Port Rickaby

From the foot of the Yorke we headed up the west coast and stumbled upon the tiny town of Port Rickaby. This beautiful place had a jetty for fishing, a lovely beach and a caravan park right beside both of these, so we stayed for the next 6 nights. It was the Anzac long weekend so a good time to be off the road. Ashleigh and Hannah immediately made friends with the 2 daughters of the van park managers and had a ball playing and swimming with them. On Anzac Sunday we all went into Minlaton (town 15 mins away) and went to the Uniting Church service. It was great to meet some of the locals and talk about farming (mainly barley and sheep) and of course fishing!

Innes National Park

After the excitement of Stansbury we chilled out for a couple of days at the Innes National Park at the foot of the Yorke Peninsula. Simon and Ashleigh fished from a jetty at Stenhouse Bay and pulled in a feast of calamari and Snook for dinner on our first night. The water was a beautiful turquoise colour and the temperature was about 27 degrees. We explored the coastline and went for a swim at Dolphin Beach on Sam's birthday. It was the first time we camped in a park with wild emus.

Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula

After a night in the Mallala Sports Ground we could have stayed the following day to watch our first live AFL game but we were dying to get to the coast. On Saturday April 17 we checked into the caravan park at Stansbury on the East Coast of the Yorke Peninsula. It is a tiny seaside holiday village with a great jetty for fishing, a nice beach and without realising it we had arrived for the biggest Sunday on the Stansbury calendar! The following day we wandered through the Stansbury Markets full of stalls selling local produce, home made preserves, 2nd hand bric-a-brac and lots of deep fried food and watched parades of restored Chryslers, classic caravans and hot rods. There was also the wooden and classic boat display, the restored stationary engines display and South Australia's tall ship, the "One and All", sailed in to the jetty. What a mixed crowd there was! The van park was packed with members of these various groups and we also met a women's fishing club who were in competition for the week. Then on Monday morning the place was deserted!

The Beautiful Barossa

We stayed 2 nights in the Belair National Park just out of Adelaide and caught the train into the city for a look around. It was a nice day but the girls prefer beaches, parks and animals to churches, fountains and busy streets, so they were not too impressed. The lunch at Chinatown was probably the highlight of their day......and the train ride. Our next stop was the Barossa Valley where we visited 2 wineries (Kleimeister and Penfolds) and the delicious Maggie Beer Farm Shop. We camped overnight at Riverton and were ready to continue north when Simon discovered that we needed to replace a radiator hose that had sprung a leak. Thankfully there was a supplier nearby in Tanunda so we had to stay another couple of days in the Barossa Valley (poor us) and wait for the part to arrive from Sydney. We camped one night at the Eden Valley showground and visited Henschke Cellars. The weather was beautiful and there were many lovely parks and playgrounds to keep Hannah and Ashleigh busy. Daisy also got a very overdue wash.

Prost!

Hahndorf is in the Adelaide Hills and is apparently the oldest surviving German settlement in Australia. We had a great day walking through this pretty town and feasting on a delicious German lunch.

Exploring the Fleurieu Peninsula

The Deep Creek Conservation Park was full of Stringybark gum trees and lots of kangaroos. It rained for the 2 days we were there but that didn't stop us from doing some bush walks and looking out for the Southern emu wren - which we spotted!!! As we drove along our washing was churning away in the esky but unfortunately it wasn't going to get dry at Deep Creek. Our next stop was Rapid Bay where the mountains from the Lofty Ranges plunge into the sea and the weather allowed the clothes to dry. It was wonderful to unexpectedly run into a family that we met earlier at Wright's Bay and have a good catch-up about where we had all been. Simon and Graham went fishing for squid in the evening but no luck.

The mighty Murray meets the ocean

On April 6 we departed our Easter camp at Wright's Bay as the rain began to fall. After a lunch stop at Miningie we crossed the Murray River on a little punt and arrived at the town of Goolwa in the late afternoon. Over the next 2 days we rode our bikes beside the Murray, walked across one of the barrages that keeps the salt water from flowing up-river, checked out the mouth of the Murray that is dredged 24hrs a day so it doesn't close up and had a beer at the Steam Exchange Brewery.

A Bigger Lobster

This big crayfish in Kensington, South Australia, is much more impressive than the one in Stanley, Tasmania. The sad thing is that these creatures have nearly been fished to extinction around this area, to supply overseas markets. Thankfully we heard that the area from the Coorong all the way to the Victorian border will soon be classified as marine park.

Wright's Bay

We left The Mount on March 31st and cruised west along the coast searching for a good place to stay. It was Victorian school holidays, and the South Australian holidays and Easter long weekend were about to commence, so we were keen to avoid the peak season campground prices. We had bought a national parks pass in Mt Gambier so we checked out the Canunda National Park and stayed one night in a very basic camp at Geltwood Beach. The following day we received an SMS from our Coffs Harbour buddies and decided to join them further up the coast at Wright's Bay, just along from the beautiful town of Robe. The camp area was basically a paddock by the beach that was owned by 94 year old Tom who lived nearby and drove down daily to chat to everyone. For $5 per night we stayed here 5 nights over Easter and had a brilliant time. We also made friends with a family from Melbourne with a 7 year old girl (who Ashleigh adored) and a 3 year old son, who were also doing a big trip. One day we did one of Ashleigh's school art lessons with a couple of other children who were also doing distance education, along with the younger siblings. A major highlight at Wright's Bay was the "shearing" of Simon's golden locks with our new $10 hair clippers!

Mt Gambier - hello South Australia!

Mount Gambier sits on the slopes of an extinct volcano with a stunning sapphire-blue lake in the crater. It is beautiful and we really enjoyed stopping here for a few days. After wallowing in the mud at the caves we also craved some showers and managed to do 4 loads of washing. The weather was dodgy but we ended up staying 4 days as we had to wait for a new radiator cap to be sent from Sydney as the existing one was failing. It wasn't such a bad place to be stranded. And on March 30th in Lausanne, Switzerland, baby Jonah Noe Lees was born in the spa! Congratulations Steph and Sean - we are very pleased for you both!

Jewfish for dinner!

Just next the South Australian border and about 15 minutes north of the coast we stayed in the Lower Glenelg National Park at a place called Princess Margaret Rose Caves. It is the beginning of the Limestone Coast so there are heaps of caves around this area. It was a really lovely place with lots of bush but the weather was wet and cool and before long everything was coated in deep red mud. While Hannah and I painted each others nails with wet gum leaves and pretended we were going to the ball, Ashleigh and Simon went fishing and Ash hooked up a 60cm Mulloway out of the Glenelg River. She was so excited and we all enjoyed it for dinner. At this camp spot the girls loved playing with their new friends Liamm and Connor from Coffs Harbour.

The Great Ocean Road

We spent 6 days travelling and camping along the Great Ocean Road and loved it. The highlight was absolutely the 12 Apostles (or however many there are now..) but the beauty of the rugged coastline, steep cliffs and roaring ocean kept us in awe. We met lots of interesting people along the way including a couple from the Sunshine Coast who were travelling with their dog in a Morris Minor towing a camper trailer, and a family from Port Macquarie who were also cruising around the country with their 2 children and an enormous caravan. In Warnambool Ashleigh (and daddy) constructed a wind chime out of shells as part of Ash's science work and it now swings about and dangles above our dining table.

Geelong and Torquay

From Rosebud we could see across Port Phillip Bay to Geelong and it would have been an easy 20 minute ferry ride from Portsea but unfortunately we had to go via Melbourne to pick up Ashleigh's school work from the Toll depot. Emily English (on the GPS) tried to get us there directly but we let her down a bit. With our new school pack finally on board, we made it into Geelong after lunch sometime, booked into the caravan park and went for a surf at Torquay. The sun was shining, the waves were perfect, and Ashleigh had a great time standing up on her surfboard. The following day the van went in for an oil change and we hung out at Eastern Beach in Geelong and enjoyed looking at all the bollards that have been decorated as various characters all along the waterfront. Leaving Geelong we checked out the waves at Bell's Beach.

Rosebud

On March 13 we found our way to Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula. For 3 days we camped along the foreshore and had a wonderful time swimming at the beach and cycling along the bike tracks that ran for kilometres north and south. The weather was sunny and 28 degrees (finally!!!) and we met a lovely family who lived in Rosebud but were camping in their caravan by the beach, enjoying the holiday lifestyle. Ashleigh and 6 year old Bianca became very good friends. Check out the cute bathing shacks along the beachfront - we saw one advertised for $40,000.