South for the winter

The weekend after I went south – out of the city on the South Eastern expressway. Actually only about 2 hours drive, off the expressway and through Sterling. Which somehow with its crystal blue sky, bare trees and height (only about 400m, but that’s a mountain compared to the pancake that is Adelaide) it was almost Alpine. It’s a good time of year as the grass is still lush, there is water in some of the ponds (even if some of the brooks look like wadis) and of course the flowers are out. It’s fragrant. (Pass the anti-histamines) – particularly cycling home at night, and in the creeks where the air is trapped and warmed by the sun. Two days when the weather was just what I’d think an August should be. So a ‘mountain road’ to Strathalbyn, then across the farmland of the Fleurieu peninsula. I stopped at currency creek – a small brook in a beautiful valley, a rickety viaduact (look up and you see the sky between the sleepers). On the hill overlooking it is a cemetary dating from the 1850s, below is a tree with a huge scar where the Aborigines cut bark for a canoe. (The book said look for the tree – obviously being blonde, I only realised which one it was when I looked at the photo after I’d walked past) And a small waterfall at the end. Perfect place, really.

Actually – another aside – it’s a strange country. I go walking and usually I plan the route around something old, a bit of water, some woodland. That sort of thing. And here is country where the native inhabitants are less than 200 years from being dragged out of the stone age (that’s not meant to be a comment on the aborigines – it’s about how they were treated), yet seems to lack the monuments with which I would associate the stone age. It’s a country which is so old, yet seems so young and undiscovered because of it. Obviously, like the UK, the inhabitants have left their mark by deforestation and those sort of necessary changes – but it seems that the sacred places are all natural phenomena rather than man-made. OK, this paragraph isn’t particularly articulate, but it’s an attempt to convey a feeling, not something concrete.



Then I drove on, through Goolwa and along the coast to Victor Harbour. Don’t you just love out-of-season seaside towns. I arrived at 4pm and the centre was just about shut. Several of the shops reopened in next month. So I wandered around looking for a hotel. There were a rather new and just-built hostel, the recommended hotel (full, naturally) and a few motels. So I ended up in the Grosvenor. An old building, lath and plaster constructed (at least the corridor ceiling Definitely were. The proof was there for all to see), with a balcony. Put a marble at the back of the balcony and it would be over the front edge as soon as you stood up, there was that much of a slope. The room was a (very cold) single with a small basin (memo to self – need to carry a spare sink plug to avoid needless plumbing to find contact lenses), bathrooms were cubicles down the corridor (with flooring by Airport Carpet Supplies International). So salubrious that the doors leading to the rooms actually had locks on.

Anyway, I left the hotel after changing and went to the seafront where there is a pier about ½ mile long that leads to Granite Island. It’s granite where the rest of the landscape tends towards the limestone. And where limestone cliffs are masculine, cracked and weathered into square blocks, the granite here was eroded into almost exactly the opposite - round feminine, primitive boulders. The sun was nearly down as I got round the island, and despite minimal wind, the waves were crashing a good 10feet into the air. Reaching the visitor’s centre as it re-opened at 4:30pm, I managed to book onto the evening’s penguin tour. (Does what it says on the tin). Around 60 people came out for it, a guided walk in the dark (kitted out in emergency fleece) watching the fairy penguins coming back to their burrows. Like small gaggles of school children trying to cross the road, they hopped from rock to rock, preened and generally looked very cute and tourist friendly. The guide was extremely knowledgeable, actually. There were possums too, but sadly no whales in the bay.
By the time I got back to the hotel, ate and had a beer, I fell asleep. So I (sadly) missed the karaoke – or at least the chance to participate, neither did I get the chance to sample a genuine Aussie small town pub.


I left town the next morning to try and find the Newland Head reserve. 30 min later and I was way too far on, having completely missed the road due to A) a completely inaccurate map (did I say that mapping isn’t great here) and B) an almost total lack of signs. Some places are signposted in one direction only and in the end I found my way by following the sign to the congregational church in Waitpinga.

But boy, was it worth it when I finally got there (at about 11am). The road ran through the eucalypts with slender grey trunks against the blue sky, out across the green fields spotted with small scrubby bushes, and across the dunes to a red beach where the surf smashed in turquiose and silver. The walk I planned (I do have a book of short walks), didn’t look that long, so I decided to do most of that then follow one of the other trails back. There was a 15min hike across the dunes, arid and how I imaging the interior of Aus to be, then through dense woodland full of alien plants, butterflies and lizards (shinglebacks). Eventually after a good half hour of walking up the path – which was very fine sand – it leads out onto the top of the limestone cliffs that drop sheer slabs of dark rock into a sea that is such a benign teal colour, until you look down and see how it boils against the rocks.

It wasn’t a hard walk and that wasn’t nearly long enough then back on the sandy path up Ridgeway Hill (not quite!). The trail cuts quite unexpectedly into the scrub, and like orienteering, you are passed from green post to green post in a seemingly random, twisting path that leads across grass, through clumps of bushes. The grass is thin, sparse and prickly, studded with tiny purple lily-like flowers. Turn left at the kangaroo under the tree (don’t know who was more surprised) and back into the wood, but yet again a different character, grey and spiny, with delicate flowers on the bushes and huge spiky grasses. I’m sure the path went in circles, eventually I could hear the waves again and then came to a hill that overlooked the sea – round a corner and I was 5 minutes from the sand dunes.

I sat on the beach for a hour, reading, watching the waves and the gulls before driving back. The coast road back up was worth it, through what looked like chalk combes leading to the sea, and huge long hill, humped and rounded like a stranded whale, and a lake (reservoir) that could have come straight out of Snowdonia. The sort of hill that makes me want to stop the car and walk up. Too late in the day, sadly. Then, before you realise it, the speed limit drops, there are yellow bus stops along the route and back into the city. Up the one-way expressway (that will always amuse me) and home.