Day 11 - Mt Gambier

I'll leave the story of our visit to Gradpa Mt Gamber to Kerrie and the kids. It was quite emotional for all of them. Grandpa spent a lot of time with the kids talking about a lot of things. 

Whilst in mt Gamber we went to a video presentation at the town hall about the volcanos and geology in the area.  I think you could spend a lot of time in the area looking at the different geology. 

Day 10 - Naracourte to Mt Gambier

Day 9 - Naracourte - under the Earth

Today is the big caving adventure.

Today we visited three caves at Naracourte.  A self guided exploration of the wet cave, a guided tour of the Fossil cave

, containing fossils of megafauna and a cave adventure crawling through the stick or tomato cave. 

The adventure cave was amazing. Crawling throw spaces barley large enough for your head, having to move by flexing your shoulders and pushing with your toes. The kids were great, I don't know that I could have done such a thing at that age. 

Day 8 - Rupanyup to Naracourte.

Well we are here. 

The night at the Rupanyup camp was brilliant.  There was even a hot shower for $1 for 5 min hit water.  Hard standing for the vans. 

The trip to Naracourte was fairly uneventful if very windy. The fuel consumption rose to somewhere around 14.4 l/100km. 

We're now camped at the Naracourte caves national park. 

Day 7 - Narranderra to Echuca and beyond to ...

It's raining, and muddy, and cold ( at least out side)

We can pack up in the rain without getting everything completely soaked. Well that is apart from us who are cold wet and muddy.   We're treating the guys with a purchased  breakfast. 

Time passes...

Well breakfast consisted of 3 snags 2 eggs and a tomato and chips. $9.50. Kerrie shared with Sarah. This was at a petrol station in Jerilderie. 

The trip to the border was uneventable. The trip from the boarder to Echuca was a little less so. 

I am sorry to that the population of Macropus giganteus has been reduced. 

There was a foggy drizzle and the driver glanced away at just the wrong time.  The co-driver called a warning just before the victim impacted the front drivers side wheel. The trailing wheels proceeded over the victim.  

We pulled over to assess damage as a police car who had been following us and had a front seat for the show stopped to clear the road. We checked the car and saw no damage (phew). The police pulled up to check how we were and reported the victim was killed on impact. The police were great. They had no issues and were understanding. They were concerned about any damage and our well being. Love Victorian cops. 

So on into Echuca, taking more care to not be distracted.  Sarah was a little sad, but understood how these things can happen. 

The rain continued in Echuca. There were few visitors and understandingly the wood turner was doing some housekeeping, not turning. We were a little disappointed but we took the opertunity to visit Kerries cousin Bobby. She walks in a pharmacy and we took the opertunity to do some shopping whilst visiting.  

We proceeded, taking the side roads towards Horsham.

We went through;

Logan

St Arnaud - great display in the visitors centre. Sarah loves the diararamas. 

Rupanyup -we are camped at a brilliant community supported camp here.  $10 for the night with toilets, water and power. It would have been at least $40.  Got to love this free camp gig. 

Tomorrow in to Naracoorte.  Definitely. 

Day 6 - Tominglee to ?

Just lying here thinking that I really better get up and get dressed. It is nice and warm tucked up here. 

We had a fairly quiet night apart from the trucks and the noise from the mine in the distance. 

The plan for today, subject to change of course is to have breakfast in Peak Hill and visit an old gold mine there, then go on to the Parks telescope for lunch. From there is any bodies guess. 

We will see what happens.  

After leaving the camp site we visited the open cut gold mine pit at Peak Hill. Sarah was carried off by the mozzies and almost dropped her in the pit. Once we had escaped the mozzie militia and retrieved Sarah we quickly learnt all we could about gold mining, snapped a few pics and hit the road again. 

The Parks Radio Telescope proved to be less risky but a lot more interesting than the gold mine. 

The Dish is one of the real science icons in Australia. I must have been there twenty or thirty times and it is always interesting. The kids spent ages looking through the displays and even more time deciding what souvenirs to get. Tim is currently reading every display and learning lots. 

We had a yummy beef and wine pie along with cosmic milkshakes for lunch before heading south again. 

We decided to see how far we could get to try to make up time. We managed to get to Narranderra in time for the rain and are currently camped at a sports field on the banks of the Murrumbidgee if the rain gets heavy we might have the fun of a muddy pack up in the middle of the night    Looks unlikely at the moment as the ground is fairly solid and the rain has eased. 

Tomorrow we are planning on going to Echuca so Tim can visit the woodturner. All other plans will be firm after they have happened. 

Day 5- Western Plains Zoo. Dubbo and on to Tomingly.

We spent a very enjoyable day at Western Plain Zoo. 

Most people seem to drive there cars or the electric carts around the 6 km loop road. We decided to walk. In hind site I think this was a great decision. We got a chance to wander around and see parts of the zoo that those who stuck to their cars would not see. We even got to see a bit of road rage as one of the drivers hung off his horn when held up by a couple who were riding bikes and towing a couple of kids around the road. I don't why you would pay the entry fee then proceed to charge around at top speed. 

We enjoyed talks at the rhino, meerkat and hippo displays. The meerkats were a hit, especially when they all crowded to protect a 3 week old kitten the size of a guinea pig, when the meerkat on guard raised an alarm at something flying overhead. 

The hippo "Happy" was keen to show his teeth. 

The other big hit was the Galapagos Tortoise. These things are huge. One of them decided to chase us around the outside of their enclosure and got close enough to touch.  Amazing. 

I think this was the highlight. 

We finished at the zoo, got some ice creams, decided $70 was too much for a brilliant ceramic meerkat 

And headed 50km south to a very nice little rest stop near a newly opened gold mine. I think the spot would have been quieter a month a go, but is still quieter (and cheaper) than the caravan park in Dubbo where we stayed last night. 

Tomorrow we are off to an old gold mine at Peak Hill and the Radio Telescope at Parks. Should be setting up camp somewhere around West Wylong, but as always this is subject to change. We are skipping the Age of Fishes museum at Canowindra and hope to make it there on the way home. We need to make up a day to get somewhere near our scheduled stop in Naracourte.