After a blustery night we awoke at 6:30 and packed up in the rain to get outta Mount Gambier at 8:30.  A quick refuel saw us heading towards Naracoorte.  Hmmm … not Robe … we were supposed to head to Robe.

Another day of hugging the coast with the wind and the rain wasn’t really appealing.  Meanwhile the brochure for the Naracoorte Caves was looking mighty good.  An almost inside activity in this weather seemed like a godsend.  So off we went…

Given that our fuel economy while driving manually and trying to stay around 100km/h was a little scary, I wanted to try out cruising at 80km/h as a comparo.  So … here we are plodding along at 80km/h when a fella in a land cruiser ute pulls alongside and makes some odd gestures at me.  I figure we’ve left the antenna up or a bed folded out or something stupid … we did get going in a hurry after all.  I pulled over not knowing quite what to expect … as does the cruiser driver …

A quick stroll around the van reveals the concern.  One of the stabilizer legs had fallen down and was dragging on the ground occasionally.  It took a good bounce before it made contact, but when it did there was a shower of sparks and the rubber foot had already succumbed to the force and has now found a home somewhere near Mount Gambier.  Its Blake’s job to put the legs up and he didn’t do a flash job … or so it seemed.

With no great harm done we continued on to Naracoorte caves.  We signed up for the Victoria Fossil cave tour.  This was really good.  Highly recommended.  Not too big on the traditional cave sculptures, but good examples of the major structures were abundant, if not too spectacular.  The drawcard of the cave is the huge number of fossils on display.  The fossils aren’t only embedded in the cave, but are a huge pile of bones in many locations of the cave.

A couple of skeletons have been put together out of the many available as the photos show.

P1000279

P1000280

P1000281

P1000282

P1000283

Another world below Naracoorte.

P1000291

Careful, might bite.

P1000292

P1000296

One of many pits of unexcavated fossils.  Plenty of scope for discovery still available, but its painstaking work.

After our explore we were feeling peckish, but managed to hold out until Keith where the local bakery prices lightened Kels purse and provided a couple of rolls.  A couple of salad rolls saw us sated and on our way.  A couple more hours would have us in Adelaide.

Big 4 Adelaide Shores is absolutely huge with 450 sites and that’s not all.  Chuck in a golf course, mini golf, a resort, restaurants, cafes, etc. and you get a bigger picture of the scale.  The park is right on the beach and we’re about 1 van away from it … which would be ideal if the weather wasn’t so nasty.  Seriously great park though … heaps for the kids to do instead of annoying their father.

A full setup tonight as we’re here for 3 nights.  Another ensuite site due to pure luck.  We were originally told that they’d all been booked, but managed to snag one on the day.  With kidlets, an ensuite is really handy as they can bugger off to the loo unaccompanied.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll explore to the South of Adelaide and Hahndorf.  No great plans for Tuesday as yet, but a visit to a Jayco dealer is on the agenda at some point.

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/2011-07-10.gpx”]