David and Cassie's Great Australian Trip Part 2

Driving up the Coorong was neat, but we didn't get to stop and see as much of it as we'd hoped. There was a turn off where we learned about the Chinese coming to the area for the big gold rush in Melbourne, but they came through S.A. in order to avoid the 10 pound tax that they got if they came directly into VIC. 62,000 Chinese arrived in the VIC goldfields, of those 48,000 made it back to China; these numbers don't take into account the ones that died on the way there; the remaining 14,000 stayed or died. (pics: The circular cut out by the water was the cutting used for the well you see in another picture. The hole is a wombat burrow)






It was a neat area, the Coorong, if you look at the map below, is a very long stretch of national park that has a very long saltwater "lake" in between the mainland and the ocean. We found out after got to the info desk at Strathalbyn that we could have driven across it to Goolwa, but we hadn't seen that on any maps, otherwise we would have!


To get to Strathalbyn from Wellington we had to take a little ferry across the river, that was neat (see picture below). After visiting the info desk we decided to drive down to Goolwa as we had previously planned. We had started thinking about going straight to Adelaide cause we hadn't seen a whole lot that would interest us down in the Fleurieux Panninsula that didn't cost money (like wine tasting and oyster eating), and we wanted to have plenty of time in Flinders Ranges after we left Adelaide. The sun was starting to go down, but we had a lovely drive to Goolwa and even drove onto Hindmarsh Island and saw the Murray Mouth, the mouth into the ocean. We then drove down to Victor Harbor and took that road up to Adelaide, which by the time we got about half way up it was completely dark, which was a shame cause it looked like it was some really neat country!




Picture of the area


Pictures (Hindmarsh Island):, the Murray Mouth, a shot of the sunset from the beach on the island, and a view from driving across the bridge from the island.





We stopped at a Mackers (McDonalds) to use the internet and we called a hostel in Adelaide, and we're glad we did cause the manager was just about to leave for the night! We secured a room and he gave us the code to get in and told us where he'd put the key, very nice man. We got to the VERY nice, and VERY clean hostel (Hostel 109 for any of you who plan on going to Adelaide) around 8:30 and got settled and cooked dinner. We ended up paying for a 4 share room (two sets of bunkbeds) but we ended up getting it all to ourselves for two nights!

On Saturday it was raining all day, but nevertheless we got up and went to the local market, which is amazing for food, and got some brekkie and some fruit/veg for the next leg of our trip (since we had to cook up/chuck out all of ours at the S.A. boarder). Awesome prices! We went back to the hostel and did some Skype-ing, then went and got some lunch at Chopstix and then to the botanical gardens, which even though it was sprinkling a bit was very nice. It's actually been quite warm despite the rain. Went back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the evening. We had a lovely day!!

Now we're off again to the Flinders Ranges!!