Road Trip part 2

Adelaide is small and made of grids. It didn't make much of an impression on me. St H and I met up with a guy called DS, who is an Englishman who is working for an engineering firm in the city. St H and DS's brother are good friends in the UK. DS took us to an Asian food hall and to the beach and also to a pub where I ate some kangaroo, in that order.

We all played golf (course no. 2) at Bel Air GC up in the hills that surround Adelaide. Pretty average course, very average score (80 on a par 70, despite an excellent eagle on 15th). Strangely enough I took only two photos of Adelaide and they were both of the same thing. So here is a dreary picture of Adelaide from Bel Air road:

Nice gum trees

We ducked out of Suzie's backpackers on Monday morning to begin our trip back through SA towards Melbourne. We wouldn't go back the same way we came of course. No, this time we would driving a lot closer to the coast and would eventually meet up with the famous Great Ocean Road in Victoria.

This map shows the drive we did on the first day: Adelaide to Mount Gambier.

South East South Australia. Adelaide to Mount Gambia via Salt Creek.

The first part of our trip saw us passing the beautiful Coorong National Park. With hindsight, I would have liked to explore it a bit more or even stayed there but St H seemed quite eager to get to the more famous Victorian leg of the trip. Maybe one day I'll go back. The Our first stop was at Salt Creek where I took this photo:

I think the sea was on the other side of that little hill in the distance

Coorong is a long lake separated from the sea by a really narrow stretch of land. The lake leaves these white areas, a bit like everyone knows from the salt lakes in the US. We had breakfast at Salt Creek. The guy who served me a pie had been to Zimbabwe and remembered Matopos and Vic Falls.

Our next stop was a place called Kingston SE which happened to have a rather embarrassing landmark:

Eh?

We didn't hang around much longer in Kingston SE, despite their magnificent lobster (it was for sale, incidentally).

Australia has many giant things apparently (although the lobster is the first I've seen). It's in their "culture" apparently to make big things. They have prawns and Captain Cooks and crocodiles and pies and pineapples that are all overgrown replicas of their actualities. I don't think I'm quite ready to make a cultural evaluation of these parts, but I believe that this habit of making monstrosities would factor into it if I was. What I know so far is that this country is most certainly a European (if not English) outpost supplanted on an alien country. Everyone knows that, I suppose. There are definitely peculiarities though, which would be worth pinning down, but I'm incapable of doing them justice. Maybe soon, eh?

I think we sped past Robe and onto Millicent. Millicent will live on in my memory despite its paltry population. Less than 1,500 apparently. It has a phenomenal golf course. The best course we played on, arguably. Beautiful surrounds, lightning greens and a wicked layout. It was mentioned in some SA pamphlet as being in the top 100 Oz rural golf courses and I doubt that is in any way exaggerated. Marvellous. And difficult. I don't think I counted my score. There is an airfield near by so when I am in less pressing financial times maybe I'll fly down for a game.

Millicent, Magnificent

Mount Gambier was our eventual goal that day - we didn't expect to end up in a gaol. But we did. A hostel in MG had been converted from a gaol a few years back and the owners had had the sense to leave it exactly as it was. Or perhaps that was one of requirements of the sellers?*

Razor wire and iron doors remain at this hostel...

Novelty.

The 'warden' was most amiable though. He had a most relaxed demeanour about him. He told us that the llamas were quite grouchy, though.

More aliens in Australia

St H and I went out in MG to find ten pin bowling that we had had heard advertised on radio. It was after nine and the place was like a ghost town. Everything was closed except the pub (hotel) and so we had a couple of beers and listened to a couple of the locals talk about the ferocity of the Victoria bush fires.

In the morning we left the town and we forgot to have a look at the town's volcanic lake, which I quite regret.

* I met a guy in the morning at the jailhouse / hostel who was actually being held there by the South Australian State while they found "approved housing". He had just come out of real jail. He told me that he was likely to be in the hostel / jailhouse for at least four months. He also told me that he was reformed.