Awoke in Robe today to a heavy mist followed by rain and it stayed with us all day!! 25 degrees, thunderstorms and showers had been forecast and torrential ran persisted all day and it was so cold got to 21 degrees! Who would have thought such a big change after all the hot days. The good thing is it cleaned the van and car which were so dusty and with the drought here means no washing vans or cars in parks.Over the last few days Robe and Mount Gambier have been quite a bit cooler than Adelaide upto 10 degrees and this is quite common apparently. Despite the rain we decided to still head to Mount Gambier 133kms north east. Along the way we stopped at Beachport a nice coastal town with a population of 400. We grabbed a takeaway coffee after getting drenched and cold finding a coffee shop but it was well worth it. Delicious coffee. They have a feature here called the Pool of Siloam which has a salt concentration seven times greater than the ocean. It is extremely buoyant and is supposed to have therapeutic qualities particularly for those with arthritis. Apparently some locals are in it everyday and swear that it helps their arthritis pain (But in these conditions we weren’t game to test it). Also found out that the ocean temperature is about 12-15 degrees this time of year and gets down to 2 degrees in winter, straight off the antartic. No thanks.
We also stopped at a very interesting place called the Woakwine Crossing (12kms north of Beachport).
“The McCourt family moved to the area in the 1880s and soon realised that without richer land to complement the rocky high country living on the land would be difficult. In 1957 Murray McCourt decided to ‘have a go’ at constructing a channel from the swamp through the range to Lake George. The South Eastern Drainage Board assisted in designing and planning the proposed channel, however these plans were not adopted as Mr McCourt believed the process was too costly. Instead he decided to take a risk by having almost perpendicular walls. This type of development had never been seen in Australia before and there were obvious risks associated with the plans such as slipping of the steep walls. However, Mr McCourt along with assistance of one of his workmen, set to prove that it could be done.
The results
- Length of cutting: 1km
- Width at bottom: 3 metres
- Depth at deepest point: 28.34 metres
- Material moved: 276,000 cubic metres
- Time taken on construction – Work started May 1957 completed May 1960
The cutting was a huge engineering feat for its time and is a remarkable example of how the land has been drained, ploughed, cultivated and sown to pasture, making the area efficient and agriculturally sustainable.
It is certainly very impressive particularly when you consider it was done by two men with fairly basic machinery, bulldozer, scraper and ripper and of course explosives. Unfortunately it was difficult to get good photos due to nature of the lookout and the drizzly weather but hopefully what we have gives you an idea.
Our next stop was a town called Tantanoola famous for the ‘Tant tiger’. The tant tiger was a creature who for a long time, 100 years ago, terrorised farmers by killing their sheep. Eventually it was shot and was stuffed and now stands on display in the local pub. An interesting tale.
Finally arrived in Mount Gambier. Still raining and getting heavier! There seems to be a lot to do here with the volcanic craters and sinkholes so off to the visitor centre tomorrow to find out more about what we can do. Stay posted!
We were due to go to Tasmania next and had already gotten an earlier quote from the “Spirit of Australia” of $1,200 for the return voyage. This included the van, but as this was issued in peak season we decided to get a revised one…….. MISTAKE! as they now realised the original quote was one way!!! Needless to say this big increase (over $2000) coupled with the few parks allowing dogs and of course many National Parks that we’d be unable to visit because of Coco has resulted in Tassie being scrubbed for this trip. Sad really as we had really worked ourselves up to going, sad also for Tassie Tourism!
No comments:
Post a Comment