42. Warrnambool to Adelaide

Well a lot of distance covered and not a great deal to report.

We left Peterborough and headed for Warrnambool for some much needed stock – food! Peterborough and Port Campbell had little to offer and what they did they sure had a price tag on it!

Warnambool was a big town.  We stopped at Ray’s Outdoor to see if they had these thermal cookers that we had been chasing. $120 later and we blew budget already.  Fuel was another$155 and adding groceries were $115 more. Lucky I average out by the month.

We pulled up at a big park “Lake Pertrobe” and the boys were off while I read about the new thermal cooker. First meal in the pot – apricot chicken and spud.  At the park there was a massive flying fox, swings, waterfalls, these cool boats and plenty more. Needless to say the kids were amused.

We left Warnambool not really seeing too much else, nothing really grabbed us.

We got only 30km down the road for a cheap stop at Killarney Beach - $20/night. We didn’t even go for a fish we were too tired.

Heading off in the morning we stopped at Port Fairy, only about 15km down the road. A cute little town. There was a 3km walk around one of the adjoining islands – Griffiths Island. We walked out to the lighthouse and back while the kids, mostly Rhys, whinged all the way.

We headed inland and there was really a lot of nothing in between.

We got to Dartmoor and had lunch and thought we would go to the next free camp however we never found it, crossing into SA. So we returned the 30km to Dartmoor and pulled up camp for a bit.  The boys went and kicked their footy while I chilled out, chatted to people and got dinner happening.  Second night of thermal cooker and we had sausage dish – prepared by Rodney. Although I had to use up all the potatoes before crossing the border, so I cooked them all up in preparation to make potato salad!

We left Dartmoor and crossed over to South Australia! Yay.

We got into Mt Gambier and stopped at Ulpherston Gardens. A sink hole which was converted in the 1800s to a lovely garden. It was beautiful and free!

We moved onto look at Blue Lake – we were lucky enough to see the amazing colours before it turns grey for winter.  We inquired about doing an Aquafier tour but he wasn’t overly convincing so we gave it a miss.  We ended up at the Information Centre where we paid $5 to go through and see the Discovery Centre.  I am sure it was good but I was put off by how much “indigenous” shit was in it.  Seriously, when I went to school there was no talk about them at all and now you hear nothing about white man. And did you know the “indigenous” people survived the last iceage? 

We pushed on, knowing we had to start making some ground, briefly stopped at Beachport for a quick look and camped on the side of the road 14km south of Robe.

In the morning we packed up and headed for Robe thinking we might have breaky there – we didn’t. It was rather fresh and windy. We continued onto Kingston SE and I cooked up a feast of bacon and eggs. As we finished cleaning and had packed up ready to go we thought we’d look at the jetty. Bad mistake (on Rod’s behalf).  We found fresh squid ink which gave us the fishing itch to have a go at catching squid! So we returned to the car and got our fishing gear and went fishing.

Mitchell threw his line and caught a squid straight up. Threw it again and caught another squid, straight up! Assy shit.  I caught a King George Whiting – the first for the family!  This all happened within the first half hour so we were pretty keen to stay. I also caught a couple under sized fish and lost one big squid. The only problem was just convincing Rod to stay.

So Mitchell and I fished a little longer while Rod and Rhys went and did the washing.  Time flies when you are having fun.  We threw the towel in and I went for a drive around town with Rod while the kids stayed in the van.  We had convinced Rod to stay a night J

We returned fishing at 5.30 and stuck it out until after dark – Mitchell caught another squid, the rest of us nothing. The sunset over the water was spectacular.

Keen as mustard I got up and went out early for a fish -7am, Mitchell joined me and Rhys, well he bought me out a coffee. Such a good kid.  A light cool breeze and not much was chewing.  I lost a couple of squid and caught a 34cm gurnard (I thought it was a rock cod but who knows).

I filleted and cleaned the squid while Rod packed up the van and we were off. Lucky we stopped just down the road to fill up with fuel because we forgot to lock the van door. Oops.

We made good ground that day, nothing too great to see on the drive. Quite boring.  We got to Langhorne to a free camp, drove an extra 16km to Milang for great $1 showers and returned to set up.  Met some people from Perth, exchanged free camp information and went to bed.  First time we slept in ages with windows open.  Was so nice.

We left there in the morning, after doing the chatting rounds and headed for Adelaide to catch up with Berice and Kevin (people we met in Tassie).

PHOTOS: Warrnambool to Adelaide