Caravan Trip Week 4



Our first morning in Swan Hill was another catch up time of all those house keeping chores and a  nice walk along the river.  We visited the tourist info center and the giant Murray Cod... 

 With not much else to do in Swan Hill we went for a drive out to Lake Boga.  Lake Boga was once a site of a top secret air base which housed more than 1000 personnel who serviced and repaired the flying boats during World War 11. Planes like Catalinas were regularly seen coming in to land on the circular lake, only to leave soon after on secret allied missions. We visited the Flying Boat Museum which was very interesting... 

 After we had been to Lake Boga it started to rain mid afternoon and didn't stop until the next day so we got to spend some quality time in the caravan!   Next morning was lovely and we had one more walk along the river before we packed up and left...

 

We headed back towards Robinvale and then turned West into outback "Mallee" area of Victoria. It also meant we were heading in the homeward direction. We stopped at a little town called Ouyen which is famous for the annual Vanilla Slice bakeoff and the competition attract bakeries from all over Australia.. So we had to buy and try from the famous "Mallee Bakery"...







Ouyen mural

 

We continued on through lots of little country towns admiring their pubs, shops and different artwork...



Like this beautiful mosaic on the public toilets in Murrayville...

We crossed the border from VIC and back into South Australia. We didn't really have a plan of where to stay the night but ended up in Pinnaroo.  This really was an outback little town with a pretty dumpy caravan park but it did the job for one night!...

 

The van next to us thought it would be just fine to start packing up with no consideration whatsoever for fellow patrons at 5am. They were extremely noisy and left their car running with headlights on for ages. All part of the experience I guess!... 



After Pinnaroo we went to Murray Bridge (deriving its name from the road and railway crossings over the River Murray). The 2 bridges are quite spectacular together and we were fortunate enough to see a huge train going over the railway bridge...

The tourist info center had the biggest wisteria I had ever seen covering a large tunnel into the building...

 After a walk around the town I decided we couldn't leave without walking out onto the bridge...

 

Murray Bridge selfie

We continued on and set up camp in a beautiful little town called Mount Barker (not to be confused with Mount Barker we used to live in here in Western Australia). The caravan park had the bonus of being right next to a sports oval and some great pathways to walk the dogs. We put the dogs into a day care facility again for a day and went to the little German inspired town called Hahndorf. We spent the morning exploring all the quaint little building and shops and markets...

Before feasting on a very huge German lunch...

 

 

On the way back we called into Beerenberg Farm and sampled and bought some of their jams and pickles...

 

One thing we discovered about South Australia is that it is very windy! We decided to take a trip into Adelaide and went up Mount Lofty first on the way. It was blowing a gale and all we got was a fantastic view over Adelaide of a dust storm...



Somehow we ended up driving right through the center of Adelaide and onto Glenelg on the coast. The wind storm had died down a bit by now and we had a walk on the beach, lunch in a park and soaked up the busy atmosphere after being out in the country for the past month...

We then drove a bit further around the coast to Brighton. There were so many people out and about and it took us ages to find a parking spot.

We went for a walk out on the Brighton Pier and then enjoyed a yummy icecream...

 

We headed back to Mount Barker through the McClaren Vale wine area winding through wineries and towns. We stopped at a few wineries and also looked in some cemetery's for Dad's Great Grandfather's grave without success...  



 

One afternoon we went for a drive up to Mount Barker summit. It was quite a steep drive with beautiful views over the lovely green country side... 



Perched up high overlooking Mount Barker

 Mount barker is a very pretty town and each day we loved travelling down this street with all the lush green trees...

We bought these absolutely delicious passionfruit shortbread from the CWA ladies at the Hahndorf markets. We had to wait until Dad had gone back to his van each night before we had one each with our cuppa. We only had 6 and there was no way we were sharing them!!...

We kept extending our stay in Mount Barker as it was quite central to a few places we wanted to visit so we decided to do day trips rather than move the van all the time. We drove down the Fleurieu Peninsula through Strathalbyn first...

And onto Goolwa. We drove over the Hindmarsh Island Bridge to Hindmarsh Island where the Murray River meets the Southern Ocean...

 

 Dad went for a ride on the Cockle steam train from Goolwa to Victor Harbour. Peter and I drove there through Port Elliot...

 It was a terrible day weather wise in Victor Harbour but in between showers Peter and I walked over to Granite Island...

 Normally they have a horse and cart taking people across on the bridge but it was too windy and wet on this day which was a shame as it was school holidays...

View from Granite Island to Victor Harbour

 

It was a pretty drive on a different route back to Mount Barker...