As I write these posts, I have been referring back to notes I have written, as well as diary notes the kids wrote. I love this one of Belle's regarding this leg of the journey,
"Getting used to drives. Doesn't matter how long they are, as long as we get out sometimes. Ipod passes lots of time. So does thinking. 3 hours pass so quickly."
We were in Naracoorte to see the caves and World Heritage Fossil Site.
The limestone caves are beautiful, as limestone caves tend to be,
but the Victoria Fossil Cave tour comes with bonus bones,
some of which have been jigsawed together to remake skeletons of mega-fauna that once roamed our fine land – some 300,000 years ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, Thylacoleo Carnifex, otherwise known as the marsupial lion, and someone you would not want sleeping on the end of your bed keeping your feet warm…
Naracoorte is special – around 120 vertebrate species, spanning tens of thousands of years, have been discovered there. It's a record of history that not only tells us stories about flora and fauna, but explains the nature of climate change.
Fascinating (if not overwhelming in the we-are-so-tiny kind of way) stuff.
Mum's next hot tip was what she called the blue pools in Mt Gambier. The only blue pools I'd seen are in Angourie on NSW's north coast, but it seems Mt Gambier is pretty famous for this.
The Blue Lake supplies the city with drinking water.
There are vantage points the whole way around the crater, and yes it is a crater. The area is part of Kanawinka Global Geopark, Australia's most extensive volcanic region – the Kanawinka fault line runs from the caves at Naracoorte to the Bass Strait – it makes for some spectacular geological scenery.
The colour changes seasonally, ranging from a greenish to a cobalt blue and this is indirectly caused by algae.
Mum also told me about some hanging gardens she had seen on her road-trip-before-my-time. I looked in the information guides and came up with the Umpherston Sinkhole.
I love that name – 'Umpherston'.
Lucky I hadn't heard it before I had kids!
This sinkhole formed when the roof of the cave that it was, dropped.
In 1884, James Umpherston seized the opportunity to create a beautiful garden in the hole, what my Mother has called the hanging garden.
Always open, and always free, a delightful picnic spot in the day, or watch the possums run around under floodlight in the evening.
On the road beyond Mt Gambier, with the ocean again in our sights, I spotted a turn-off for Piccaninnie Ponds.
'Piccaninnie' is a word I hadn't heard since childhood. I'm no longer sure of it's political correctness, but it's another word that I love. My knowledge of it, as a child stems from a song (which I had to look up because I could only remember 'piccaniny') called Carra Barra Wirra Canna.
According to the song, Carra Barra Wirra Canna is a lake in South Australia, though I can't find it anywhere, and the stories "from the piccaninnies came".
After googling images of it, I wish we had gone to Piccaninnie Ponds, though I would have wanted my wetsuit and snorkel. Check it out – it's awesome!
Our journey underneath…
(Diagram with thanks from thelivingmoon.com)
We crossed over into Victoria,
and I had another new experience,
that of paying over $100 to fill my petrol tank. They say there's a first for everything, but yuck.
Ahead lay the Great Ocean Road
and we were overnighting in Port Fairy – another name I love!
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