Day 22 – Travel to Victor Harbor

We’ve arrived in South Australia! And we’re here in Victor Harbor tonight. The Ramindjeri people are the traditional owners of this land we now know as Victor Harbor – they knew it as Wirramulla. We acknowledge that this land was and always will be the land of the Ramindjeri people, and we acknowledge and pay respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

We headed off at about 8am this morning, with quite a few things on our list to see today as we drove from Mildura into SA, through Renmark, and then down through Murray Bridge and onto Victor Harbor.

The first stop of the day was of course the Welcome to South Australia sign! And shortly after that, we pulled into the Yamba quarantine stop, and a quarantine official did a reasonably decent search of the car. He didn’t mention anything at the time, but I read this evening about a fruit fly outbreak in the area, so I expect they’re being extra vigilant.

With the border crossing ticked off, we headed for Headings Cliff – an incredible lookout over the Murray River, just north of Paringa and Renmark. After spending a bit of time looking out and admiring the natural beauty of those cliffs, we headed back into Paringa to check out their Silo Art just beside the main road. The four different paintings on the silos are done so well – they tell four different stories of significant things or people from the region, painted inside four silhouettes of people who have been important for the region.

We headed into Renmark to find a bit of a playground to have some morning tea at and for the kids to run around for a bit. Didn’t really successfully find a playground, so it was AFL marking training with coach Debbie instead – which the kids loved. After hijacking the local shopping centre toilets, we got back on the road with the aim of trying to get to Murray Bridge for lunch – about 2.5 hours away.

We made it about two-thirds of the way along the drive before we hit a little town called Karoonda, and found another Silo Art! Excitedly, we pulled over and had a look. The kids were enjoying finding these with us, and I think they’re enjoying seeing the paintings and hearing a bit of the stories – definitely not enough for a full day of Silo Art hunting, but enough to be happy to pull over when we come across one. It’s been a fun little sideshow.

We jumped back in the car and drove about 30 seconds up the road into the main part of town before the kids spied an epic playground on the side of the road and lost it with excitement. Debbie and I looked at each other and briefly looked along the main road – there was a couple of places that would probably have something decent for lunch (we’d planned on dropping in on a bakery in Murray Bridge), and it was a cute town… so yeah, why not. We pulled over into the carpark and I barely got the car engine off before the kids were sprinting for the playground!

They had a great bunch of time burning so much energy after a few hours in the car. We found a really nice little cafe across the road to grab some food, and we sat at the picnic tables in the park eating it. And of course, there was Nippy’s consumed – because, we’re in SA! Be rude not to.

We headed the 30 minutes or so down the road to Swanport, which is just beside the town of Murray Bridge, on the Murray River. The plan here was to visit the Swanport Wetlands. The reviews and pictures painted this as an incredible oasis of birdlife tucked away beside the highway, with beautiful boardwalks to just enjoy the tranquility. Unfortunately, what we walked into was a stark reminder that only 7 months ago, the Murray River significantly flooded. The impacts of that flood were far and wide – whilst things in Echuca seemed relatively fine, like they’d been able to quickly recover, areas like the Swanport Wetlands that sit at river level were just devastated. The first sign we walked into was just so many overgrown plants everywhere, but quickly we realised that the boardwalks were sign posted as off limits as they were unstable in sections, and there was clearly a lot of birdlife that had had to find homes elsewhere. We spotted the markings on a few trees around the place that signified the water level, and it showed that the entire wetlands would’ve been at least a metre underwater.

I’m sure the wetlands will recover, and I hope the Murray Bridge Council is able to fund the rejuvenation of the area soon. But it was a stark reminder of the impacts of those floods that were, in reality, only a short time ago. As we got back on the road and swung around and back onto the Princes Hwy and over the Swanport Bridge, you could see how the farming land on the western side had just been destroyed, and actually, all the birdlife seemed to have migrated there!

We headed on toward Victor Harbor, winding our way through a bunch of little towns as we headed south east. It was a really nice drive, staying off the freeway, and just passing through each town on our way to the coast. We particularly loved Strathalbyn, and its stunning old buildings and architecture – it felt so similar in its styling to the Cotswolds area in the UK.

We’re just in a motel here in Victor Harbor – we’re only here for a couple of nights, and so the space will be fine. The kids love being able to sleep all in the same room as each other. We’re hopefully going to end up wandering around and exploring Victor Harbor all day tomorrow anyway, so the simple room should be no issue. I think perhaps a key thing to do tomorrow will be to find a space somewhere for the kids to burn some energy – that’s been really important for them the last few places we’ve been at with backyards. The downside (if you can call it that) is that with no kitchen in our room, it’s dinners out each of the nights we’re here. We’ve really enjoyed being in so many Airbnbs throughout this first few weeks, and so we’ve been doing a whole lot of dinners at home with only the odd dinner out. So in reality, it’s not so bad for a couple of nights – it’s more just the extra thinking required to try and find something more than just “kids nuggets and chips” or “kids fish and chips” at the local pub! (As much as I love the local pub…)