Heading to Melbourne via Fleurieu, Coonawarra, and Mt Gambier

Our last post left us on our way out of the Barossa region with a few days to go before we had to be in Melbourne to catch our ferry to Tasmania. We still had a bit more of South Australia left to cover – the Fleurieu peninsula, one more wine region (the Coonawarra, famous for cool climate Cabernet Sauvignon), and a town called Mt Gambier, famous for an incredibly bright blue lake and the Umpherston Sinkhole. We were also missing a couple of big things on our list, namely McLaren Vale wine region, and the Grampians for hiking and camping, but as we’ve learned repeatedly on this trip, we just can’t do it all!!

The Fleurieu Peninsula is the jutting bit of land below Adelaide, and is where the ferry departs for Kangaroo Island. We’d visited Kangaroo Island (or K.I. to the locals) on our last trip, and were looking forward to exploring a bit around the Fleurieu Peninsula since we had to zoom through last time to catch the ferry (hmm…a common theme). Here’s a map of the Fleurieu Peninsula:

We started off with coffee and breakfast at Morgan’s Beach, which you can drive down onto – parking on the beach and having a snack or meal is definitely one of our favourite things to do.

There’s just something incredible about having a beach all to yourself. Especially after living in Sydney for so many years, where all the beaches are usually crowded.

Next up on our exploration of the Fleurieu Peninsula was to check out a couple of lookouts. This was the one that overlooks the ferry dock.

We found the Fleurieu Peninsula rural, untouched, and quiet – really quite lovely and special to be so close to Adelaide. There isn’t much there other than beaches, bush walks, campsites, and lookouts. It was a pretty peaceful couple of days.

On our way off of the peninsula, heading east and south to Melbourne, we stopped at a town called Goolwa Beach where they were having an Australia Day BBQ outside a waterfront cafe and wine bar. The vibe was relaxed and cheerful, and Goolwa Beach an adorable little town we’d love to spend more time exploring one day!

Australia Day is on the 26th of January and is becoming a controversial subject for many Australians. The date commemorates the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet at Port Jackson, and therefore the beginning of the massacre of the Australians who already lived in Australia at the time. It’s sometimes referred to as “Invasion Day”. If you think for a second, it really is pretty shitty to celebrate the anniversary of this day from an Indigenous Australian’s perspective (or even from a white person’s perspective – we met a young, white, Australian lady on our travels who doesn’t celebrate Australia Day because she doesn’t support it).

There is a big campaign on to change the date of Australia Day, which we’re in support of. It makes sense that people would want to celebrate the creation of the country they live in, but why does it have to be on a date that means tragedy to so many others? Surely Aussies don’t care, as long as they can still have a barbecue and a day off work?

We avoided engaging in the controversy this year by finding a Canadian couple at the campground where we stayed, and having a few drinks with them instead!

The next day it was off through the Coonawarra wine region (cool climate Cabernets, mainly, but we also liked the rosé and sparkling) to Mt Gambier, close to the South Australia – Victoria border.

I won’t spend too much time on the Coonawarra, we’ve been to heaps of wine regions by now and you guys know what it’s all about, except for the caption above – if you’re ever in the region, head to Bellwether for an amazing wine-tasting experience getting to speak to the winemaker in person as she takes you through her wines. Also, here is a picture of Nick getting a friendly nibble from her donkey.

In Mt Gambier, a fairly small city of about 27,000 people (crazily, South Australia’s second most populous city – after Adelaide with 1.3 million people),  we were looking forward to seeing the main tourist attractions of the Umpherston Sinkhole, and the Blue Lake. Nick had been talking about the Umpherston Sinkhole for at least a year – I think since the last time we were in South Australia on our 2017 trip!

The Umpherston Sinkhole might not sound so nice, after all what’s so great about a sinkhole?

Well, someone decided to put a bloody garden in this one! Complete with fountains, benches, and lots of gorgeous flowers. Well done, Mr Umpherston (he created the gardens in 1886 after working his way up from a simple Scottish farmer to the representative of South Australia in Parliament).

Mt Gambier is also famous (and Instafamous) for its large, bright blue lake, appropriately called Blue Lake.

You can’t swim in Blue Lake, even though it looks soooo incredibly tempting, because it actually provides some of the city’s water! Understandable why they wouldn’t want filthy humans in there.

Luckily, just outside of town is Little Blue Lake, in another sinkhole, which you ARE able to swim in. But we thought this one should probably have been called Green Lake.

Also some good jumping off the rocks, not that we’d ever risk life and limb by doing such a thing.

After our swim and some lunch, it was time (as always) to continue on, across the SA-Victoria border and to our campground a couple hours outside of Melbourne, where we would meet our friends for a day of city fun before catching the ferry across the Bass Strait to Tasmania.

Awaiting us at our campground that night was peace, quiet, a gorgeous sunset, and just a few fellow campers.

One of our fellow campers was a pretty prickly fellow, very tough to get along with and didn’t seem to want to chat.