February 2 – Coorong National Park and the Drive to Mt. Gambier

Today is all about driving.  We are headed to the coast.  Our first stop was the small town of Meningie, on Lake Albert.  

It was lunchtime, the town is very small and it is also Sunday.  So lunch pickings were slim.  But we found a small café with a very basic menu so we didn’t starve.  There was a very small little church near the café.

The drive took us through a national park called the Coorong.  It had a very long sand bar out in the ocean that protected a lot of lagoons. 

We stopped at Pelican Island to see the pelicans.  Unfortunately, the island was pretty far out so there were no close-ups. 

However, on the walk back to the car we saw a slow-moving reptile cross the trail (until we got close, then he moved pretty fast).  Subsequent research found that it was a type of blue-tonged skink called a Tiliqua Rugosa.  A sausage with yellow-tipped scales.

We took one of the off-road drives so we could see more of the lagoons and ended up finding some very picturesque salt lakes.

Another stop was at The Granites…three big rocks on the edge of a sandy beach.  

There were some unidentifiable sea birds on the rocks.  

We had a rest stop in a little town called Kingston SE.  The SE in the name is to indicate that it is South East Australia…to differentiate it from a Kingston in South Australia.  That Kingston is now Kingston on Murray.

Anyway, Kingston SE is a port and fishing community and their really big claim to fame is Larry the Lobster.  Larry is a 17 meter (56 foot) tall sculpture of a spiny lobster.   It turns out that Larry is one of Australia’s almost 150 “Big Things”.  They have big apples, fish, koalas, avocados, and many other big things all over Australia.  Maybe we should have planned the tour to visit all the Big Things.

Our hotel tonight is a few miles outside of Mt. Gambier and is called The Barn.  It certainly doesn’t look like a barn.  It is a very nice hotel with gorgeous English Garden grounds and a very expensive steak restaurant.  It is located on a cattle ranch; hence, the name.