Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Drove straight to Victor Harbour in the morning. The countryside here was rolling hills and tree-scattered pastures. This was the southern part of the Mount Lofty ranges.
Victor Harbour was a pleasant coastal town and quite obviously very popular with tourists. Its only an hour and a half from Adelaide, and so easily accessible. It was still school holidays in SA
and there were plenty of people and kids around. Yet this was winter and it wasn't quite the season for the place. We could imagine what a bustling place it would be in summer. Just a mile off the shore of Victor Harbour is Granite Island. As the name suggests it is formed of granite and is strewn with plenty of granite boulders. A bridge connects the shore and the island, which allows pedestrians to stroll over. There is also a horse drawn tram that connects the shore and
island. It is a famous icon of the area. The island lies in Encounter Bay, so named by Mathew Flinders, because this was where he encountered a French explorer who was also navigating the coast of Australia at the time, in his ship the Geographe. The island has a colony of Fairy Penguins and there is a tour after dusk if one wants to watch them return form their sea trip. We took a walk around the island. The sky was absolutely clear and it was pleasant in the sun. A lady we met along the way told us that the previous day six whales were sighted in the bay where they spent the day. We looked out for them, but saw none. On the southern side of the island the boulders had been eroded into interesting shapes, much like the ones on Kangaroo Island, but on a smaller scale.
From Victor Harbour we headed towards Adelaide. The route passed through McLaren Vale, another famous wine-producing region of SA. It seemed that the whole of SA was one big vineyard! We had lunched in a pleasant picnic spot which overlooked acres of vineyards, and after that made our way to the celler doors of the Wirra Wirra winery. There we did some wine tasting. It was fun, and the young man who served us was very helpful and friendly.
McLaren Vale is so close to Adelaide that it is almost a suburb of the city. And so in no time we found ourselves in Adelaide. We drove to Henley Beach, where our friends Helen and Tony live. This was our first major stop on the trip and we'd be spending two days here.
