They say that you experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows when travelling. I suppose I hadn't quite expected the low to come quite so soon (I mean, we had only been "travelling" for less than 3 months, and had only owned Stanley for just over 1 month). Stanley's medical diagnosis and treatment had left us reeling somewhat. Being cooped up in a hostel and sweating over what we were going to do was exhausting and in all honesty, really upsetting. We hadn't worked so hard for us to have to give it all up because of a van! So the minute we got our Stan back from the mechanic, all fixed and ready to go, we left. We wanted to head east, leaving behind Adelaide and the previous week. It felt incredibly freeing and exciting- we could actually go anywhere again.
Melbourne was our next destination. We'd seen that a lot of jobs had been advertised in Vic so we were hopeful of picking one up along the way. This gave us the opportunity to travel the Great Ocean Road. It's not new and it's not secret but we'd heard great things so it was on the bucket list. Although excited, it was still a long drive away.
We spent the afternoon driving to Kingston SE from the suburbs of Adelaide. We were still a tad nervous about Stan; he'd only just come out of surgery, we didn't want to push him too hard. Our satnav wasn't aware of this. Narrow roads. Steep slopes. Not like "Oh that's a bit steep." No. Like "Sh*t, what have we done?!" Kind of steep. It was brutal. I don't think we'd ever apologised to something not human quite as sincerely before then. We think he coped but it wasn't pleasant.
Kingston was nice enough to stay overnight in but we awoke to a town that was mostly lifeless, so after a quick pause outside the lighthouse, we drove on. We decided to make a brief stop in Mount Gambier. What was going to be a overnight stay turned into two amazing days.
It turns out there is actually quite a bit to see in Mount Gambier. We parked up at the Lady Nelson Visitor Centre, picked up a wad of leaflets and maps, quickly walked through it's education centre and went for lunch. We'd seen two lakes on the map and read that the Blue Lake was one of the big attractions there, mainly because in certain months of the year, the lake goes a deep royal blue (hence the name) so we went there first. The water was still blue but not quite as vivid. It was a pleasant view but as it was freezing cold and really blustery, we mostly enjoyed the view through slightly milky glass of our van. We parked up at the Valley Lake for a quick look but as it was getting late, we decided to find somewhere to stay for the night.
With the mountain of maps and tour suggestions, it was nice to be able to pick out a good list of places we were keen to explore. After visiting the lakes the day before, we made an exciting trip to the chemist as Kjel was attacked by a cold but several tablets later and he was feeling a little more human. The following morning, we ventured out. We were 2 minutes away from Umpherston sinkhole so that became our first stop. It was much deeper than I'd expected and very pretty, as over the years it was given a good makeover so was landscaped to perfection. We came across an inquisitive possum snacking away on scavenged food and something that resembled some sort of gothic art project; a recently deceased bird being suspended in mid air by some sort of vine thing. Creepy and completely baffling, but like most strange things, memorable.
We moved on and headed towards Engelbrecht cave. I'd done a quick trip advisor search on it and it seemingly had good reviews, so I was keen to visit. I suppose I must have ignored any mention of opening times or it failed to say as we arrived to it being closed. A little annoyed but by far not defeated, we had a look again at the maps and leaflets. One of the destinations circled by the lovely lady in the visitor centre was Mount Schank: a dormant volcano 10 minutes down the road. So off we went, seemingly leaving behind our rationality and common sense. But it was worth it.
We stopped in the carpark to demolish our Subway sandwiches and spent some time kangaroo-watching before walking up what felt like a trillion steps to the summit of the volcano. The views were great. We spied a path that cut through the bushes and shrubs leading to the centre of the volcano, that was currently being travelled by a young lad and his dad. We decided to do the same. As we descended, we could see the pair making their way up out of the volcano- although not by following a nicely made pathway, nope. By climbing the rock face upwards and out. As I said, we had somehow managed to leave behind our rationality and decided to follow suit. We felt very small at the centre and from there, the slope upwards didn't seem too steep. So up we climbed. It was incredibly exciting but the further we got, we realised that we could only go up and if anything went wrong, we'd probably be in big trouble but adrenaline quickly helps you to forget all those adulty senses of responsibility and safety so I suppose it was fortunate that all was well when we returned to the top to admire our probable stupidity. We had been seeking adventure after all!
We had originally stayed the night so that we could visit the caves, so when we found it closed, we decided to stay one more night. After saving Kjel from tearing the van apart after losing his phone (which had managed to slip into the skinniest gap possible and was only located by my genius use of the 'Find iphone' app), we managed to wolf down our cafe breakfast before our cave tour began without us. Our 'tour' guide was quirky but friendly enough and we enjoyed having a nose beneath the surface of the limestone. Really, it wasn't all that interesting but what was once a pit, filled in with many thousands of tonnes of rubbish had been somewhat emptied to give kids an underground pool to play in many many years prior and divers a good challenge now. One of the caves had been used to dispose of the grime created when creating whisky and had also been used by an abattoir to dump carcass remains; we wondered if it was ever used to conceal other remains as well.
We felt our time in Mount Gambier was up, pretty satisfied that we'd made the most of our stay. There were a few things were were interested in visiting on our way to Portland, which also meant us leaving South Australia for Victoria. I'd read about a place called Hell's Hole, which I mostly wanted to see because of it's name. Well I never found out if indeed it was the hole to Hell as the "road" to it lead us through what I can best describe as a forest maze. The road was less road and more Swiss cheese tarmac and the game was try to hit the smaller of the potholes. It was quite possibly the most horrendous 20 or 30 minutes of our drive in Stanley so far. Somehow Google couldn't even locate our destination- not that it would have helped much if it could as there was no signal for the most of it. Between trying to navigate using the one sign post available and picking straws on which roads to follow (which inevitably were incorrect as we were shortly warned to turn around due to imminent logging ahead), we finally managed to get ourselves back onto the main road, passing by the friendly cow pictured below. Although a local, he was unable to tell us where exactly we went wrong!
We gave up trying to look for it and decided to head straight to Portland. It was quaint and once again coastal. We found a cute holiday park hidden behind the high street and made camp. Our new neighbour was cautious but friendly, as he moved from branch to branch, munching on eucalyptus. Although slightly more urban than I thought we'd perhaps get our first glimpse, it was nice to see several koalas in the wild.
Our stay was by far the most comfortable we'd had; a laundrette, access to an oven, nearby shops and wifi. It was nice to be able to wind down to some hot pies, watch programs on Netflix and even enjoy a reasonably priced alcoholic beverage. Overnight, I was a little less comfortable as I was hit by the cold that Kjel was just about getting over so struggled to sleep with a delightfully bunged up nose. Kjel suggested we stay another day so that I could try and rest and other than a short walk to the beach, a quick play on the spinny swing thing in the kid's play area and another quick stop at the shops, it was nice to rest.
We'd had a pretty cr*p week in Adelaide and whether we could have gotten a job or found other means of financing, it had felt a real possibility that we wouldn't have been able to experience the things we did here but somehow we did and it was bloody amazing.
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