Day 13 – Mount Gambier
Tantanoola: nice place to stop in overnight, but not to stay. Bye! Time to visit Mt Gambia, about which I knew basically nothing. Turns out that it’s basically built on top of a bunch of inactive volcanoes.
We visited the Lady Nelson Visitor Centre to get some ideas. They have a pretty good education display about the local environment, geology and history. Below is a video dramatisation of parts of the diary of Christina Smith, an early settler who documented the local Aboriginal population. It was very well done.
From there we went for a walk around Blue Lake and Valley Lake, which both happen to be craters of the aforementioned volcanoes. Notwithstanding some dodgy maps, we found our way.
Later, we went to the Main Corner Complex in town to see a free movie about the history of the volcanoes in this region. This film turned out to be way better than I was expecting. It was beautifully filmed, well-produced and interesting. Hats off to the local government for making an educational film that our kids both liked.
Having been well-schooled in vulcanology, we headed out to our campfire in the Lower Glenelg National Park. While our navigation program led us down some creepy back roads, we avoided breaking down and being murdered and instead we arrived at a beautiful bush campsite in the park. Next to the Glenelg River, it was the sort of place that makes the long drives all worthwhile.
