Surprise after surprise, after the worst 30 kilometres I’ve done yesterday. My day turned out to be a lucky one. In fact, I was ready to find my spot for the night and went out of the McDonald’s where I met Anthony. He asked me where I was going to sleep that night and proposed me straight away if I was interested to stay in house with a fire wood. How can I refused an offer like this? :-) Anthony house sit his daughter’s place for the night and it’s 3 minutes away from where we met. I’ve followed him driving slowly to his place and we spent the evening talking about Australia’s famous places.
Today, Anthony proposed to guide me around Mount Gambier and treat me as he said “like exchange students we had”. I’m completely fine with that :-) We started early and visited until 11am to go to the library. Then around 4pm, we came back to his daughter’s place to collect our stuff and I was on my saddle again! What a nice day!
Map.
It’s now 7:30am and we are in Marist Park where there is the famous “Blue lake”. This on is “Valley lake”.
We go for a short walk to start the day but the lookout is already occupied ;-)
Hou, no, no, no, I don’t want rain anymore. go away!
A panoramic view of the Valley lake. Those lakes are actually craters of Volcanoes which erupted something like 8000 years ago (I’m not sure). So they are quite young but completely asleep today. Anthony told me that sometimes, when the newspaper has nothing special to say, they put on the first page that the Volcano might enter in eruption soon, soon in the next 5000 years. It’s more a joke than anything but they make more money as people buy the newspaper to find out when, haha.
On the edge of one of the craters, there is a look out. Maybe we will be there later.
The view might be stuning from there!
And we continue walking… Stop! A kangaroo? a Wallaby?
That’s a Kangaroo and he/she is quite confident. I’m only few metres away. It’s certainly because of the number of tourist who come here.
Ah ok, here is the whole family having their breakfast together :-)
And we continue walking… Stop! What’s that? A Koala! I never seen any since I’m in Australia and Anthony just said that they are really hard to find when bam!, a Koala just “front” of us.
It’s just a ball of fur in a gum tree. It doesn’t move at all but it’s a real one! That’s nice :-)
This is another panoramic view of the “Valley lake”.
We are going to go the lookout :-)
Very steep track but the view is going to be wow!
Wow! ;-) In fact, the whole area is flat and there is few hills which pop up on the background sometimes. So, as said Anthony: “Because it’s so flat everywhere, when the explorers discovered these hills, they called them Mountains”. haha.
I’m on the summit :-)
We are!
We came back in the car for a minute and now we are going to see the “Blue lake”!
Few! Each November, this lake turns from a dull grey to Royal blue in few days. But because of the chemicals the factories use in the region, that blue color is not as bright as before… Polluters! Of course this is not an official statement so they did not change anything about that yet. This lake contains 36000 litres of water and the region uses 3600 litres per year! But the rain fill up the lake each time of course. During the last 10 years, the level of the water went down 2 metres. So, one day, maybe, this lake will be empty which is sad because it’s beautiful!
A panoramic view of the “Blue lake”.
We came back in the car to visit another place which is called Umpherson Sinkhole. There is s lot of limestone in the region and the water is capable of big things like everytime. This hole has been create by the water over thousands of years. It started with a simple infiltration in the ground which grew bigger and bigger and finally created a kind a underground cave. Then one day (or one night) the ground fell of and left the cave under an open sky creating a big hole. A guy called Umpherston bought this piece of “land” in 1880 and created a garden where people (maybe just his family and friends) could go down and enjoy the freshness in summer.
This sculpture is made with limestone :-)
This is the entrance.
Ah yeah, that’s a big hole.
Bad shot…
Wonderful sky finally!
Like almost every plant in this garden, this one has been imported from europe. Anthony told me that this plant absorb very well the toxins (co2).
Possum!
It’s really hard to get a nice shot of this place because the contrast is too strong! Maybe it’s me ;-)
And we walk out of this nice place :-)
The next place is a museum where Anthony has never been. Both of us are discovering the place.
The museum retrace the history from million years ago until now showing how this limestone was formed or how the Aboriginals lived. Of course there is the story of the Europeans invasion.
Some informations about the “Blue lake”.
And the sinkholes.
The text is underneath this picture :-)
Explications!
And this is the end of the visit.
Hard to get a general shot of this place…
We are now next to the library were there is another sinkhole I guess. It’s now raining again and quite cold so it’s just the write time to stay in a warm place like the library.
We had a very nice breakfast at the library (Pumpkin soup + Muffin + Hot Chocolate) and then we made some research on how to get to Adelaide by bicycle avoiding the main highway. Anthony gave me many tips which I hope I will remember. He show me many pictures of his own trip when he went to Kings Canyon. We’ve checked the prices of the bus and the train in case I would have to be faster and use public transports between Alice Springs and Katherine Georges. It would gave me 10 extras days to visit more places or simply take my time. I will decide along the way. Anthony told me different stories about the exchange students he had and what he had learnt about them.
Finally 4 hours were gone already and we went to the last place: Woolworth (the supermarket). We bought our stuff for the next few days (for me chocolate!) and had a late lunch from a Japanese place.
Finally, we came back to his daughter’s place and collected our stuff. Anthony, thank you VERY much for today. It has been far away from my expectations. I would not discover all those places and listen to your interesting stories if it had been sunny yesterday. Like I discover since I’m travelling: “Always something happend”.
So, it’s now 4pm and I’m very motivated. We talked so much about travels and I’ve seen many of Anthony’s pictures that now I want to cycle! That’s not new I know and I want to do it even more :-) So, let’s go! On the background, there is the tower lookout where we were this morning :-)
I’ve got a tailwind and I’m riding between 20 and 30 km/h! Like a bullet!
I’ve stopped along the way because I wanted to call Robin before my mobile coverage disappeared when a car stopped where I was. It was Anthony again! haha. Maybe he thought I had some problem. Then he gave me one more tip: in Tantaloona, there is a free campsite with toilets next the the old railway station. This is about 20 kilometers away. Continuing at the speed I am travelling now, I should be there just on time so let’s go!
Maybe 45 minutes later, I found the exact place Anthony was talking about. I’ve done 33 kilometres today and had a great day, one I could not imagine :-) Thanks again Anthony!
Que de rencontres formidables Damien ! Ça doit effacer tous les moments de blues … s’il y en a !
The blue lake and the sink hole garden is very interesting.
You are very lucky to see the Koala!