Kingston, Penola, Coleraine

Not far from Victor Harbour is Kingston SE, often referenced with its nearby town of Robe. It's still close enough to Adelaide to be somewhere busy with Adelaide retirees and holiday homes. 
(The SE is added to distinguish it from the Kingston On Murray in the South Australian Riverland).

The Robe obelisk

Chips by the beach at Robe

Robe is really pretty.
There's a significant Chinese history here - they sailed here and trekked into Victoria to head to the goldfields in the 1850s and avoid the Victorian ports tax imposed on the Chinese.
Their "luck" in finding gold was, I think, the result of working harder than their white neighbours. 

This lighthouse used to sit 8 kilometres out to sea. When it was decommissioned it was taken down and reassembled in Kingston SE.
We did a tour... you know those volunteers who can be a little too enthusiastic and think everyone is as invested in the details as they are...?

Our first flat tyre on the car

Down the road from Kingston and Robe is Beachport. Beautiful. We'll come back this way at some stage and stay here,

We stayed at a cheap camp ($7) at Penola for a couple of nights.

Penola is in the Coonawarra 

We then headed west and crossed the border into Victoria. 
We had initially thought we'd stay at Casterton, but checked out a council donation camp beside the visitors' centre at Coleraine (pronounced with two syllables) and decided to stay here.
Walkable to town, quiet, safe, pretty.

On to the coast and the Great Ocean Road next.

Victor Harbour

Victor Harbour is a beautiful spot just 90 minutes from Adelaide, so is well populated with retirees - we felt right at home!

We stayed in a caravan park here. It's a very popular spot, being less than 90 minutes from Adelaide, so no free camping. We made full use of the facilities and got our $30 per day's value.

While here we took advantage of a mobile mechanic and had the bearings on the caravan checked.

As it turned out, nothing wrong... better safe than sorry.

Victor Harbour and the area around it is well known for a few things...

It has a famous causeway to Granite Island, reached on foot or on a tram drawn by Clydesdales.

Near Victor Harbour is Goolwa, the mouth of the Murray (and where Storm Boy lived). It's where the first of five barrages that stop the tidal salt water flowing upstream are.

Love the NZ fur seals lazing on the barrages

We left Victor Harbour and crossed both the Murray and Lake Alexandrina to stay at a lovely grassy free camp at Narrung Ferry Campground on the way to Robe and Kingston, where we'll stay for a few nights tomorrow.

Australia's ONLY inland lighthouse is here on Lake Alexandrina near the Narrung Ferry 

Kangaroo Island

The ferry is heavily booked, so rather than risk missing it (goodbye >$1000!) we arrived in good time to catch our ferry across to Kangaroo Island. A bit lumpy but sitting outside in the breeze saw the 50 minutes go by pretty quickly.

We had a quick look around Penneshaw and Kingscote before heading to Flinders Chase where we stayed for 3 nights. 

Cape Barron Geese

There are plenty of Koalas in the park... they seem to be recovering after the fires devastated this island in 2019/2020

This dopey bugger spent the day near our van in a dead pine tree... ???

kangaroos a plenty

Cape Du Couedic light house, Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch and the sea lions and fur seals there are a notable attraction at the south western corner of Flinders Chase National Park.

Didn't disappoint.

The spot where supplies for the light house
keepers were winched up from a
small bay every few months.

The Remarkable Rocks really are.

Sea lions and/or seals everywhere, including under Admirals Arch.

Sea Lions or Fur Seals - we couldn't tell the difference!

We drove out to the Cape Borda lighthouse in the north western corner of the island.

Jeez it was a lonely existence being a lighthouse keeper.

We then moved to Vivonne Bay for the next 5 nights

More koalas

A good opportunity to do a bit of planning for later in the year.

We drove around to American River for the morning and had lunch by the water with more seals.

We knew Seal Bay would be a highlight. It was. Hundreds of them on the beach and in the dunes, as well as in the waves either returning from or venturing out to their 72 hour non stop feeding trips which can see them more than 100 km away.

So when they return to land for 3 days, they are exhausted, so spend a lot of time resting on the beach or in the undergrowth above the beach.

Lots of seal pups calling for (and looking for) their mothers who have been out fishing for 3 days' straight, so the pups are very hungry for milk.

Our ferry was booked for 130pm on Monday, so Sunday morning we left Vivonne Bay and headed closer to where the ferry leaves from and stayed the night at Brown Beach.

While there we drove to a winery and had a great lunch, as well as playing a bit of table tennis and whacking the four balls we had left over from The Nullabor links a month ago.

Cape Willoughby lighthouse

The return trip went off seamlessly and we arrived in Victor Harbour, ready to begin the leg towards Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road.

We think we'll take about three weeks.