21 Mar 10 – Naracoorte SA

By Lou: Was exciting to be in another state, our 5th so far. We stopped at the first winery of the trip, Coonawarra Estate. I know you wouldn’t believe that but often (especially Tasmania) we’d drive past wineries on the way to some pre-planned destination and say “we should do that on the way home” but of course by 5pm upon our return they would be closed and no matter what time of the day it was, it was never going to be appealing to Sam. So we cut to the chase and bought a 6 pack (no room for the dozen) and consoled ourselves that that represented our sum total of South Australian winery visits.

Naracoorte Caves were great. Sam and Craig hated all the rules about not touching and not crawling through tunnels but despite that we all found them pretty impressive. We observed bats though live infrared cameras and walked through chamber after chamber of caves millions of years old.


The fossil exhibition was fun for Sam with lots of things moving and tunnels to legitimately crawl through.


By Craig: I found it fascinating that the caves had developed over millions of years and unfortunately as you toured around you can see where humans had broken stalagmites and stalactites. In fact, as we went on our tour the guide informed us that in previous times, around the 50s, the caves had been a popular picnic meeting place for families who had played cricket there, evidence of which was a
cricket ball stuck in a pocket in the roof. The darkness of the caves and filtered light also presented a challenge with the new camera. In general it was a good experience.