South Coast, Meningie to Portland
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
136
209
Trip End
Jun 17, 2008
Portland, Australia
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Driving through this area I see just town after town that is incredibly quaint and has a wonderful feel--towns like Meningie, Beachport, Mt. Gambier, Bridgewater Bay and Portland to name a few. Had lunch in Beachport and wanted to stay forever. Explored the incredibly beautiful turquoise volcanic lake called Blue Lake in Mt. Gambier. Spent the evening wandering around Portland, hanging out in art sculptures and watching the sunlight turn the port from bright to pink to dark
Larry the Giant Lobster in Kingston
.During the day I looked out at all the cattle and couldn't help but think how happy they must be to live here. Just beautiful pasture after beautiful pasture with perfect looking cottages or manses nearby all overlooking turquoise ocean waters. We also passed by miles and miles of timber farming.
It's also cold! Ahhh! After melting in the north and around Ayers Rock I can't believe that I have to put on shoes and pants! I wore shoes today (with wool socks!) for the first time in FIVE weeks.
Now that I'm down here I see what people mean when they describe Australia, at least I can see what they mean based on the little that I've seen. Darwin and the north really feel and look like the Australia in the summertime that I imagined: largely empty, hot, lots of different looking fauna and geography like red dirt and cliffs and mangroves and billabongs and strange grass trees or succulents with visible roots, kangaroos crossing the road, Ayers rock, the Outback, vast flatland of nothing but bushes or scrub trees.
I had no recollection or was just ignorant to the fact that Queensland is tropical and so parts look a lot like Florida though most of it is more like tropical areas of Central America than Florida. Whereas Victoria and a lot of New South Wales do resemble California quite a bit.
