Naracoorte

Despite the temptation to head West to have a quick look at the other half of the country (as per Shauno's suggestion), we continued East yesterday for the short drive from Robe to Penola. We quickly decided that we didn't feel inclined to stay there or at Coonawarra, so we drove by all the wonderful vineyards and Cellar Doors and stayed at Naracoorte for a few days instead. Yesterday was spent quietly visiting the stores in this country town, and swimming in the largest public swimming pool we think we have ever seen, and finally enjoyed a really nice Bistro meal at the local.


This morning we explored the main reason for being here: the World Heritage listed Naracoorte Caves. These are a series of limestone caves formed about 500,000 years ago through the action of water dissolving the limestone and have been tourist attractions for about 100 years. In 1969 however they discovered a huge collection of fossils (something like 50,000 skeletons) of marsupial megafauna which had fallen through an opening and died over a period of about 250,000 years before the hole closed over. It has become one of the most important fossil sites in Australia so was heritage listed along with Riversleigh in Queensland (which has fossils from about 20 million years back). It was pretty amazing, and of course the photo's don't do it justice (the guided tours are way too quick to consider taking a tripod). Well worth the entry price though.

The rest of the day has been spent sheltering from the rather strong winds, watching some old Schwarzenegger movies on the laptop :)

Tomorrow we'll pop by Mt Gambier to check out the Blue Lake, and then we will most likely wander on down to Nelson to hide away from the next few cool days forecast. Just one more week and we are home...