2002 Day 4 - Wayward Bus (SA)

Well, I'm in Melbourne, after 3.5 days on the road. It's been a very fun and interesting time in a way I didn't necessarily expect. I'm not even going to try and explain it - it's something you have to go on a tour with a small group of people (in this case 17 others) to appreciate. You feel like you have connected with a bunch of people over a range of shared experiences, even though you'll probably never see them again and so are more free to be yourself. It was made more interesting by the fact that not one of the other people was Australian, and I spent most of the time with about 3 of the group who spoke only very little English, but who I was able to meaningfully communicate with.

The range of ethnicities was German (2), Swiss (1), Dutch (1), Italian (1), Slovenian (1), French (1), Colombian (2), US (3), Canadian (1) and English (3) - and me, the lone Aussie apart from the tour driver.

We left Adelaide at 8:15am on Monday (CDT = GMT+10.5h, WST+2.5h) aboard Wayward Bus and headed off into the hills. First stop was Hahndorf, a town settled in 1839 by German Lutherans escaping religious persecution in their homeland, and the town still maintains a lot of its German character. I ate at the 1839 Cafe and ordered a "big breakfast" as on the menu. The surprise, I guess, was that they weren't at all kidding. It was big. With bacon, eggs, salad, bits of fruit, toast and all sorts of other interesting goodies behind me, we set off into the Adelaide Hills and beyond. I concluded that most of the south-eastern bit of South Australia is almost as boring as the Wheatbelt of WA - just flat farmland as far as the eye can see for the most part.

The exceptions, however, were glaring. The Murray River was pretty impressive - we had to cross it in a car ferry.

Photo 1 - Wellington, SA.
Photo 2 - Looking east from the ferry.
Photo 3 - Looking west from the ferry.

And the Coorong was stunning - for those who don't know, the Coorong is a mixed salt and fresh water lake about 80km long and only about 2-3km wide, sourced from both the ocean and the Murray. We stopped at a wilderness lodge run by the Ngarrinjiri Aboriginal people, who have been revegetating formerly useless sheep grazing land back to what it was originally. We ate kangaroo and local fish and had a tour of the area from an Aboriginal guide who showed us some of the natural food and medicines the Aboriginals have through history lived on. I won't debate the guy - his cure for mozzie bites does work, as most of us concluded at some point or other during our trip. And some of the edible plants found as far east as Lorne, VIC, served me well the following year in emergencies.

Photo 4 - 90 Mile Beach, Coorong Peninsula.

The next surprise came when we hit the town of Kingston SE - Larry the lobster :) An 18m high lobster outside a shop in the town was the centrepiece of all manner of photographs - unfortunately the shop itself didn't really live up to expectations (they don't believe in change, and overcharged me a dollar for an icecream...) Marine Parade in Kingston SE reminded me a lot of Bunbury for some reason, but it was very nice.

Anyway, at about 7pmish we arrived at a town called Beachport - population 407 - about 400km SE of Adelaide, 80km W of Mt Gambier, and had dinner at our accommodation, Bompa's by the Sea. The "Fisherman's Catch" was quite an interesting (and large) meal and I rather enjoyed it. (This is coming from someone who normally doesn't like fish or seafood, too...)

Despite its size, there was a lot to do on foot, although I seemed to be the only person actually willing to do it. A map of Beachport led to me discovering the Pool of Siloam which is 7 times saltier than the ocean, a Scenic Drive which hugs the coast at some altitude, a jagged and cliffy west coast and a smooth east coast with a nice beach and an 800m long jetty, one of the longest in Australia (the longest is in Busselton WA, incidentally, and is 2km long - I walked it last time I was there in 1998) Getting lost in pitch black climbing up steep hills through bush and falling into brambles wasn't totally fun though, and I came back with an intended mission the following morning to photograph the better bits of what I'd seen (complete with a shortened and bramble-free path to get there). I did just that.

The accommodation was amazingly good. I guess my expectation of backpacker accommodation in small towns was something of a "room with a view" over the top of the pub. While this was in fact entirely correct, it wasn't entirely accurate - the room was quiet, very stylish, and very large - the bathroom has to be the largest I've ever seen in any hotel or motel I've stayed at. I'd gotten a few bites during the day and enjoyed a nice bath before bed :)


(Note about photos - Any separately marked, numbered photos are my own. Any others are scammed off the Web - a couple were from someone's collection taken exactly one week after I was there! I hope to replace these links soon, but I don't have a scanner.)