7 February 2012 - The Tour de Grampians commences

A cold and cloudy start to our first day at the Grampians, though the folk at Tourist Information were a little more optimistic predicting lovely weather for our stay. After a cold spell at Robe, we are ready for the sun again.  So we headed off on a tour of some of the “must see” sights here, handicapped by the abilities of the 2 kiddos. 

Our first stop was Boroka Lookout – a fabulous view over Halls Gap Valley out to Lake Bellfield, and across the “eastern plains”. The kids loved the sheer drops, me not so much, and with Em swinging off railings I was a tad nervous and we herded them back to the car.

Next to the MacKenzie Falls where we did a great walk to a few lookouts above the falls. Unfortunately with stroller in tow the prospect of getting to the base of the waterfall was zero, but it looked good from high.

And our final stop for the day was at the Reeds Lookout, with views over Victoria Valley – here the kids fought for turns of being tossed over the railing by Daddy. Luckily Child Services were not about and we get to continue our holiday complete with Em and Lachie.

From here we headed out on a walk to the Balconies lookout, again stroller friendly. It is a relief that some things here can be enjoyed with the kids in tow. Here we saw more rocks, cliffs and views of Victoria Valley. By now my stomach had had about enough of the heights so we retreated for a quiet afternoon at the campsite.

Lachie has finally worked out the balance bike and will probably be better than Em in a week, though at least this is giving them some independence to “go do their own thing”. After jumping the night away on the bouncing pillow the 2 were aptly shattered, so we got to enjoy a little more Breaking Bad.

6 February 2012 - Off to the Grampians

Packed up today and jumped back into the car for our trip to The Grampians. We are certainly getting much better at packing up the tent, although Lachie was a bit of a moan having woken up too early and managed to frustrate us where possible.

The trip took about 3 hours driving time. I put an extra 5 psi pressure into the trailer tyres before leaving Robe (30 psi to 35 psi) and this did have an impact on fuel economy. The best we have managed to date was 13.1 litres/100km on the flat roads out of Dubbo. With a bit more air in the tyres we got 12.4litres/100km which was quite interesting. Won't overdo it with the tyre pressure though, hard tyres make the trailer bounce a bit too much. I could not resist putting a bit of tyre pressure chat into our blog.

The highlight of the trip was the road out of Hamilton where you turn a corner and the Grampians literally leap up out of the ground in front of you. The surrounding landscape is very flat, making the mountains all the more impressive.

We arrived at Halls Gap, our next campsite, around 3pm and started setting up again.

Interesting now that we are traveling about, we seem to run into the same people at the different campsites. We are next to another couple from Sydney who have been on the road for nearly 12 months now with their 4yo girl and 3yo boy. We first met them at Victor Harbor and will no doubt run into them again.

5 February 2012 - Rain and Beachport

Our first night of real rain since we started our trip. It started about 8.30pm the previous night as we were into the last of series one of 'Breaking Bad'. We have finally managed to start watching some of the shows that Uncle Mark saved for us onto our external hard drive.

It rained on and off throughout the night and continued into the morning. Although the campsite was quite sandy, some pools of water did form under the tent and annex floor but nothing serious. The canvas on the tent is fantastic and does a great job of keeping both wind and rain out, not sure I would go back to nylon again, except in smaller tents.

We decided to head down to Beachport, about 40km south of Robe and check out the long (700m) jetty that it is famous for. On the way we stopped at the 'Woakwine Cutting ' just north of Beachport. This is a cutting made in the late 1950s by two blokes (Murray McCourt and Dick McIntyre) using a single bulldozer, a 7 tonne ripper, a large dozer bucket and explosives! The cutting is 1km long and 30m deep at the deepest point, through solid rock, an incredible feat for two men. The cutting drained the swampy land at the top of the hill into a lake near the coast in order to turn the swamp into farmland. Definitely not the sort of venture environmentalists would allow these days but an amazing achievement all the same.

Beachport was very windy but a nice place to visit. The weather cleared while we were there and we managed a self guided tour around the local lobster factory. Lobster or crayfish is the main industry in Beachport and at $75 per kilo, it is a lucrative industry.

The wind has stayed with us during out time in Robe but has not hampered any of our activities. We say farewell to Sth Aus and hello to Victoria tommorrow as we head for our next stop in the Grampians.

4 Februrary 2012 - Kangaroos, Seal and Fish

Another lazy start and really beginning to enjoy them. The kids hung out at the park, while Nick headed off on the Lynskey to check out Little Dip Conservation Park. We are unsure whether you need a serious 4WD to get in here, so best to send Nick on ahead to check it out. Unfortunately he found some deep sand and signs to say let air out of your tyres, so it was a no go for the Kluger.

We met him on the way and met a few kangaroos which kept the kids screaming happy for about 10 mins. And then back to coffee heaven for more bliss and a few babycinos for the kids.

I put my hand up to babysit Lachie as he slept and Nick went to check out Robe with Emily. They found the Marina, a seal, and good fishing spot at the mouth of the Marina, so we all headed back for a spot of fishing when Lachie was up.

The seal, Sasha we called her, was still about, and trying to grab fish off peoples lines as they caught them. Nick caught a whiting on his first cast, but not big enough to keep, so back it went, into the waiting jaws of Sasha. Em tried to hold the fish but freaked when it jumped and demand she did not want a “jumping fish”, so Nick was back to work. We left Nick to it after about 45mins – it was that or one of the kids would have been in the water with the seal. Instead we collected a bucket of jellyfish at the beach and brought them back to feed Sasha. Unfortunately she now had a taste for whiting and wouldn’t have a bar of the jellyfish.  Nick didn’t catch anything else, and Em refused to eat if he didn’t catch her a fish. Luckily that was short lived or she would have gone to bed a hungry girl.

As we sat down to watch the series 1 final of Breaking Bad, the rain started falling….here’s hoping it is not a wild wild night.

3 February 2012 - Coonawarra and Penola

3 February 2012 - Coonawarra and Penola

Today we headed up to the Coonawarra region of Sth Aus to try some more wines. Quite timely as our stash from our earlier trips to regions around Adelaide was getting a little low. I was not overly impressed with the majority of wines that I tried, perhaps I am not enough of a cab sauvignon fan. Redman wines was certainly the pick of the bunch. The cellar door is not much to look at but they keep it very simple. They have stuck with Shiraz and cab sauvignon, recently branching out into a cab merlot but they do not do any other wines.  We had a nosy around Penola before leaving. This is where Saint Mary McKillop taught in her early days with the Sisters of Joseph order. Nice, well kept town like many of the places we are coming across in SA.

2 February 2012 - Coffee Heaven and Lazy Days at Last!

Coffee Heaven – yes finally, only 4 weeks after leaving Organica, we have finally found the best coffee SA has to offer - Mahila - and in an industrial area of Robe no less. We enjoyed a blissful start to the day before heading to the local Tourist Information office to catch up on what to do locally.

Nick decided to go for a run, and then followed up with a bike ride in the afternoon after I tried in vain to find some shorts. That said the weather is pretty cold here with the wind really getting up at night. He headed off down Ten Nile Beach on the Lynskey, and really felt the wind on the return journey. He reckons we will also take the Kluger for a burn on the beach…..I must admit being a little worried and that I may leave this to the “boys”.

We went crab hunting in the evening and Em had an absolute ball. I expected Lachie would be the one digging under rocks, but he sat playing sandcastles while Emily dug up prob. 20-30 crabs. Unfortunatley they were tiny, and hence I fabulous crab meal was not to follow, but we did savour some local snapper and oysters with a little Clare Valley Riesling which wasn’t half bad.

We finally booted up the HD Mark set up for us and watched a couple of episodes of Breadking Bad – fabulous! Cant believe I hadn’t seen it before, and that it has been 4 weeks since we watched TV. Am sure we haven’t missed much.

All in all a very lazy day, but badly needed. Coonowarra on the agenda for tomorrow, and I am up early for a bike ride I hope.

1 February 2012 - Onward to the coastal town of Robe

We packed up and shipped out of Meningie this morning – our first one night stop. As we didn’t put the annex up it was a pretty relaxing pack up, and the kids enjoyed feeding the local ducks – creatively name Emily and Lachlan before we left.

Although the intent was to head to Narrung to visit the sit of the church on the $50, Nicks reaction was “bugger it” when he realized it was a 44km trip each way and we would have to pull the trailer, bikes, etc possibly on some dirt road. Instead to headed south towards Robe after deciding none of the Meningie coffee shops were worth the visit.

The plan was to stop in Kingston SE for lunch, so I seriously hoped we would stop a coffee shop somewhere before we got here – 150kms. Unfortunatley none of the “towns” we passed had anything on offer, so it was a rather long trip. We did a little side trip to a place called “The Granites “about 10 north of Kingston to climb a few huge random bolders on a stunning beach.  There was no notice board to explain anything, yet someone had recently sealed the 3km sideroad which was bizarre. Must google and find out more.

I hate to give anywhere a bad wrap, but Kingston had very little on offer. We did visit an award winning Fish and Chip Shop – hmm……and had our lunch on the beach opposite the Cape Jaffa Lighthouse. The kids really wanted to go inside, but this was only open for visitors on school holidays. Em was absolutely thrilled by “The Big Lobster” on the way into the town, and we had to loop back twice to give her a real good look at it. So maybe it wasn't that bad after all.

Robe looks like a lovely little town and we have booked in for 5 nights. We set up beside the playground, and the bouncing pillow is not far away so again happy kids. Em has finally gotten the hang of the balance bike and is thrilled, Lachie is still pushing his, but happy to do so. We crossed the road for a quick look at the beach, it no complaints, looks fab. The winds are still up and it is pretty cold, but fingers crossed Summer returns sometime soon or Queensland here we come!!