Mt Gambier

Can't get the photos on for some reason so you will just have to put up with reading about everything instead!

We drove into Mt Gambier for a few hours even though this was one of the towns that we had mixed reports about. A couple of people said not to bother but others said it was nice. Anyway we thought we would check it out for ourselves. We went to see the Blue Lake first which turns blue for a few months each year. We were lucky to see it at the right time and it was really blue and very pretty.

We then had a look at Umpherston Sinkhole. This is a collapsed cave that a man made into a beautiful garden in the 1890's. It used to have a lake in the bottom which they sailed a little boat around. The ground water level has dropped so the lake isn't there now. The garden fell into disrepair for 60 years or so until some people got together in the 1970's and began to fix it up. They did a really beautiful job, it's very pretty.

We had heard about some of the underwater caves that people go diving in around Mt Gambier so thought we might try snorkelling in one. We met a family in Robe who said it was amazing. We drove to a town called Allendale where you get the permits for snorkeling/diving. The bloke there talked us into full wetsuits all round including hats, booties and gloves as apparently the water was only about 14 degrees! Bit colder then we were used to. We started off by driving out to Ewen's (?sp) Ponds which is 3 ponds linked by little streams. They are surrounded by really tall reeds and the water did not look inviting at all. Jack and Tom both jumped in and had a look and Michael went in as well. I chickened out! The pond we looked at was about 14 metres deep and looked pretty amazing according to the boys. We then decided to go to the next pond called Pinaninnie Ponds. Jack and Tom got attacked by midges so didn't want to snorkel but Michael went in and I decided I should too after taking so bloody long to put the full wet suit on! I am so glad I did, what an unbelievable thing to see. From the top all you can see is a normal looking pond, maybe 100 square metres or so, surrounded by reeds. The first section is a couple of metres deep with lots of rocks that looked blue. But when you swam a bit further on, all of a sudden the bottom of the pond disappeared and you were looking down into a bottomless pit! I found it very frightening and had to hold Michael's hand to swim across it! The pond is well over 100 metres deep and is very popular with those crazy people who enjoy cave diving. Personally I can think of nothing worse. Looking down was unbelievable. The water was cold but we didn't notice it since we had all the gear on. It was a really great thing to see and I am so glad I got into the water. Thanks Michael for holding my hand!

After we dropped off the wetsuits etc back at Allendale, we drove on to Port MacDonnell for our last night in South Australia. We treated ourselves to a night out at the pub and then spent the rest of the night listening to the pouring rain! Welcome back to the south!