We're baaaaack!

The people have asked and I have responded. The blog is back! So you can quit with the phone calls, emails, Facebook pages (‘Bring Back the Intrepid Family Blog’)... I kid, I kid. But seriously, we’ve headed off on an adventure travelling around South Australia for three weeks so thought it would be good to record some of the experiences again.

  

As Leon is originally from South Australia we decided to check out some of his old haunts. We started our trip by heading to Mount Gambier on Saturday 22^nd June. It was a pretty uneventful and long trip from Geelong, with a stopover at Kings Bakery in Hamilton for lunch. (Nice place but their coffee machine had broken down... the horror!) Actually, Leon has just reminded me of something some might consider eventful... being pulled over by the police for speeding! Oops. So with a hefty fine to temper Leon’s accelerator foot for the rest of the trip we continued. After setting up at Kalganyi Holiday Park (for the Top Tourist discount!) we had a quick drive around. A highlight smack bang in the middle of town is the Umpherston Sinkhole.

This was once a cave which created a sunken garden when the top of the chamber collapsed. In 1886 James Umpherston saw this potential in this natural wonder and beautified it. It has been continued on by others since and is really gorgeous.

After a rather crappy sleep (octogenarian neighbours getting home from somewhere at 1 am and slamming doors and shouting loudly and Cooper deciding 1.30am would be the perfect time to play his Nintendo DS!) we were all up early. Nice coffees and milkshakes were found at ‘The Whistling Cat’ and we hit the ‘Lady Nelson Visitors Centre’. Lots of information to be found here as well as some clever displays about the area.

We checked out some of Mount Gambier’s amazing lakes; Blue Lake which is in an extinct volcano and supplies the city’s water and the Valley Lake which has beautiful recreational grounds and a wildlife area.

Then we hit the road to Millicent, which was the site of many of Leon’s teenaged memories and experiences (yes I was afraid!) The kids and I enjoyed driving past a couple of the houses his family lived in, the schools and his first place of work! After lunch at the pub drove to the Tantanoola Caves, which has been the most exciting thing so far for me. An amazing cavern with dolomite base rock, resulting in gorgeous colours and formations. Definitely a must see for me.

After checking out a few more informal cave areas that Leon used to frequent and are now fenced off (gulp) we headed back to camp. Tomorrow we will move on (destination as yet unspecified) for yet more intrepid adventures!

P.S You can click on the photos to make them bigger if need be, and also some of the highlighted links.