07 Coorong NP and the Limestone Coast

It was good that the motel had a microwave and toaster, so we got to finish the soya milk with coffee and had toast with jam and peanut butter for breakfast.   We even had time to run over to IGA to get a salad for lunch.

5 pelicans all lined up








Our first destination was the Coorong National
Park, a 130 km strip of lagoon ecosystem.  As soon as we turned off the main road, we spotted a few pelicans by the shore.  David couldn't give up such opportunity for photos and got one with 5 of them lined up. We then got on the unsealed Seven Miles Road right by the ocean and entered the Coorong National park. Since there were no traffic, the drive was quite pleasant.
We got really lucky when we turned into the Pelican campground (name of  campsite). There were a flock of 20-30 pelicans, many cormorants, sea gulls, and about 10 black swans feeding in the middle of the lake. You should see the pelicans, they moved together as a group, dipped their heads in the water and came up with something in their pouches.

working together to corral their prey
and the feeding frenzy can begin ... notice the pouches just left of the centre of the picture!


 Then it looked like whatever they were feeding on swam away, so the whole group changed course and flew a short distance to the new "feeding ground". Sometimes they formed a line, swam a bit and then start feeding again. The gulls, cormorants and the black swans all changed course, most of the time before the pelicans. David took a video of the feeding frenzy, it is quite interesting!  

Let's move on and do it over again ... we need 5 kg of food everyday + that for our children! 

Next we made a quick stop at Robe and got a picture of the perfect beach!

Beach at Robe


The next destination is Mt Gambier and our first stop is the Blue Lake. It is a volcano crater and they estimated that the last eruption might only be 4000 years ago - so quite recent. The lake we saw is very blue, but the signs said it becomes greyish in the winter and turned back to blue in October. An interesting fact, but they did not explain the reason behind.

I think the best for today is the Umpherston Sinkhole in Mt Gambier. Umpherston, the first owner made it into a garden and a show place. Back when the estate was built in the late 1800s, 1/3 of it was covered with water and they had pictures showing the family rowing a boat on it. Now they made it into a public garden, with many different flowers growing on top and at the bottom. There's no more water due to the drop of the water table through the years. You should see the ivy growing from the top. They were so long and thick, and they formed a very interesting curtain to cover the exposed limestone.

View from the top of the sinkhole garden at Mt Gambier - check out the object in the middle of the picture!












Panaromic view from the bottom 
and here's the Works - now you know what it looks like 
We did another 500+ km drive today and will start the Great Ocean Drive tomorrow. Oh we also crossed the state line into Victoria, and we lost another ½ hr ... so we are exactly 16 hours ahead of Toronto now.


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