Naracoorte Caves

 NB - I am currently using this blog to test various features, specifically the Page feature which will allow me to put photos in the blog, but not opening all of them when the blog is opened.

As Dan Backsly was often saying, "Curses!  Foiled again!".  It was a long weekend, Mt. Gambier had a major motor event and a horse event so accommodation was booked out.  So, metaphorically shaking the dust from my sandals, I drove 35Km the nearest campsite at Tantanoola for the nite; when the rail was closed, Tantanoola is another of many small remnant towns.     On firing up my computer, there was an 'invite' from another Grey Nomad - in Mt. Gambier.  So the next morning I backtracked for a lovely breakfast and chat with two lovely ladies!  Life's good!  I also checked out the Blue Lake in Mt. Gambier, a quite unusual phenomenon right in the city.  It is in a volcano crater and is bright blue, but only in the summer months, apparently.  It is also supplies the water for the city, very handy! 

In drafting a rough itinerary for South Australia, camping in National Parks looked significant, but a Parks Permit is required.   As the permits are only available from Parks Offices AND they were closed for the long weekend, I was at loose ends for another day (Curses!  Foiled again!) so decided to sidetrack to Naracoorte, where I could visit the Naracoorte Caves NP and obtain the necessary permit:  thus re-visited the Caves (I'd visited them a few years ago on a trip to Adelaide) and obtaining a pass was a good way to spend the day.    This also obviated the need to find a Parks Office in/near Adelaide along my planned route.  So I drove to Naracoorte and stayed the night at the showgrounds where showers were available, indeed in this hot weather - necessary by now!

The caves area few Km from the town and are unique in that they contain marsupial megafauna remains - these are large marsupials that inhabited Australia but long after the dinosaurs died out.  The area is limestone, thus caves and associated sinkholes, into which the animals would occasionally fall into, thus contributing their bit for posterity, or at least for the scientists today.  One critter - Thylacoleo carnifex - was the marsupial equivalent of a large cat, which climbed trees and dropped on its prey, thus the original Australian Drop Bear (anyway, that's their story and they are sticking to it.  The mega kangaroos also had a variety now extinct that mainly foraged on trees and had a much more blunt head.   Neither has an equivalent in the current marsupial mix today

On leaving Naracoorte, I stopped at a campsite south of Adelaide but it was still hot:  As the van has aircon in the front, it was more comfortable to keep driving, even though it meant going through Adelaide in peak hour traffic.  7PM saw me pull into a campsite just into the Yorke Peninsula and the weather was also cooling down.  A rather longer drive than I normally undertake, partly due to a desire to put the frustrations of the SE corner behind me, as well as being the cooler alternative, I could look ahead more positively.  So tomorrow off to the Information Centre at Kardina to start my Yorke Peninsula adventure.