New Year road trip day 1: Wilsons Prom

We're back from our road trip, back at work and back to reality, but we had such a wonderful time I still feel happy when I think about it. (I've also had a very quiet week at work so the drudgery of real life hasn't erased my post-holiday contentedness...yet.)

We left home early on Sunday morning with light rain falling, but by the time we arrived at our first destination - Wilsons Promontory ("the Prom") - the sun was shining. 

We visited Squeaky Beach (named for the sand, which squeaks when you walk on it...if you stab your feet into it to create friction).

The big, lichen-covered boulders at the far end of the beach, with a 

small steam in the foreground winding its way to the ocean

With added Luke, for scale

 Tidal River. The nearby info centre, camp ground and a few 

shops are the epicentre of Wilsons Prom National Park

After lunch, we walked to the summit of Mount Oberon. It was a sweaty, tiring walk for me (note to self: go to gym more this year), but the view from the peak and the refreshing cool wind made my huffing and puffing and aching calves worthwhile. 

 Norman Bay and Tidal River mid-shot; 

Leonard Bay and Squeaky Beach beside that 

The rocky peak of Mt Oberon

We encountered a friendly local on the side of the path as we walked back down. Luke sauntered past it unawares, but I spotted it with my beady eye. 

We think it's an Eastern Tiger Snake, which is one of the most deadly snakes in Australia - in the world in fact. It's also fast moving, aggressive and bad tempered according to my google research, but this one was docile. It sat there calmly looking back at us and a small gathering of other people as we took photos of it. 

Sssssmile!

It eventually slithered down the edge of the path and into the undergrowth - as shown in this video I took and didn't edit because I'm lazy and not techno-savvy. Call me odd, but I find it super exciting seeing snakes in their natural habitat, as long as I'm a safe distance from them of course. This isn't my first tiger snake encounter, nor the deadliest snake I've got close to in the wild.

Next up was Whisky Bay, another gorgeous beach book-ended by huge boulders, including this one, which I have named Big Toe Rock (if it wasn't already called that).

Rocky reflections

The other end of the beach

Footprints in the sand

Probably this guy's. Check out that beak and eye!

It was late in the afternoon by now and we hit the road for Foster, a small town inland where we had a cabin booked for the night. We passed a lot of paddocks with rolls of hay. 

We had dinner at one of the local pubs In Foster where I had the first of many scotch fillet steaks with chips and salad for the trip, and Luke had icecream with chocolate topping and sprinkles for dessert. 

We were in bed before 9.30, tired and happy. 

Road trip: Day 4 - The Coorong and lakes

It's taking me longer to write about our recent holiday than it took us to make the actual trip in the first place. I've been slack and it's also been too hot for me to want to go near my laptop.

On day four we continued exploring The Coorong and surrounds. We expected to see plenty of water birds because The Coorong is renowned for them, but we weren't really expecting to see emus.  We saw a pair walking across a salt pan a long way off in the distance as we drove by. "What's that?" "Emus!" Not that we hadn't seen emus before, but I don't think I've seen them in the wild.

We saw their footprints on the beach where we stopped soon after seeing them, although I hesitate to use the word 'beach'...

Ew. Sticky, stinky mud. It's rapidly becoming a rule that we can't go on holidays without me falling in something (e.g. a creek in Tasmania) or stepping in something (e.g. dog poo in Paris, within hours of landing).  Luke laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed too, just not as much as he did.

Fortunately my foot slipped out of my sandal mostly mud-free and I was able to wash the sandal in the handbasin of a nearby toilet block before sitting it on the dash of the car to dry in the sun.

When we returned to the car I was startled by a snake sheltering under our car. Well, I thought it was a snake at first, but quickly realised it was only a lizard. A fat, stumpy-tail.

Luke had to move the car because Stumpy didn't seem to have plans to go anywhere. Luke came back over to have a closer look at the lizard and it crawled into his shadow. It wasn't particularly hot, so we think it might have been seeking protection from birds of prey. But we couldn't stay there all day sheltering it.

We visited various points along along the lagoons, traversing many dirt and gravel roads. We saw more pelicans, although nowhere near as many as you'd see in the area during breeding season.

Cleared for take-off

We visited another look-out area which was weird and a little creepy. A strange, dense, textile-like substance the colour of hessian had apparently washed ashore and bunched up along where the "beach" meets the scrub. 

But that's not the creepy bit. This is:  

Boo!

This wasn't the only dead fish - I spotted about a dozen on about a 15 metre stretch of beach/hessian stuff and on the grassy/scrub, long dead and mostly skeletonised. Maybe fisherman had discarded the fish due to their undesirability and birds had picked their bones? 

This was where I encountered my first (and only) snake for the trip. It was lying near a bush on the edge of the beach, but when it heard or felt me approach it whipped into the shrub so fast I heard it more than saw it. I was about two metres away so I didn't feel in any danger. 

Next we drove around the western shore of Lake Albert up to the Raukkan Community, a settlement established by the Ngarrindjeri people 150 years ago on the banks of Lake Alexandrina. This is where David Unaipon, a preacher, writer and inventor who graces the $50 note, lived and ministered to his flock. The little church above his shoulder on the $50 note still stands and is very well looked after. 

You might recognise it better front on, which is how it appears on the currency. It's called the Point McLeay church. 

We took the ferry across The Narrows, which joins Lake Alexandrina (at the top in the photo below) and Lake Albert (at the bottom). 

Hidden behind the ferry is Malcolm Point and its wee little lighthouse (I know, not very useful. We didn't stop for photos either). It's no longer operational, but it remains Australia's only inland lighthouse - possibly the only inland lighthouse in the Southern Hemisphere. 

That night we had an early dinner at the pub in the tiny town of Wellington on the banks of the Murray River and then headed back to Meningie with a few detours to take photos. 

Sunset over Lake Albert