Port Lincoln to Ballarat
The
Last Leg
On The Road To Adelaide.... From Port Lincoln we
travelled up the Eyre Peninsula and stopped for coffee at Tumby Bay,
44 km up the road. This is another small fishing town with a couple of
beautiful hotels in the town. Then onto Cowell for lunch before heading
for Whyalla and Port Augusta. Not a lot of interest in seeing the sights
of Whyalla which is mainly an industrial centre so we kept on moving towards Pt
Augusta. 
We really had no plans as to where
we would stay when we saw a sign to Mt.
Remarkable National
Park and as we had not stayed in a national park
for some time, we decided to spend the time in the bush again. It was
there that we met up with a very friendly and hungry emu who kept us
amused. There were a number of emu's in the park none of whom
had any concern with the campers and freely wandered in between the tents and
caravans searching for snacks. Up early the next morning to partake in
one of the many walks that the Mt Remarkable National Park has to offer.
The walk we chose offered us a good look at this national park as well as great
views of Spencer Gulf and over to Whyalla.
It was then a morning drive
into Adelaide where we went and stayed at one of
our old haunts of 20 years ago - West
Beach Caravan
Park. This park is
really well maintained and here we stayed for 4 nights. A visit to
Glenelg saw some huge changes. Big apartment blocks have been built on
the beach frontage which reminded us of Port Melbourne and Ackland Street, St.Kilda. Glenelg
seems to be the "in place" to be especially at weekends and 
during school holidays.
We had to visit McLaren
Vale and one of our favourite wineries down there, Scarpantoni's. We enjoyed
tasting their reds, so much so we could not resist purchasing a dozen which
will will certainly enjoy when we get home. There are plenty of wineries
to visit in this region but we kept our selection to a few of the lesser known
wineries. We enjoyed lunch in McLaren Vale which has changed very little
since we were there many years ago. Seems to be in a bit of a time
warp.
An arrival in a capital
city always sees you visit the city self, so we caught the bus and wandered
around along with big crowds due to school holidays. After travelling
around for 5 months and mainly visiting much smaller towns, or being in quite
remote areas, it takes a bit of adjustment to adapt again to the hustle and
bustle of crowds of big cities.
Moving Eastward..... From
Adelaide
we continued our journey eastward with our next stop being Hahndorf, about 30
km from Adelaide
in the Adelaide Hills. Hahndorf was settled by Lutherans in
1839. Having emigrated from Eastern Prussia
to escape religious persecution by the King, they arrived in South Australian
on December, 1838 on the "Zebra". Captain Hahn out of
concern and admiration for his passengers helped them search for a site
suitable to establish the village which was subsequently named
Hahndorf. As a result of its heritage has a strong
German flavour. There are many restaurants, gift shops and food shops selling
German foods, beer and wine. This is really a lovely region in the
Adelaide Hills and would be a great place to spend a weekend if you were an Adelaide local. As
it was a long weekend in Adelaide
decided to move on from Hahndorf before the crowds moved in.
Almost
Home....
A few hours of travel saw us arriving at a roadside stop just east of
Bordertown and right on the border of Victoria and South Australia for our
second last night before arriving home. With only one more sleep before we
arrived home, we decided to visit the Halls Gap in the Grampians. We pulled
into the caravan park and were greeted by someone asking if we would like a coffee.
On checking, it turned out to be Lynton from Bendix Mintex who was with his
family, along with Alan and his family and Bob and Cheryl - all from Bendix
Mintex in Ballarat. We ended up spending an enjoyable night with
them with Lynton entertaining us singing and playing his guitar. What a
small world. Sunday saw us pack up and head towards Ballarat. It
was wet, windy, overcast and the temperature was not much over 13 degrees,
probably the coldest and most wintery day we had experienced on our entire
trip, but it was nice to arrive home. We have travelled 22,000 kms,
visited every State in Australia
in the year 2000, experienced so many wonderful highlights and had arrived home
safely. It will definitely take some time to settle down and reflect back
on our 5 months travelling this fantastic country of ours.
The highlight of this section:
Another easy
decision. Our trip down to McLaren Vale visiting the
wineries. This really is a lovely area with some great
wineries, our favourite being Scarpantoni's. It is
interesting that although there has been an increase in the number of wineries
in this area it has not been overdeveloped with tacky tourist attractions which
means it still has an old style charm.
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