Nelson is a tiny village on the coast and when we stopped at the info center there, the lady recommended the nature walk over a tour of the town itself. So we drove out to the estuary where the Glendelg River goes into the ocean. It was the first time we've gotten poor advice. It was a walk through the woods and on a boardwalk through salt marshes. We did see black swans and pelicans in the water. In the woods we had trouble walking on the trail because echidnas had been at work. They make cone shaped holes with their snouts in the dirt to get to the ants. The holes were everywhere.
We entered South Australia and had to turn our clocks back 30 minutes.
Port MacDonnell is known as the crayfish capital of Australia. I think we would call them spiny lobsters. We stopped to ask a fisherman about buying fresh ones, but he said most of the crayfish and crab that is caught on the boats goes directly into bins that are locked. When they come ashore, the bins are taken to be shipped to Asia and will arrive there in 2 days with live catch. We went to a local seafood shop, but she didn't have any fresh crayfish, so we bought a frozen one for $45 a kilo. I'm not sure how long it will take to thaw it out.
Then we drove into Mt Gambier, noted for the limestone in the area and for extinct volcanoes. We walked up to Blue Lake, a startlingly blue lake in the crater of a volcano. It serves as the source of the city's water. Because of the limestone, there are sinkholes and caves here too. We went to Umpherston Sinkhole, which was an underground cavern before the roof of it fell in thousands of years ago. Back in the 1800's Mr Umpherson planted a garden in the sinkhole and in the 1970's the town replanted it and turned it into a park. It was a beautiful formal garden with hydrangeas, roses, fushias and ivy. Then we went to see another crater lake and Englebrecht Caves. They were unusual because they're filled with water and divers explore them. We went down to a couple of viewing platforms to see the crystal clear water and learn about how the caves were formed and found.
After supper we went back to town to wander around and see a sound and light show. We went into a theater thinking they were showing a movie about volcanoes, but it turned out to be Low Impact Man, about a family that set about living with as little impact as they could - no elevators or subways or car, eating locally grown food, trying to have no garbage to throw away, no electricity. We did watch about an hour of it, then had to move on.
We watched some films being shown above a sinkhole in the middle of town and then 2 short Aboriginal dreamtime stories were shown down in the sinkhole.
We're staying at the show grounds in town tonight.
Pictures - Holes where echidnas dug, jeanne at Blue Lake, Umpherson's Sinkhole Garden
Don't know how much U.S. news you're following, but it seems there is a new sinkhole story every day. Maybe they could be turned into gardens. They would have to get the houses out first, though.
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