We decided to revisit the Coorong National Park , first visited four years ago on our first trip in the camper trailer. The Coorong itself is a huge lagoon system at the mouth of the mighty Murray river which at 2500kms long is Australia’s longest and runs from the Australian Alps in New South Wales through Victoria to the Coorong south of Adelaide in South Australia.
At Tea Tree crossing the lagoon dries up in summer and can be crossed to access the dunes on the ocean side. We had the whole campsite to ourselves (if you dont count the kangaroos and emus) .
From there is was a steep climb up sand to access the dune plateau and then down to the beach itself.
The dune plateau was a great place to watch the sunset and sunrise . Valentines day was as romantic as ever with hand made declarations of love and thanks to the RAAF for supplying the fly pas at lowel level across the sea in the middle of nowhere right on cue !
This was where i caught my first Mulloway and I had my sights set on catching me a big one – however- the weather delivered strong winds and big surf which meant fishing was somewhat of a battle . I did catch a 40cm Mulloway which i released but the big one will have to stay a future challenge.
The weather continued to influence our path and we headed to Mount Gambier ahead of schedule to avoid the cooler wet weather hitting the coast.
Mount Gambier is the second biggest settlement in South Australia yet has only 29000 residents which gives you and idea of just how sparsely populated a state it is. It is built on the remnants of a volcano with crater lakes a big attraction . We visited the Umpherston sink hole which whilst quite small was very interesting .
We camped at the Mount Gambier Showground and on Sunday morning there was Harness racing time trial ahead of a full meeting the following week. Great to see close up
We visited Umpherston sink hole (via one of my walking shortcuts which in the end was a 10k detour !) which unlike most I have seen… it wasn’t clogged with bits of soggy pasta .