Mount Gambier

After a couple of great days in Adelaide we drove south towards the Victoria border and a stop at Mount Gambier. Just a few kilometres from the border, this town is close to an extinct volcano which contains a beautiful lake. Each November the Blue Lake, a reservoir for the town changes colour to this beautiful translucent blue.

We walked the three and a half kilometres around the rim of the volcano and enjoyed a multitude of different views of the water below. The path passed through a wide verge with a great variety of vegetation, a perfect home for a delightful array of birds, butterflies, dragonflies and lizards.

This bird is aptly called the Superb Fairy Wren and seemed to enjoy posing for the camera. Others birds we photographed are yet to be identified.

When almost around the lake, we were surprised by this delightful succulent garden built and maintained as a memorial to a succulent enthusiast of the past.

The town is built on limestone with a large number of underground caves. From time to time, the roof of one of these caves has collapsed, the surface, including the topsoil dropped to the floor of the old cave and a sinkhole was formed with the old surface vegetation growing below ground level. This sinkhole is in the middle of the town by the side of the main north south highway.

The entrance to this cave leads into a series of caverns that burrow beneath the town and a mojor highway. Some of the caves are flooded and give divers an opportunity to explore even further through the extensive cave system.

The Umpherston sinkhole is without doubt the star attraction. During the day it is a huge, beautiful hole in the ground but as the sun goes down, the floodlights come up and so do the innumerable possums that sleep in the multitude of holes in the rock face during the day.

They come up to find the tourists who gather to feed and stroke these wild animals.

They seem sweet and cuddly but we saw several assert their position in the pecking order with a viscous snarl and heard of people being bitten on several occasions. If you do visit and want to feed the possums, bring lots of grapes, their preferred food and squeeze them gently so that they can smell the juice. Then stand back and wait for these delightful creatures to arrive.