Today off to Mount Gambier in the South of South Australia, just inside the border with Victoria.

Travelled south down to the Coorong today, stopping at Coorong for some lunch and a run around on the water front park. It was interesting to see the lake here (or Lagoon), as the Lonely Planet had said how low the water level was and how far out from the shore the water was at Coorong. Swell we found neither to be true, as it seems the water level has been refilled with all the rain over the last couple of wetter years.

Also interesting that the Murray river had weirs installed upstream from here to keep the water level for the Paddle Steamers, this in turn, in the dry years, kept the water upstream, and the water at Coorong become salty as the ocean washed in. So, Man in his wisdom, added more weirs downstream to stop the salt water coming further upstream. This seems to be working slowly and the Coorong wetlands are starting to return to normal. Of course if Man had left well alone in the first place all most likely would have been ok...

Next on the way was Salt Creek, where there was a replica Oil well (and nothing else). Why you may ask? Apparently early explorers found a black tar like substance that they thought was oil, so they drilled quite a few mines. They never found any oil in this area, and it appears the oil like substance was some kind of Algae.

Further along was Kingston SE where there is the Big Lobster (or Crayfish for the Kiwis). Had to stop for a photo of yet another big thing! Funny story was with this one, when the artist built the lobster, he mixed up feet and metres so the Lobster actually was 3 times larger than it was supposed to be! Also we wondered why the SE at the end of the name, the reason is there was another Kingston in the state, the SE standing for South East. As an aside the other town is now called Kingston-on-Murray. Finally we managed a visit to the local fish shop to purchase a Lobster for Xmas Lunch, Yum!

Bit more driving until we reached our final destination for today of Mount Gambier.

Setup the Van and drove back to have a look at the Blue lake, which was to be the highlight of the visit here. And it was spectacular, a very vivid blue colour apparently caused by Algae in the summer. Also in the middle of town there are a number of Sink holes where the ground just has a bit hole in it. The local council has made features of these, with parks surrounding them etc, and in some cases adding a building and charging admission.