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".