Apr 6, Tantanoola, Millicent, Penola

We left Mt Gambier for the drive to Tantanoola to see the Tantanoola Tiger, an animal that was killed in the 1840's and mounted. One book we read said it had been identified as an Assyrian Tiger. It looked to be about the size of a big dog.

Next was Millicent, a sleepy little town with a giant windmill vane in the park. It was from the new huge windmills that we see popping up now. There are a few windmill farms in Australia now, especially on the coast.

From there we made our way to Penola. It is noted for being the home of the only Australian saint, Mary MacKillop. We walked around for a little bit, then wandered into the Penola Fantasy Model Railroad and Rose's Tearoom. We didn't know what to expect and we found something totally unexpected. The owner and creator, Graham showed us around his kingdom. He has used styrofoam and figurines and railroad tracks, and anything else he can find to create scenes. It was very colorful and filled with allusions to wizards and cartoon characters and superheroes and pop culture. There was a horror movie being made with a giant Barbie, a salute to the Beatles, Dracula - it went on and on. There was a setup in a building and another set up with water features like the Bermuda Triangle outside.
Graham said he had been working on it 12 years and still has lots of ideas for expansion.

We were there for a long time, then walked to the Mary MacKillop Center for the story of her life and the life of Father Woods who inspired her. She was just made a saint in 2010, Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop. We also toured Petticoat Lane to see some cottages. The lane was named that because all the men in town went off to the goldfields and the only thing on the clothes lines were petticoats.

We left Penola to drive to Narracoorte to get some pizza and now we're parked in the parking lot at Naracoorte Caves. We're going into a cave or two tomorrow. A camper parked here too told us that we could see bats coming out of a cave at dusk. So we walked to the area and met two women, one of whom directed us to the bat cave. They came to the cave also and started setting up equipment. One was the park manager and the other was a volunteer technician and they were going to count the bats as they left the cave. It was done with a computer and sensors in the cave. They were using software designed by the US military to track missiles, heat seeking technology and the software counted the bats as they exited the cave. We could just barely see the bats as they came out of the cave. We were told they circle around the mouth of the cave before they come flying out, not in a big swarm, but individually. We moved and were able to see them dart out of the cave and zoom by our heads. The bats will travel up to 30 or 40 miles in search of food, mostly mosquitoes. They return at dawn and will gather near the cave and enter as a big group. There are 20,000 to 30,000 bats in the caves at this site.


Pictures - Samson's shoes after six weeks, Tantanoola Tiger, Samson with windmill vane which looks a lot bigger in person, 2 pictures of the Fantasy Railroad, us with a smal train set, Mary MacKillop