South Australia 2017 Day 10 – Robe to Victor Harbour – Kingston Lobster, Meningie and Victor Central

Seemed like a routine for K to be awake early and asking for milk. I got up and did the necessary before going back to bed for a little snooze before waking up again to update this blog. So far I had been diligently keeping up with the updating but not sure for how long more.

Same thing with mommy as she got up to prepare K’s meal. Due to the good amount of sleep that we all had, K actually woke up earlier today. Switched on the TV so that we didn’t have to attend to him as we continued our packing and preparations.

We needed to top up the boiling water and found the water that came from the boiling flask to be slightly cloudy. Didn’t want to take any chance, I went over to the reception and the staff used his to boil a flask for me while I brought the containers over. While waiting for the water to boil, we had a conversation about the long journey ahead, and if there was any places that he could recommend to break the drive. Other than our planned stop at Meningie, there was a Salt Creek service station and other smaller towns available between Meningie and Victor Harbor.

For breakfast, mommy had bought a banana bread loaf from Foodland the previous day and split it into 3 portions and she ate up one portion herself. While I was going to eat my portion, I realized some whitish stuff on the external that looked like it was mouldy. Checked the best before date and found that the best before date was 2nd May 2017, almost a week earlier! Quickly threw the rest away and hoped that mommy would turn out ok. That didn’t fascinate K as he wanted his breakfast so I drove to Robe bakery and coffee lounge to get some banana muffin for him and a pizza for myself, that costed about aud10. He loved the muffin while we returned to the cabin to eat.

Robe bakery and coffee lounge
Pizza for breakfast

After loading everything into the car since mommy had already packed while we were out at the bakery, we started our long journey on the road. 30 mins from Robe was a small town called Kingston. I saw that the petrol price was aud1.27, much lower than the aud1.33 in Robe and so decided to top up. Got a Mahalia coffee latte there while paying and then we drove a 50 meters down to a huge model of a lobster. Stopped there for some photos and K to run around at the tail before leaving again.

Kingston giant lobster

The journey to our intermediate stop at Meningie was another 1.5hrs away and both K and mommy fell asleep while driving there. We went past huge area of flat lands and supposedly water but it wasn’t a nice view. The roads were long and straight and I went a little faster to catch up on some time. We managed to arrive into town at 1215 and parked at the visitor center, skipping the Salt Creek service station altogether.

Meningie town

Just on the opposite side of the road was a cute cafe called My Friend’s cafe and we decide to have our lunch there. Pastries were sold and we got ourselves a sweet chili chicken wrap and a ham and cheese croissant, earl grey tea and a bottle of juice for about aud20. K had his lunch of macaroni and soup and was having quite a good appetite.

My Friends Cafe
Ham and cheese croissant
Chicken wrap

We then went over to the playground near the visitors center and K had his fun running around. It was a nice view of serene Lake Albert nearby and weather was great, clear blue skies and cooling.

Pelican statue in Meningie
View of Lake Albert at Meningie
Playground at Meningie
Panoramic view of Lake Albert

After the using the toilet there and changing K’s diapers, we hit the road again at about 130pm, another 2 hrs drive. This time around we would be getting onto M1 for a bit and other highways so there was a mixture of freeway and smaller roads. The smaller roads passed through more towns and had more bends and therefore harder to move fast. Again both fell asleep as we approached Victor harbour.

Flatland on drive to Victor Harbour

We arrived at the huge town slightly after 320pm, and saw the horse (with lovely hairy legs) that was supposed to be pulling the carriage to Granite island, leave. Although we planned to take that horse drawn carriage, we couldn’t make it on time as that was the last ride for the day. Went to Hotel Victor and checked in. Brought everything up to our room that had a nice view of the coast and went back to the car to wait for K to wake up.

Hotel Victor
View from our room
Room
Huge fridge
Sink
Toilet and shower

Drove to the Esplanade carpark and went down to take some photos of the bridge to Granite island. K woke up soon and while we walked to the bridge together to have a look, we decided to skip crossing the long bridge as it was getting cold.

Granite island sign
Bridge to Granite island
Horse drawn carriage station
Victor Harbour parking coupon
Panoramic view of Granite island

We drove to Victor Central mall which had a Target and Woolworths supermarket. While mommy shopped at Target and bought some stuff, K sat on the kiddy ride. After that, more groceries shopping and we had to buy more stuff to bring over to Kangaroo island the next day as we expected things to be expensive on that island. Bought 2x10l water dispenser, worried that drinking water maybe scarce too! With that, we got 5 free Marvel tags that we gave to K.

Big W in Victor Harbour
Target in Big W

After the visit to the mall, the skies were already dark and we decided on having McD for dinner. Drove and parked at the carpark there and ordered some gourmet burger meals to go. K noticed the indoor playground and spent some time there while waiting for the burgers.

MacD
Indoor playground in MacD

We left for the hotel finally at about 630pm and after bringing the heavy bag of groceries to the room, K played with the marvel tags and my camera and watched TV while mommy cooked. I went out to top up more gas, as we didn’t have time the next day to do it, I brought along the receipt for the Woolworths groceries as it would give 4cts off for Woolworths co-op Caltex gas station, which was just at the same location as Victor Central. True enough, it was aud1 off my bill of aud30.

Our gourmet burgers – chicken
Wagyu burger
A photo of me taken by K
Little photographer

After returning to the room, K was just finishing his meal and I gave him a bath after that. Then we all settled for the night at about 10pm, after some videos and TV later, expecting to wake up real early to catch the 9am ferry to Kangaroo island the next day.

Escape to Victoria & South Australia April 2017

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Victoria & South Australia 2017:

Total duration 16D15N
Melbourne is 2hrs ahead of Singapore. Flight time is 7hrs 25mins on Scoot from Singapore to Melbourne.
Adelaide is 1.5hrs ahead of Singapore. Return is 7hrs on Singapore Airlines from Adelaide to Singapore.

Flight from Singapore to Melbourne at 115am, arriving at 1040am in Melbourne. Return flight from Adelaide to Singapore is at 910am and touching down in Singapore at 310pm.

Day 0-1 – Arrival in Melbourne and R&R
Day 2 – Victoria Market, Federation Square and Newquay promenade
Day 3 – Melbourne to Belgrave, Puffing Billy train ride
Day 4 – Belgrave to Squeaky beach and overnight at Phillip Island
Day 5 – Inverloch, the Caves beach and Penguin Parade
Day 6 – From Phillip Island to Queenscliff Big4 Beacon Resort
Day 7 – Coogoorah Park, Split Point lighthouse and Koala spotting
Day 8 – Otway lightstation, 12 Apostles and the other rocks
Day 9 – Port Fairy to Robe – Tower Hill Reserve and the Blue Lake
Day 10 – Robe to Victor Harbour – Kingston Lobster, Meningie and Victor Central
Day 11 – From Victor Habour to Kangaroo Island Emu bay – R&R
Day 12 – Flinders Chase National Park and Vivonne bay
Day 13 – Raptor Domain and Seal bay
Day 14 – Arrival in Glenelg, harbour town outlet shopping and Beachouse
Day 15 – Botanic Gardens and Rundle Mall
Day 16 – Home Sweet Home

This trip was planned to as one of our annual trip for 2017. There were 2 days of public holiday in May and therefore to maximize the usage of our leave, we chose to do it at this time of the year. Torn between the choices of going to Central Europe and South Australia, we ended up with SA because of the ease of logistics arrangements.

Budget – Not cheap.

Costs of food were expensive since food court was not usual in towns outside the main cities. Costs of accommodation were not cheap either especially when we need a kitchen to cook. Fuel was thankfully way cheaper than Singapore and with the not too bad exchange rate, costs were balanced out.

Complexity – Easy with GPS downloaded into the phone in a car

The initial traveling plan was to drive around with a data enabled phone but since we could actually download the google map onto the phone, we didn’t need data at all! Paved roads most of the time was easy to drive though some of them were a little bumpy for an Elantra. Signboards were everywhere. Since attractions were far from one place to another, driving would be the best option for a family traveling from one spot to another.