South Australia 2017 Day 9 – Port Fairy to Robe – Tower Hill Reserve & Blue Lake

Woke up at just before 5 as K was asking for milk. Made it in the cold dark room. Other than the warmed mattress, there wasn’t any other source of heat. Quickly got back into bed to get warm and sleep.

The cold was just making everyone so lethargic. Even myself as a early bird didn’t wake up till it was over 7, couldn’t care less about the sun rise whatsoever as I didn’t like the frigid cold. Or maybe it was also fatigue that contributed to overstaying in bed.

Finally when mommy woke to start her daily routine, and I trying to complete my blog, that’s when we started to get things going and packing. The sunshine that shorn through the windows seemed to provide some heat relief to us and warmed up the rooms a bit. As we picked up on the activities, it felt a little better.

K was well asleep till almost 10, even after raising the curtains. I got most of the stuff packed and some things preloaded into the car. Mommy microwaved the pizza for breakfast and we caught a little of reality TV called Mystery Diners that was quite interesting. When K finally woke, he looked pretty well rested and was behaving nicely and walking around and playing with the rooms toys.

After a small struggle to changed K’s diapers and pyjamas into clothes to go out in, we got into the car and left at about 1030am, leaving the keys at where we found them and a Airbnb message to inform of our departure. Then we drove 30mins to Tower Hill reserve, where we could see wildlife. K had his banana flavored bread which he liked it while on the way there.

Upon reaching, we entered a single lane road that went downhill and some curves before reaching a public carpark. Immediately near to the BBQ area we saw an Emu loitering around. Went close to have a look and then proceeded to the nearby map to see what we could do. Choose a trekking circuit route, Wagon Bay circuit, that would take about 30mins and following the signs, we were off.

Carrying K with one arm was rather tiring as we walked on dirt track damped from the morning dew. There wasn’t anything to see (or couldn’t spot anything) except for 4 emus out in the open at the beginning of the circuit near the information center. The lake view was kinda ugly and so was the surrounding near the track. Made the best of it and had K sitting on my shoulders and we were playing “crashing” into the trees that generated lots of laughter.

We didn’t take long to walk around the circuit after which we walked to the visitors center where it was stated that animals such as koalas, echidna and kangaroos could be seen too, at this crater formed park. After we were done with the visit, we left for the carpark.

Mommy mentioned that koalas can be seen as reported online and I tried to find one myself but failed. Noticed somebody else pointing at the trees and I went over to shoot a photo of a lazing Koala before we drove back to Port Fairy.

30mins later, we arrived at a bakery in town, called the Village Bakehouse, that seemed crowded and went in to get a pie and chicken sandwich and a latte for about aud20. Then we drove to the end of the street where the visitors center was to use the toilet before embarking on a long 2 hrs drive to the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier.

K started to ask for lunch and mommy fed K at the beginning of the drive. Drove smoothly and it was all good. K finished his food and 1 hr into the drive, he fell asleep. The rest of the journey was pretty smooth, roads were in good conditions and very straight most of the time. Other than the usual open fields and farms and the tall trees of forests, there weren’t exceptional interesting sights worth mentioning.

We arrived at Mt Gambier to find a sprawling town, unexpected that the lake was just next to the town and thought it would be in some hard to reach places. In fact, the lake water was being utilized by the town itself. We parked at one of the many viewpoints around the lake and just as K woke up, we got off to the viewpoint for photos. It was 2pm but due to a change in time zone, we actually saved half an hour traveling towards Adelaide.

The Blue lake was indeed blue but it was dependent on the colour of the skies above. At some point it looked slightly turquoise. Didn’t spend too much time and drove to another viewpoint that had a tower and I went alone to snap some photos while mommy and K stayed in the car.

There weren’t anymore attractions for the day and we drove towards Millicent at 3pm, a mid size town to visit the supermarket. It was about 30mins drive away and again K was pretty well behaved listening to his music on the handphone.

We arrived at the information center of Millicent and parked there to use the toilet and the a stop on the playground for K. There was huge wind turbine propeller on display, probably a town that had wind farms as their source of energy. K had fun at the small playground and found accomplishments in trying to scale the rope ladder by himself. It was a challenge to get him back to the car though. Just a few minutes drive down we parked in front of Woolworths but it was closed on Sunday.

Change of plans and we drove to Robe, our place of stay for the night. It was about an hours drive. The drive was a little difficult at some point where the sun was shining into my face, making it hard to see the road in front. I was particularly worried about animals getting onto the road and would like to see as far as possible on a 110km/hr speed limit road but that made it impossible. Some parts of the drive there was  drizzle too. Luckily we drove out of the rain cloud (it was pretty obvious too as the flat surroundings exposed the whole sky above) when the road changed directions.

Along the way we saw a Kangeroo standing close to the forest. That was a first for this trip, after almost 10days on the road.

We entered Robe got into the parking lot of Guichen Bay motel and did a check in. The staff at the reception was very informative giving me all the details of the supermarket and the restaurants around on a map.

As it was still early, we drove around the small town for a look and saw the port where all the yachts were parked. Then we drove to the Foodland supermarket just opposite our motel to get groceries. K had fun with the trolleys and the swing gate till mommy finished her shopping.

Robe was just celebrating a Chinese festival thing (missed the fireworks that happened a day before) and had 2 Chinese restaurants. Interesting that to find Chinese influence here in this small town.

After putting in our barang barang into the room, we walked to the Robe Chinese restaurant next to the motel to have dinner. It was quite busy with at least 6 tables and we had to wait quite a bit as the restaurant seemed understaffed. K entertained himself walking around, playing with the bell on the table (and was later taken away from the staff who said it was disturbing the other customers), going through the ropes at the doorway to the toilets and touching the lion dance puppets. But he was famished and wanted to eat already. Unfortunately this wasn’t fast food.

When our food arrived, the fried rice, chicken omelette and clay pot tofu, we all digged in. The chef came out to apologise in Cantonese but it wasn’t his fault. K ate the fried rice and the egg and veg but was soon done with it while we gobbled the rice. The meal was about aud57.

Went back to the cabin to bath and the usual night routine of watching videos and TV took place. Happy to have the aircon back to heat up the room and around 930pm we turned off the lights, since K was cranky due to a lack of nap time in the day.