Friday 13th March - Mount Gambier
A cool 13.3 last night and a coolish day only reaching 19.3. Today is my birthday and apparently now a 65 year old Senior. Interesting that in some states you can be a senior at only 60. Still, it's just a number, so a very happy birthday to me. We went for a drive to the Umpherstone Sink Hole. Truly beautiful and amazing. You can walk right down and into it, which of course I didn't and couldn't anyway. Quite a few steep stairs to get to the bottom, although once you are there it's mostly smooth footpaths and very few steps. I waited up the top while Clive went down to take photos. It was freezing in the wind against yesterday's top of 33. Only 16 today and a very cold wind. Luckily Clive left me in a sheltered area. While he was down there he had a good walk around, even going behind the creeper that is trailing over the edges of the cliff. He took some interesting photos behind this creeper. They even have a small BBQ area down the bottom and a little waterfall. Would be interesting to see this in winter after it's rained, as I think that it would have a totally different look to it. Clive was last here around the mid 1980's and he thinks not a lot has changed. On the way to the Sink Hole there are seats cut in logs. These logs are from the 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires, that on the 14th February killed many trees in forest plantation around. this area. Due to the amount of trees killed and to protect the pine industry in this region, lots of dead trees were cut down and stored in Lake Bonney, or stacked and kept hydrated by sprinklers until they could be processed, as there was no way the mill could process all this dead timber at once. The trees were only burnt on the outside, so the inside timber was perfectly usable. We went into the information shop and bought some souvenirs for my birthday - some tea towels and a kangaroo with a joey in its pouch. Very cute. More friends for the other soft toys I have acquired on this journey. Next it was off to the Blue Lake. This lake is in the crater of an extinct volcano, and turns a vivid blue from around December to March. After this it reverts to its greyish colour. The exact cause of this annual colour change is still a matter of conjecture, but it has to do with the sun and also the minerals in the water. Continuing the drive around the lake we then saw Valley Lake, again formed in a crater. Originally there were four lakes but the Leg Of Mutton and Brown Lake are no longer in existence, having dried up over the past 30-40 years and also because of the dropping water table. On the way back we stopped into the Information Center in town that has a replica of the Lady Nelson outside. Clive bought me another tea towel and then back home. Footy is on AGAIN on TV tonight - (sighs).