Step 29 Robe - Strathalbyn 291 km’s

This morning we tore ourselves away from Robe but I’m sure we will be back, this is our new favourite spot.

Luckily, as we headed out of town all the wineries were closed so we didn’t have to check out our will power. But on the next visit we must try the Cape Jaffa and Mount Benson wineries which both do very nice Pinot Gris apparently.

Stopped off at the Cape Jaffa Marina, which is a new development. Looks like it’s going to be quite flash when it’s finished. Probably should have bought a block of land as an investment. Oh yeah, probably should have kept our jobs if we wanted to do that.

Next stop - Kingston SE (South East). Not to be confused with Kingston, on the Murray, which interestingly (or not) is not called Kingston NE (North East).

KIngston, SE, is home to Larry the Lobster aka The Big Lobster. Now to be honest Larry was a little disappointing, but on the plus side at least he is still open. Unlike the Big Prawn at Ballina, The Big Orange at Berri and (allegedly) the Big Egg on the Geelong Ballarat Road. 

What we learned today: “Larry is roughly three times bigger than he was meant to be. Larry’s designer drew the plans in feet, then the builder built him in metres.”  Probably just as well, The Big Lobster sounds so much better than “The reasonably large lobster”

Next door to Larry, another little slice of Geeeeelong to stop Di getting homesick

Countryside from here up the coast is a bit scrubby, and the water has lost it’s turquoise colouring. It’s not open ocean here though, there is some sort of sand barrier between here and the ocean leaving the water looking a lot less inviting.

Stopped for a quick picnic lunch in a park in Meningie, but Meningie was a bit “Meningy mangy” to stay the night. There also seemed to be a gathering of the “women need men like fish need bicycles” sisterhood so we moved on.

Countryside picked up as we drove through the wine region of Langhorne Creek, where the vineyards are rated at 272.4 hangovers per acre.     

Right out of the blue - the road turned into a Ferry. Following Chris de Burgh's advice,  we didn't pay the Ferryman.

A quick break from the coast and an overnight stop in historic Strathalbyn. Another quaint, pretty,historic, little country town, but only 65 km’s from Adelaide. Yet again we are seeing the advantages these places have, with the abundance of quality building stone. A lot of the buildings are very original and give the place a nice look.

The caravan park is a little rustic, but then again it’s back on budget at $25. As a bonus for Di, it's also just next door to the local footy oval, and pre-season training has started. 

Having dragged Di away from the young footy players, we walked in to town and ended up having an iced coffee each and sharing an exceptional stewed plum and ricotta cake. All every tasty but then again with the way the budget is going this month it’s worked out to be about 75% of todays food budget. Good job we have meat for the barbie and salad in the fridge.

Calming of Steve’s nerves took a hit tonight when we spent over an hour trying to book flights to the UK and failed! Damn that interwebnet thingy.

Step 28 Mt Gambier to Robe 175 km’s

Monday 24th Jan

Quite cool this morning but not enough to need long trousers, not that my long trousers are that long as Vicki pointed out :-)

Drove down to Valley lake 

and up to the Centenary Tower. Unfortunately the tower didn’t have the flag flying, to indicate it is open, so we didn’t bother with the walk. Despite the inviting sign.

In lieu of the walk, and given the cooler weather, we drove into town for a cappuccino. A nice change from the all the iced coffees we have been having lately (no cream, we’re dieting). 

All warmed up and ready to go, it’s off to the Lady Nelson information centre and their very informative video on the local area. Hands up all those who knew what a big forestry industry there is in this part of South Australia. Really? It helped explain to us why there are so many signs complaining about the government trying to sell off all the forests. 

Next stop, the Umphertson Sink Hole Gardens. Well eventually we stopped at the gardens. After two full laps of the city looking for them. After parking MM and walking about a kilometre, we found them immediately across the street from where we had coffee this morning. Lesson for today: Get a better map.

Second lesson for today: “A lot of things look better in the brochures”

Hit the road for Robe. As much as we were tempted, we did not stop at the rural museum at Millicent. When it comes down to it, for that sort of experience I’ll just get Di to tell me about her childhood again.

Ended up stopping in a park at Tantanoola for rolls in MM, home of the Tantanoola Tiger. Surely you have heard of the Tantanoola Tiger. No?

Legend has it that in the 1860’s a “tiger” was attacking local livestock and making off with the carcasses. Now I am going to say that the locals were trusting souls and not just slow on the uptake, but it took them quite some time to work out that the “tiger attacks” were occurring shortly before the local butcher was doing really good specials on fresh rump steak. Anyway the local pub has on display the stuffed body of some poor Assyrian Wolf Hound (well some large dog anyway) that took the blame for awhile and the legend lives on.

Tantanoola Pub - home of the Tantanoola Tiger - it's stuffed now though. The tiger not the pub.

The last train was 19 15. Not quarter past seven last night. 1915 AD 

Just out of Tantanoola is a massive wind farm, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately the road to get there was dirt and Di hasn’t forgiven me for the bush bashing adventures just out of Tenterfield so we skipped that bit.

Luckily the camera has a good zoom

Then, what a beautiful sight. Beachport, our first sighting of the sea since we left Chinderah. What a sea it was too, beautiful turquoise blue. 

We walked out on the jetty (750metres long) and round the town which had a lovely beachy feel to it. Probably would have been worth staying but one of the places that has always been on the list to visit is Robe and it’s only a few kilometres up the road so we drove on.

At our own peril we ignored Vicki and Herb’s advice on caravan parks and stayed at the Ocean Vu instead. It was a little more expensive (and over budget) but it’s right in town and as it’s name says - Ocean Views. Although not from our site! Never mind, it’s a very nice park, and as I said well positioned. Checked in for two nights.

Had a quick walk around town to suss it out and picked up some nibblies for wine o’clock and other bits and pieces. 

Town has a great feel to it with a couple of pubs, loads of restaurants and beachy shops. Lashed out on fish and chips for tea. well actually a mixture of salt and pepper squid, flake, chips and salads. Very nice (but still not up to Torquay standards).

Tuesday 25th Jan

Another lay in this morning and I am reeeeally loving these ear plugs.

Headed off for a walk into town along the beach and ended up at the jetty just as the fishing fleet started to arrive. The first boat, the guy told us, had been out for eight days and they had three and a half tonnes of gummy shark (flake) on board.  Now I’m guessing these guys do not need to go to the gym. Unloading the three and a half tonnes involved one guy going down into the hold and throwing the fish (about 3-5 kilos each), one by one, eight feet up to the guy on the deck. The guy on deck then caught them and dropped them into crates until he had about 30 kgs at which point he lifted the crate onto the dock. All this after being out on the boat for 8 days to catch them. Maybe the IT industry is the right place for me after all.

The other half dozen boats all seemed to be loaded with cray, but unfortunately none of them were selling off the back of the boat. A guy on the docks told us they sell the at the wholesalers at the other end of town, so since it’s not that big a town we wandered off down there to check it out. Well, nice town Robe, allegedly the Australian Lobster/Cray capital, but it’s not a place to find a bargain. $68 per kilo is the going rate. Looks like it’s BBQ chops for tea tonight.

Unfortunately in the afternoon it clouded over and cooled down. A lot. Good excuse for sitting inside and reading. Nonetheless decided to stay an extra night here.

Wednesday 26th January - Australia Day

Happy birthday Australia (with apologies to our indigenous readers).

Unfortunately, due to another extended sleeping session, we missed the Australia Day breakfast BBQ in the park. This means I cannot tell you who was the Robe Junior Citizen of the Year, nor the Robe Senior Citizen of the Year or whether there was a Robe Middle Age Citizen of the Year. But the guy in the van down the road went, and he said he kind of dozed off after the fourteenth speech and he can’t tell us either. His wife said the BBQ sausages were good though.

To make up for the lazy afternoon yesterday we headed off on a walk along the beach front to the famous Robe obelisk.

The walk was quite steep in places - and it's so hard to find good Sherpas in this area

Famous, not only for looking like a cubist impression of Where’s Wally, but also because it’s about to fall into the sea, due to erosion. The other “believe it or not” story about the obelisk is that it used to be painted plain white but when they painted the red stripes on, it became visible for up to 20 kilometers out to sea. Which greatly improved it’s hit rate on stopping ships crashing into the rocks. Actually I think that should be greatly reduced the hit rate.

Where's Wally - by Picasso

Had an entertaining afternoon clearing out all the old brochures we have collected along the way. While it’s great the stuff you can pick up at Info Centres it really does bulk up very quickly. 

Now it occurred to me today that there is one part of the trip that i have been neglecting to keep you all updated on. That of course is the number of people who are travelling with pets. Ho hum Steve, so people travel with their dog, big deal I hear you say. But wait there’s more. What bought it home today was, I sat and watched (as you do) as the couple across the way set-up their camping trailer and annexe. Nice trailer I thought, very easy to setup. Gee they have a lot in the annexe. Mmm that’s the first time I have seen anyone on this trip with a 2 cubic metre BIRD CAGE. I kid you not. It was all topped off by the lady sitting hand feeding the cockateel while chatting to it the bird about how well it had travelled.

Now that’s not to mention that most people travel with not one but two dogs and that reminded me that on this trip:

I have spoken to a guy, travelling with his wife and two dogs, who told me his wife sleeps in the annexe with her dog. Because he won’t have her dog in the van because it snores and she won’t let the dog sleep in the annexe on it’s own.

One night we were sitting having a chat to a couple over nibblies, when their dog went nuts. Because  a guy walked past with his CAT on a lead.

        And most unbelievable of all, one couple was travelling with a Cavalier, like Lulu, and it was well behaved.

Anyway, this evening we spent a couple of hours on Skype to El organising our trip over to see her. So it’s all starting to take shape, all we need to do now is get a flight ! 

Step 27 Padthaway - Mt Gambier (158km's)

Sunday 23rd January

Well after seeing and smelling the grapes so close overnight there was only one thing to do this morning, quick breakfast (outside, because it's another beautiful day in paradise) and then straight next door to Padthaway Estate Winery, Cellar door.

This place should charge admittance because the lady behind the counter, the self confessed Mad Woman of Padthaway was hilarious, and informative. If she put on a few kilo's she could do Vicar of Dibley impersonations, but she certainly had the laugh, louder than Di and Vicki's sneezes. We ended up spending and hour and a half there as she regaled us with tales of the area and the differences between each of the towns in the area. All the while sampling the "produce" of the estate. Obviously I was the designated driver but Di assures me ALL the wines were very good. Now we had made a rule that just because we tasted didn't mean we needed to buy but the whole experience was so entertaining we couldn't resist buying just one bottle (Sparkling Shiraz). Lesson for today: "If you are going to stick to a budget you cannot spend your entire daily food allowance on one bottle of wine." Not sure how we missed that lesson because I am sure we have mentioned it to Elke on a number of occasions. Never mind, thanks to the magic spreadsheet I buried the cost in the "Tours and Entertainment" category.

Moving on, Di singing merrily to herself in the passenger seat, we stopped in a park at Naracoorte for lunch. Interestingly, rather than having a swimming pool they have a swimming lake. Massive, but all man made, concrete floor and all. While in Naracoorte we would have done the famous cave tour, but unfortunately we had blown the entertainment budget today :-)

Oh for a bigger budget, next area we passed through is the Coonawarra, home to Wynns Coonawarra Shiraz among other notable wines. Maybe Di is right, this is just a Gap Year not retirement.

Editors Note: For those of you familiar with Steve's retirement Plan B - it makes me even more angry with the "boffins" at Bounty Oil who managed to identify an area that they claim holds three times more natural gas than Bass Strait and yet  drilled an exploratory well that completely missed everything!


Editors Note note: Steve's retirement Plan A is and always has been, to win Tattslotto  

In the search for divine intervention in either Plan A or B we then stopped at Penola, where it all began for Saint Mary (McKillop, not Princess Mary of Denmark). Unfortunately one of the miracles she performed was not making the caravan park look attractive so we decided to keep moving on.








But while we were there we seriously considered replacing the   bike trailer with a refreshments trailer. In our port drinking days we probably would have!  Miss you Stibbs.

Wishful thinking?

Next stop, Mt Gambier. Did a quick cruise through town and ended up by the famous Blue Lake. Since there was a Big 4 Caravan Park right next door decided to stay the night there (despite it being a little over budget at $34, after the club discount).

Not sure the photo does it justice it is REALLY blue

A quick relax over drinks and nibblies and then we walked across the road to view the lake and take some photo's. Still lovely and warm so ate tea outside again. In fact it has been very warm all day, peaking at 35 in fact.

Ooops spoke to soon, later in the evening it cooled down considerably and then rained overnight.

Lesson for today (I'm sure I've seen this one previously in this blog) "Doesn't matter how nice it is when you go to bed, bring the table and chairs in first".  

Step 26 Mildura to Padthaway via Wentworth & Renmark (516km's)

Saturday 22nd January

For those of you playing loo lotto today was a toilet emptying day. There were no winners this week (particularly not Steve who has to do the emptying). Division One will jackpot next week. There are absolutely no Division Twos allowed.

Having perused the tourist brochure during our relaxing few days, decided to drive out to the Perry Sand Dunes which are just the other side of Wentworth.

Sand is very fine - my sandal is in there somewhere

Editors note: This little diversion meant that within an hour we were in 3 states. Not quite as exciting as our 5 countries in one day whilst driving around Europe but then again we were younger then (and both had jobs).

Whilst in Wentworth it is mandatory to see the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers. (I was going say "go and see where the Murray and Darling rivers join" but I just loved the sound of the word confluence). As it happened, with all the water flowing down both river systems they had confluenced themselves right through the observation park.

Our plan at the beginning of the day was to stop in Renmark overnight but given the water is still predicted to rise over the weekend and since we arrived by lunchtime decided it was time to move on. Renmark itself looked like a pretty little town though, with Pub and Club right on the river, but caravan park was a little ways out of town.

Di drove straight after lunch as we had about 300km's to get to our next stop at Padthaway.

Stopped off in Bordertown to fill up with fuel and judging by the pump VW have increased the size of the tank on the Golf diesel.

Today the countryside really has been changing, no really. We started with vineyards, had the sand dunes and scrubby bush, crop filled paddocks, hills, flat, Terra Rossa (sometimes known in Australia as red Dirt) and even beach like sandy soil. Amazing, all in the space of 500 km's.

Arrived in Padthaway around six'ish. Not sure exactly when because Steve's phone stayed on Victorian time and Di's phone switched to South Australian time at some point.

Padthaway itself has obviously employed a marketing company to print it's brochures, because it's a lot smaller than we had been led to believe, but it does have a bit of history and more importantly a few wineries (famous for Shiraz). 

No choice on caravan parks though so we checked into the only one there. Luckily it's a beautiful little park, immaculately maintained by the owner who seems to have a need to be constantly doing things. Think the opposite of Steve. He's also up for a bit of a chat, so tea was a little late tonight. Mind you we managed to stay up late enough for a bit of Jean Leary fruit cake for supper. Yummm

By the way - I'm not sure if it's good luck or what - but the Bluebird of happiness was so happy he pooped on the mirror of MM

Step 25 Junee to Mildura (594 km's)

Wednesday 19th Jan


Big day on the road planned today so Di started the driving.

Suicide butterflies are still in full flight (well right up to the point where they splatter on the front of MM). Countryside is flat, very flat. But it does change, sometimes it's flat and dry other times it's dry and flat and so on. Very warm as well so it's air conditioning all the way. Surprisingly the road, which is quite narrow and one lane each way, has 110km per hour speed limit. Not surprisingly Di manages to keep pushing MM up to that limit all the way.
Proof readers note: will almost certainly appear here. YES THEY WILL!! Not just me planting the foot but the editor too!

Stopped in Hay for lunch and iced coffee. Hay is the birth place of John Pepper, father of Di's good friend Julie. This is not the same John Pepper who invented the technology behind the Cowra Breakout hologram presentation. Don't feel bad, it's a common mistake to make, but Professor John Pepper was definitely not Julie's dad.

Swapped drivers after lunch and arrived in Mildura around 4:30'ish.













Checked out the Apex Riverside Caravan Park but still a little wary of rivers at the moment and by the look of the picnic area probably quite prudent on our part.

Mildura's answer to the swim up bars you get in resorts
The swim up picnic table

Ended up at the Desert City Top Tourist Park and checked in for 2 nights. People on the site next to us said it is only half the park it used to be. Literally. Two brothers used to own it and one wanted to cash in his bit so they just put up a fence right down the middle and one half is now a vacant block waiting to be sold. But the good news is that means there are less people using the amenities block. They also have a holiday apartment complex next door and we have access to a very nice indoor pool and gym complex.
Fairly confident we won't be wearing out the gym equipment though.

Thursday 20th Jan
Late start to the day, again, MM sure is comfortable to sleep in.

Eventually drove in to town and had a lesuirely picnic lunch on the river bank.

Having saved on the budget with home made rolls we then made our way on up to Stefano's Coffee Shop for a rather yummy iced coffee.

Editors note: that's the Stefano famous for the Gondola on the Murray TV series, cook books, a 2 Hat restaurant in Mildura. Remember him now?  

After much deliberation we had also decided that some modifications were required for the brilliant fly screen door for MM so this afternoon it's off to Bunnings for the new parts. Cup hooks, that's the secret ingredient. Another test in the car park and it's all fixed. Seriously considering marketing this for other owners of whiz bang motor homes.

Editors note: For non-caravanners (like Di and I used to be 3 months ago). Whiz bang is the "affectionate" name other caravan park users have for motor homes with the big sliding side door on the side. Open - whiz thump. Close - whiz baaaaang.

One of the attractions we had intended checking out was the Longest bar in the Southern Hemisphere (or the World depending on which document you read), situated in the Working Mans Club here in Mildura. Unfortunately it was closed today. Well to be honest after more careful checking it would appear to have closed sometime in the late 1990's, so it wouldn't have helped if we had rushed to get here sooner.

After that disappointment couldn't face travelling tomorrow so we checked in for an extra night and Steve went for a swim in the park pool.

Friday 21st Jan

Lazy start to the day followed by a lazy finish to the afternoon.

Did manage a bit of reading and a wander over to the supermarket as well as setting up the printer for the first time on the trip so that we could print off Di's study documents.

Finished off the afternoon with a swim in the pool and a BBQ tea. Weather still good so managed to eat outside again.

So after a relaxing day we should be ready for travelling again tomorrow - honestly it's quite exhausting at times :-)

Step 24 Young - Junee via Temora

Tuesday 18th Jan

Up early this morning  and quickly off to the bakery to pick up the pies. Since the bakery was also a proper coffee shop we didn't think that Herbie's rule of not having cappuccinos at a bakery applied and took a chance. Phew, not bad at all.

Forgot to mention the uniquely NSW method of angle parking. Reverse in to kerb.   Di loves it, one day she did it seven times in three different parking spots before she let us out to go to the coffee shop.
Proof readers note: Dianne strongly refutes this allegation

Despite the web site not making the place sound all that attractive we decided to take Georgie's advice and checked out the Temora Air Museum. Predictably my dad's advice was better than the Internet and it turned out to be a good choice. All the aircraft they have on display are airworthy, and they fly too. Di was all cultured out, having visited the car museum yesterday so she stayed in MM and caught up with e-mails and phone calls while I toured around.

I was going to give the guy a hand to put this lot back together but Di pointed out that after I rebuilt my Escort engine it caught on fire while she was driving it.

After lunch in MM (budget conscious) headed off to Junee

For the last day or so (and it turned out for quite a few days after) we have been literally bombarded by white butterflies. They have been absolutely plastering the front of MM. I believe that I shall call them - Suicide Butterflies (in Latin Suicidus Butterflyus).

The reason for our visit to Junee was another Kendall Snr recommendation - the Junee Licorice factory - yummo.

Unfortunately we were a little late to see them actually making the licorice but we did see them doing some choc coating and we got to taste some. We also did the tour which included a Licorice Vertical Bowling competition, which we duly won. Woo hoo, a free packet of licorice.

Editors note: Licorice Vertical Bowling involves one person (Steve) lobbing a giant blob of licorice through a hatch about 15 ft off the ground which duly fall down a shaft and knocks over a set of nine pins which the other person (Di) tries to catch before they hit the ground. Extremely difficult but we triumphed.

Had a quick look around Junee Railway Square but didn't go out to the Junee Railway Turntable - the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. I'll probably rue that as a missed opportunity later in life. But then again, maybe not.

As Di and I constitute a quorum for the executive planning committee for this trip we had a planning meeting over drinks and nibblies. Given there was nothing in particular we wanted to see for a while we decided to make a dash for Mildura tomorrow.