Leisurely day at Mt. Gambier....

We started off with a leisurely day, you know,... sleeping in, playing on the computer and having a couple cups of coffee.  And we thought we'd start with the closest track near our park.  And our first track was straight up this hill.  And I mean UP!!

This was taken about a third of the way up.  In the picture on the right, do you notice that tower at the very back of the hill?

That was our goal.  And we made it to the top of Mt. Gambier to the Centenary Tower Lookout.  360 degree views.  It's also the lookout for the Fire spotter, who happened to be there.  Not only is Victoria susceptible to fires, but Mt. Gambier too suffers from these conditions being surrounded by plantation forests.  They too, were caught out big time on Ash Wednesday in 1983.  He said some of the people were still distraught and couldn't bear to watch the news from the current Victorian fires. 

And once we finished having our tour and talking to the locals about the lava formations and the fires, we made our way back down to the carpark.  (Down is always good.)

From that point, we drove into town and had a look at a famous sinkhole and a cave.  There are quite a few caves around this area.  Understandably since the whole town is built on the side of a volcano.  There's bound to be quite a few caves and sinkholes.

The Umpherston Sinkhole. Originally owned by Umpherston, he tried to create an oasis for friends and family.   It originally had heaps of water in it where they could go rowing or swimming.  Then it was sold off and left unattended for a while, and then in the 1980's the community resurrected the sinkhole, by putting a park inside and creating a tourist attraction. 

And then there's the Engelbrecht Cave.

You'll notice the larger hole?.... but notice the little one in front of it?...Engelbrecht , a local publican in the 1800's thought it was an unused well and so deposited all of his rubbish into it.  They found bottles, tin cans, carcasses of dead animals, etc.  It took 6 yrs to clean it all up.  And there's also water in the underground caves that only exceptionally experienced divers can go through. (Well that leaves US out!) . But it was an interesting bit of history as well.

We even stopped in to see a sculpturing contest going on.  Using sandstone blocks, the sculptors, for the past week, have been working away on these blocks creating beautiful pieces of artwork.

These were some of the lesser pieces, but still fantastic to look at.

All were for sale afterwards.

 

 

And of course, I couldn't let this one go by without taking a picture of it.

It's a Ford Popular.  Year?..don't know. (neither did Chris)  But it's original and it was cute. 

 

 

 

And now, we're back at the van, relaxing and planning our day for tomorrow.  My legs are letting me know, that I might have gotten carried away with this workout, today.  But I figure it just means that I need to do more.