho’ – all we received from our hostile neighbours were wounded and poisonous looks. The woman was the main offender, although she did eventually bend a little and ask me about our washing machine. The gentleman seemed a little more innocuous as he was just mainly interested in bronzing his tall lanky middle aged bod – all of it except the very small part covered by his budgie-smugglers...........I kid you not ladies, he wore budgie smugglers and looked a great deal like our national treasure, muso come polly, Peter Garrett. Something like a big bronze pretzel with a bandanna wrapped tightly around its middle. The lady was a good match for Jeanie Little in her better days. Oh well, not everyone can be wonderful I suppose, least of all me.



Stunning Rock Pools at Southend



Coastal Scenes at Beachport

Robe just turned DD off completely and he pretty much refused to have anything to do with the place. We did however, take a nice drive along the coast to visit both Southend and Beachport, both of which we thought were lovely. There is a coastal tourist drive along the coast at Beachport which provides some stunning perspectives of the Limestone Coast. We wondered why two allegedly intelligent folk like ourselves had even contemplated staying at such a busy and packed park when these two delightful alternatives had been ‘just down the road’.

I must say a few words in defence of poor old Robe before we leave there. We believe that off peak it is probably delightful, and without all the hordes a pleasant place to stay. We can see what the attraction is for families as the beach is child friendly and the town has everything you could possibly wish for including a little cinema.

I suspect the spectre of removing ourselves from that tight spot coloured DD’s enjoyment and mood. Finally the big day came and we had to extricate ourselves. It was somewhat of a relief to find that our unfriendly neighbours were also leaving that day as were the young couple directly opposite.

Our neighbours left first (she did let on that they generally had the park ‘man’ get them out), with DD’s guidance. The bloke across the road came down with a bad case of flat battery and it took quite a while for DD to get his car started for him. Once it was going he moved it to one side and as he had cleared a large part of his site, we were able to simply drive out to our left and then back into our neighbours site and drive out. It was a huge relief, as had our neighbours not left, I was going to have to back the van out (up hill) quite some distance between all the cars parked alongside the road. I am just so glad I didn’t have to do that. I might add, DD did all the backing and filling required to get us out of that predicament and he did it without any help from me or any wild gesticulating. He is a very clever boy sometimes. Don’t tell him I said so tho’ will you.

Beachport Jetty

We often boast that we have never stayed at a Caravan Park we did not enjoy, Robe has spoiled that record now, as we definitely did not enjoy our stay there. We worry now that most of the coastal towns will be this way until the school holidays are over. Fortunately that is now only a couple of weeks away.

From Robe we moved upwards and onwards to the lovely SA town of Penola, but more about that next time.

For now, be patient with each other and generous with the praise. Stephanie.

MANNIC MANNUM

Magestic Murray Princess

Whew, were we ever glad to move away from those bushfires! From the beautiful but very warm Clare Valley we headed in a generally South Easterly direction, driving through some lovely and at times quite spectacular countryside. The drive took us thru’ the town of Gawler. Just south east of Gawler, around the area of Tungkilla we drove thru’ some extremely hilly country which I think may have been the tail end of the Mt Lofty Ranges. The road climbed to some considerable heights and wound around some fairly tight bends. I have to say, at times like that, I am just so pleased that it is DD at the wheel and not yours truly. The scenery was outstanding, albeit very dry. I can only imagine how different it must be in the winter and spring. Just now however the hills and paddocks glow mellow gold under soft blue skies. The effects are spell-binding.

Past Tungkilla we went, thru’ Birdwood and finally into a sleepy little town called Mannum on the banks of the mighty Murray River. We drove all unaware through this small and sleepy town, into the caravan park there only to find where the rest of the world had been hiding! You have to realise here that since we left home on the 22nd December, we had stayed at very quiet caravan parks and had only really seen a hand-full of people; Even the Clare CP, which had quite a few folk there when we first arrived, was not a patch on this one for sheer ‘busyness’!

Purple Swamphens Striding Out

It seems that a great many folk flock to this spot for water skiing and jet boating. Every camp (and there were lots of them) had either a ski boat or a jet ski. The camp just hummed (or more accurately roared) from early in the morning until sun-down. Remember that with @#@#$%$$$*** day-light saving, sun-down is pretty late here. Mannum also seems to have an enormous bird population, most of which are either galahs or white cockatoos. Now, we both love the birds, but do you have any idea of the clamouring several large flocks of these garrulous birds makes, particularly just now with all their very noisy and demanding chicks in tow? It was amazing! Added to the cockatoos and galahs were magpies, crows, mudlarks, large families of Purple Swamphens, Coots, Black ducks, swans, shags and squadrons upon squadron of majestic pelicans. Combine all of this with the shrieking and laughter of children and the odd grown-up argument, and I have to say, it was not an entirely restful experience. We arrived there on Saturday and stayed three days. By the third day, a great many of the campers had packed up and gone home and it did calm down somewhat.

Added to all the other noises at the riverside CP was the loud albeit musical tones of the riverboats as they announced their presence to all and sundry on and about the river. We had planned on a short trip on one of these river queens, but as often happens, leaving managed to get in the way. The sight of these majestic boats paddling up the river was quite something. I was entranced too, by the wavelets ever diminishing in the wake of the paddles. The river is also the popular highway for an absolute abundance of houseboats. DD has experienced travelling the Murray in one of these usually luxurious craft, and I have to say, looking at them, it did look like a terrible way to see the river. The hardships some of us have to endure I suppose!

Barren & Dry Countryside Surrounds the River

We were camped right on the banks of the Murray River. I am used to the Swan River and found the Murray to be very odd in comparison. I just cannot get my head around the way very barren country butts right up to the river. Where we were situated, and all around the surrounding countryside, the river just seemed to ‘be there’ as if someone had just slipped it into an otherwise dry and sere landscape. Nowhere to be seen were the belts of greenery and trees that in my limited experience cosy up to rivers and creeks. Quite often, due to the slight undulations in the country, the river could be just a 50meters or so away and you wouldn’t even be aware of it. Just Bizarre! We took a lovely drive out to Purnong – this was mainly thru’ grazing and cropping country, often flat as a tack. The Murray almost negligently lazes its way thru’ this farming country. From time to time, the river flats deepen into green valleys where small holiday villages cling to the river banks.

Something I didn’t know was that quite some time back the South Australian government decided it was too expensive to build a plethora of bridges across the Murray River and so instead has a series of punts or perhaps you may like to call them barges. The punts are operated by wires that stretch across the river. Operators simply guide the vehicles on and off and pull the various levers required for the wires to operate and drag the punts across the water. I was just a little nervous of these punts, but as the first couple of times we crossed the river we didn’t have the van hooked up, I had time to become sort of accustomed to the experience. We crossed the river, via punt, at Purnong and drove back to Mannum on the other side of the river, stopping to buy an ice-cream at Bowhill. Once back in Mannum we drove Zed onto the punt and crossed back to the CP.

Zed & Jezabelle safely aboard the punt.

As the crowd abated at Mannum our views of the water improved and we tossed up staying a little while longer than our planned 3 days. Once again, I would have loved to linger and perhaps get the paints out but DD seems to get anxious after a couple of days. We met another lovely couple at Mannum, yet another Peter would you believe and his wife Heather. They had driven up from Tailem Bend to celebrate a friend’s birthday and regaled DD with stories of Kingston SE and the seaside town of Robe. DD only needs a mention of the ocean to become keen to move on. We had pretty much decided to stay away from the coast until after the school holidays, expecting the coastal CPs to be absolutely booked out, not to say full of noisy families. Somehow, somewhere, that good intention went by the wayside (as do many good intentions) and we headed off to Robe. Not having spent a great deal of time in SA myself, I have to be guided by the lad who of course lived here for quite a few years.



Galahs Acting The Galah under the Sprinklers

 Leaving Mannum meant towing the caravan onto the river punt. Despite having been across twice with just the car, I was still a tad nervous. I just know how much stuff we carry and dread to think how heavy the combined weight of the car and van would be. That punt just didn’t look that big to me and I could easily envisage the punt, car and van all toppling slowly into the green and fast flowing waters of the Murray. DD can only remember one time in antiquity where a truck did topple a barge, needless to say, I was not entirely comforted by his memories, but despite my nerves, we traversed the river quite safely and headed away from the riverside town of Mannum.

So until we meet again at Robe, I wish you all a good-night. Look after each other...Stephanie.


Glorious Sunrise over The Murray