The Journey Home. Kingston SE to Salt Creek

I am amazed. Not a single one of you have asked why a town is named Kingston SE instead of just Kingston. Well, fine then. I won't tell until someone asks --nicely.

I do thank y'alls good thoughts and such that headed my way. I can actually chew again! Oh, the feta cheese came out GREAT! Expect a post about cheesemaking over at Dingo Dave fairly soon (yes, I know I've been neglecting it).

Just in case any of you have forgotten where we are (directly above the centre of the Earth, BTW) on our return journey, let me refresh your mammaries --oops, memories.



Oh crikey struth, stone the crows, stiffen the lizards and pickle me granmothah! THAT map will just never do. Here, I'll grab some crayons and help ya out mates!



There! Now everyone knows what's going on. Right?

The first bit is really thrilling...



And DANGEROUS!

It's hard to tell from this pic, but with the looooong, flat, hot road with the sun beating down on it, the shimmering mirages were everywhere. Passing a slow moving vehicle was NOT fun. Fortunately most folk were doing 100 to 120 kph so it wasn't much of a problem. But I did have to pass a few times and even though a straight may be miles long, you just couldn't tell!

Saw a car almost get smashed by a semi... Wee-Hoo! Gotta love The Prince's Highway!

See the thin white stuff on the horizon? That's the top of the dunes of The Coorong. They are a couple of hundred feet high, and in 25 million years they could have the cave structure you've seen at Naracoorte!



We were going to take the loop road around...

but it was 20 kms of washboard. No thanks.

I think it's a shame that folks have to be reminded...



And here we arrive in beautiful, bustling downtown Salt Creek.



Here's a close up:



The place kinda reminded me of roadhouses up in Alaska. Well, once you got away from Los Anchorage that is.

And any place that has a chalkboard out front telling you which sections of the beach road are washed out, how many vehicles have rolled over there recently and where to get the best snappers, sharks (bronze whalers) can't be all bad. Plus they even encourage you to take ya rubbish and take idiots rubbish out!

This really reminded my of Alaska. Well, except for the beach part...

Salt Creek is known as the southern gateway to the Coorong. And they are right.

Who is that big, tall, handsome, pony-tailed bloke in the red shorts?

This is where we drove up:



See the dashed line on the left of the map going across what looks like water? In the summer you can drive across!

Provided you've got a 4 wheeler, of course.

There are hiking trails galore!

Personally, I think Nakun Kungun is Ngarrindjeri for "let's see how many dumb tourists we can get to walk through mosquisto infested swamp" or something similar to that.

Oi! Mates! We found some swans!

Something you may not know is that swans down here in Oz are black and they have a red bill. These are also some of the first ones I've seen that aren't in parks. Meaning they don't start swimming over to humans looking for handouts.








There are loads of wildflowers everwhere.




We even found an apple tree that had self-seeded:



And now back to the swans, jus' cus I like the reflections.








Sometimes they get hungry



But are we REALLY sure they are feeding? Let's just zoom in a bit and find out what is really going on...

Yep, that's what I thought.

At first I thought this bloke was a baby blue-tongue, but I'm now pretty sure he's a gecko.



If you want to learn more about the Coorong, then just

go here,

and here,

and also here too.

Did anyone get the above SP reference?

Hey look! There's oil in them thar hills!!!!





Instead of me grinding me poor ole fingers to da bone, how's abouts I jus' give ya the danged-gummed signs and youse all kin reed abouts it ya-selfs. Harumph.









They just don't make em like they used to:




Coming up next: Policeman's Point, a place I'd love to live at, and the first counrty town I didn't care for.