2002 Day 5 - Wayward Bus - Mt Gambier & Beyond

(Someone else did this tour a week after me and posted all their photos online. Worth a look.)

After my sunrise on the balcony and mad photographing mission was complete, we were off to our next destination. But first we walked around the Canunda National Park near Beachport with some very stunning scenery. This was our first taste of the Great Ocean Road I guess, although we had a full day yet until we would get to it.

Next major stop was Mt Gambier, population 23,000 - I was expecting a small regional town, but it was as bad as any city traffic-wise - absolutely nuts and several of our party nearly got hit several times in the main streets. I managed to find some nice fresh bananas and send a postcard home before we went off to look at the Blue Lake south of the town. This lake *is* really blue. Apparently it's got something to do with the way it was formed from volcanic ash, but it looks quite trippy in real life.

(EDIT: I came back to Mount Gambier and spent 2 days there in late November 2003 - see entries from that period for more information.)

After that we went to Donovans, a border town, for a picnic lunch (which was truly sumptuous, but I seemed to be the only person going for the beans and lentils!) and then crossed the SA/VIC border (at which point we all changed our clocks forward half an hour and photographed the signs just so we could say we'd done it :P )

It was quite a while until our first stop - Cape Bridgewater, near Portland, where an optional tour was available to see the seals in their native environment. I was already starting to feel muscle pains and fatigue from all the activity (which did include that long walk to West Terrace in Adelaide where I posted from on early Monday morning) but I convinced myself I'd only get this opportunity to go. So 8 of us headed off on what turned out to be a very arduous walk over some of the highest coastal cliffs in Australia (about 1.5km of them to be exact) to get to the jetty where the boat left from. We went out at quite high speed into the ocean and round some more cliffs to get to the seal colony.

I'd always imagined seals being pretty relaxed creatures, but after seeing them up close I've figured out they spend most of their time fighting and arguing and the rest playing in the water. We went into a cave and got some pretty cool views of seals just sitting there watching us - a couple even lunged for our little boat :) Eventually it was time to head back and we did so. However, once nearly back at the jetty, the guy driving the boat put it in full gear and drove it in circles. Unfortunately for me a wave came through on my side at the same time and I found myself fully clothed and completely underwater for several seconds. It took a while to rescue me, and when we did, several things that had been in my pocket (disposable camera, credit cards etc) had drifted away and/or sunk (and that's not to speak of the fact I was soaked through)

I think the guy (who was only about 21-22) panicked a bit and decided to take me back to the beach in the boat. The next 45 minutes were spent changing into new clothes, attempting to manually dry my old ones, while the entire bus waited for the owner of the boat company to dive for (and successfully retrieve) my credit cards.

We got into Port Fairy at 7pm, that little action drama over ... but my evening in what was really quite a nice town indeed was mostly spent washing and drying waterlogged clothing, eating in an overpriced and unfriendly Chinese restaurant (Four Seasons) and suffering from temporary back pain. The room was nice and I'm now regretting the fact I really didn't have the chance to lay back and enjoy it. But it's life ... and the whole situation did seem to provide amusement for most people on the bus (although they were also sympathetic and gave me good advice with relation to drying out the clothing).