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Trippin' down the Limestone Coast
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Chasing the sun was the main order of the day. Little did we realize it was unlikely to be running away from us down the coast! Duh! Thus we drove into a few storm spots driving down the Limestone Coast, along the coast to Goolwa, and then inland to Wellington, where we had to board a little car ferry, like across the Daintree. Between this places we passed these amazing and otherworldly pink lakes - they'd been crystalised to form this amazing colour, you could see crystals clinging to the rim of the lakes. It was actually one of the weirdest, and most unexpected things we came across, I loved it.
From there we were headed down the coast, driving past The Coorong - lagoons enclosed by miles of sanddunes out towards the sea - breeding grounds for vast numbers of birds. We only saw The Coorong from the road, and there were several spectactular points where we turned corners, and saw the most beautiful scenic views - giant sand mounds reminiscent of Fraser Island. The murky weather didn't really do it justice though, I felt, but still, it couldn't be helped.
The next place was Kingston SE, an awful excuse for a town, its only saving grace being the Big Lobster, which really didn't do much to redeem it!
I resumed driving, inland to Naracoorte, home of the much raved about limestone caves. It was still glooming and showering when we arrived, so we dashed inside to the information centre, emerging with tickets for the Bat Cave and Blanche Cave combined tour. With an hour to kill before it kicked off, we went to explore the Wet Cave on a self-guided expedition. It was a small cave, with 6-10m of ground water below it. This cave just appeared in the middle of the street, it was amazing, and so weird to think of them below our feet as we were walking along.
  
The rest of the time waiting for the tour was spent by visiting the fossil centre, which housed some incredible preserved fossils from the caves, such as extinct species like bandicoots, types of Tassie Devil, types of kangeroos, and a Tasmanian tiger, not to mention a lion type creature that killed its prey with a thumb claw - the skeleton of that was awesome to see - completely incomparable to modern day skeletons. It was interesting to see the intracacies of the bones, despite their size - there were vertebrae from large and small birds, side by side. There was also a mock up environment of where these animals would have lived, and mechanical representations of them, making noises and moving. Also, you could crawl through a small dark tunnel, to simulate caving... it was quite child-focused though, this section.
The umbrellas were out for the walk over to the Bat Cave, where we watched a slideshow first, showing loads of different types of bats, their different sizes, and baby bats with no fur, huddling together for warmth. Then we took a look at these special infra-red cameras down in the bat caves. Apparently it was completely pitch black down there, yet these cameras, when correctly focused, allowed us to see them in such detail. We zoomed in on single bats upside down, hanging and grooming themselves, and we could see their scrunched up little faces. Then we zoomed in on a whole cluster, and coincedentally, as we did so, they all started to flutter away, giving aweome visual effects.
Back outside it was magically sunny again for the short walk to Blanche Cave, a cave featuring many chambers, with the first one occasionally being used as a wedding venue. Our guide told us how she used to play here as a kid... it looked like it would have made a killer playground, I was rather jealous. The chambers continued downstairs, featuring stalegtites that looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (to me), and allsorts. We were also shown an excavation site, which apparently is being scoured and tested for having the oldest DNA in the world - even older than the Siberian desert... madness, all these hidden secrets of Australia!
  
We were treated to a little light show, illuminating all corners of the caves seperately, showing off the idiosyncracies of each particular region. It was 17 degrees down there however, which didn't sit well with our board shorts! Thus we made a hurried escape back to the van and onto Mount Gambier for the night, camping up beside another playground - the biggest one yet!
*501 km driven*...7000+ k's and still counting!
The pitter-patter of rain tormented us again during the night, with the miserable weather continuing in bouts all through the day, although alleviating at convenient moments - ie, whenever we got out for a walk.
Thus it was a lethargic start to the day, when we motored our way up to the Craters and Lakes section of Mount Gambier and began on the scenic drive around the lake. We stopped at the lookout and braved the wind for a few pictures - it wasn't cobalt blue, as promised in the summertime, but it certainly wasn't an unattractive grey either. As you looked around the rim, you could see about 15m of white limestone, and a black basalt layer, deposited in the aftermath of the volcano. The ridge ran an awesome crater shape aswell, which was mighty impressive, right next to the city.
 
To the right were 2 other craters; Valley Lake in the distance, and the Leg of Mutton Lake Crater, from which the water had long since evaporated, and boasted a crater full of indigenous wildlife and flora. It was way too cold to investigate however, and we instead undertook a brief excursion up to more lookage points and a water storage tower, up the hill.
Well that was it for SA! Into our final state... Vic, here we come.
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