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Day 4 of the camping trip didn't involve all that much driving, although as you can see we did take the long way from the Princess Margaret Rose Cave to Mount Gambier.
Because we knew we weren't going far we took our trip through the cave in the morning, first tour of the day. I've always had a fondness for caves and still have happy memories of visiting Jenolan Caves west of Sydney a decade ago.
PMR Cave isn't nearly as extensive as Jenolan, but it still has some amazing formations. This one above they call the cave guardian. Can you see the face peeking out of the wall? Creepy, eh?
And this is probably one of the most famous formations in PMR - it's called the wedding cake. The formation to the left of it is ever so slowly getting closer to becoming a column - can you imagine how long it took to get this close?!
When we finally left the cave we headed for Port Macdonnell on the coast, and I'm so glad we took the detour. In town the waterfront is lovely. The view above was taken out of town, heading along toward a lookout. So much interesting stuff to see in this place, but it was just a fleeting stop. I managed to pick up a couple of Noritake teacups and saucers in mint condition for a couple of dollars at the local op shop, so I was happy!
We also had a bite to eat here at the Breakwater Cafe Take Away. This beast is the steak burger with the lot. Droooooooooooooooool. It was fan-frikkin-tastic. I've had so many steak burgers that were very ho-hum, with limp salads and tough, chewy meat. Not this one. Despite its size it disappeared in short time, so I must have been hungry, and it must have been good.
With our bellies full we set off north to Mount Gambier. On the way in we took the opportunity to pull over and take a few snaps of the blue lake. I can't remember all the bites of info on the boards there, but I hope you can make out the amazing blue of the water.
Once we'd researched things to look at and made camp there was just enough sunlight left in the day to do a little exploring. First stop, the Cave Garden in the town centre.
All the publicity pictures of this show it when there's water gushing down. We were obviously there in the wrong season for that, but these gardens were still wonderful. So peaceful and beautiful. It was a shame to see, though, that some people had used it as a place to throw their rubbish.
And the last stop that day was to the Umpherston Sinkhole. I took so many pictures of this place it was hard to choose just one to include. This place is amazing, and a lot of effort has been expended to make it a really pleasant and peaceful place to visit. There's a BBQ and tables tucked under a ledge hiding behind the ivy where you can have your lunch, and benches dotted around the bottom to sit and take it all in. I went nuts taking pics of the various flowers and things (something I seem to keep doing... I love taking pictures of flowers) and even managed to get mum to pose in a few pictures too.
We slept well that night, to be woken by a light rain the next morning so we packed up the tent in short time (we were getting pretty good at it all by now) and had a great breakfast before heading further into SA.
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