This was the first (of many) road-trip days in Australia. It turns out that the driving we had done to date in New Zealand was merely an entrée to the vast distances we would travel in the land of Oz.
We were driving from Hahndorf to Penula a cool 360km away, and we were taking the more direct Dukes and Riddoch Highway as opposed to the arguably more picturesque coastal Princes Highway that would clock up a further 40km and an hour to the journey.
We grabbed a coffee and a cake from the bakery in Hahndorf – as breakfast was not included at the motel despite costing AUD150 – and headed on our way. Very early on in the drive cruise control came into its own.
About 200km or just over 2 hours in we stopped for a while in our first Australian small town. 'Keith' had the huge water tanks and farm machinery sales centre that you would expect to see in any non- coastal small town on a highway and was very hot and humid.
The town itself had made an effort for Christmas with decorations along the streets. We stopped for the toilet and to grab a bite to eat, and did not see a single soul until we walked into a very pleasant café with air conditioning where everyone seemed to be hiding. We both had a pie and a cold drink – Emma had a cheese and onion one that upon biting into revealed itself to also include mince. Pies seem to be something of a delicacy in Australian cafés/ petrol stations/ general stores but I can not think why they are so popular given the heat of the place.
Refreshed we headed on our journey until about an hour or so later we arrived at the town of Naracoorte. You may know it as the tidiest town in Australia 1994.... It's biggest claim to fame however is the vast caves system that bares its name. These limestone caves have world heritage status, unfortunately however the recent freak rainfall that has hit a lot of Australia had also hit here and so parts of the visitor centre and caves were out of bounds. It did however serve as a nice interlude and break from driving.
The final 60km to Penola was a scenic drive through the winelands of the Coonawarra region. We arrived in Penola late afternoon and checked into our apartment and headed straight to the supermarket to grab some food to cook. We returned via the bottle shop having picked up a couple of beers and some local wine to try.
The apartment itself was lovely, big and cosy – a great place to relax just as the place's website had quoted was their aim. The only downside, as suggested a number of times in Tripadvisor, was the inadvertent non-relaxing tone of some of the hotel literature such as – 'check out is 10am, any later and there is a $10 charge per 15minutes'.
I cooked some lovely steak and we finished off the evening by talking on skype to some family and friends.
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| Just like at home |
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