Chasing Horizons #28: Stormy Mountains and a Magnificent Coast – Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

By: Phil Rado

Stormy Mountains and a Magnificent Coast

My trip through the Outback Red Centre was completed when our bus arrived in Adelaide on the evening of Sunday, 20 October. However, my time here would be somewhat rushed as the next leg of my Australian odyssey would continue by departing Adelaide early on Tuesday morning. This would really only give me one day to explore the South Australian state capital.

The city centre itself is a well laid out, square mile grid bordered on each side by terraces appropriately named North, South, East and West. Surrounding the centre on all sides are lovely European styled parks with the Torrens River bisecting the North Parklands.

Early Monday morning I set off to do the good old fashioned “Lonely Planet Walking Tour” of the city. I walked up the main street, King William Road, which runs north/south through the city centre; I passed grand old buildings like Edmund Wright House, the Town Hall and the impressive Main Post Office. These gracious buildings were built with plenty of style and testify to Adelaide’s colonial heritage. Near the north of the city I turned left onto the pedestrianised and modern Rundle Mall, this was now Adelaide’s cosmopolitan heart with department stores, shops and glitzy cafes. One more block to the north and I was on another of the cities main thoroughfares, North Terrace running east/west.

I continued east along North Terrace with the University of Adelaide lining one side and on I passed another grand old building, Ayers Historic house made from elegant bluestone. This was once the home of the early SA premier, Sir Henry Ayers – of Ayers Rock fame. It was getting warm as I reached the end of North Terrace and entered the main gate into Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens. Here I walked the network of paths through exotic and indigenous plant and trees. Amongst the foliage are two magnificent plant houses, the tropical rainforest conservatory and a Victorian glass building, the Historic Palm House. Out the back of the botanical gardens I headed back west along the banks of the Torrens River. The river runs along the back of the Adelaide University and here many young students spilled out onto the lawns and benches, putting in some last minute swatting for the upcoming end of year exams.

Back at King William Road, this crosses over the Torrens River, connecting to the trendy and just a large suburb of North Adelaide. This is where I saw an imposing bulk of St Peter’s Cathedral with its two massive spires. I decided to poke my head in here and the cool, dim interior was a welcome respite from the now hot day. This cathedral was impressive, the interior dï¿½cor matching the best cathedrals in England. Back outside and just next door was the Adelaide Cricket Oval. Although largely deserted except for some young cricketers training on the oval I walked around the ground so that I would recognize some landmarks the next time I watched a televised cricket test from this venue. On the north bank of the ground under the main scoreboard I was offered a great view of the Adelaide skyline towering over the main stand. I had my quintessential photo of Adelaide. Continuing with the cricketing theme I popped into Institute building, part of the State Library. It houses an exhibition of memorabilia associated with Australia’s greatest sporting hero, cricketing legend Sir Donald Bradman better known as the “Don”.

I walked back down King William Road pass the South African War Memorial, which honors those South Australians which fought in the 1899-1901 Anglo-Boer War. As I walked I noticed that all the street names changed as they crossed King William Road, Hindley Street becomes Rundle Street (or Mall as it is known these days), Waymouth Street becomes Pirie Street, Franklin Street becomes Flinders Street and so on. This I believe had something to do with nobody being allowed to cross the “King”. I arrived back at my hostel late in the afternoon tired, hungry and thirsty.

I could have stayed in Adelaide longer for it is a lovely city. But time stands still for no man and I had to make tracks to Melbourne. At seven the next morning I left Adelaide on a Groovy Grape bus heading east on the South-East Freeway. This is a new road cut through as it climbed the Adelaide Hills, a mountain range that can be seen peeking through the horizon at the end of the city’s eastern running streets. Once we surmounted the Hills we came out onto rolling farming countryside with green and pleasant pastures. Soon we crossed Australia’s longest permanently flowing watercourse, the Murray River. The Murray rises in the Snowy Mountains in NSW and forms the border between that state and Victoria. It is the only state line that is not basically a straight line. The river flows through mainly farming areas and is used as irrigation and contains many pesticides washed from the farmlands. This is probably the main attribute to Adelaide’s notoriously bad tasting drinking water.

As the weather worsened, many towns rolled by each with its own towering grain silos and not much else. The bus company named all of its buses after famous Australian cricketers. Our bus, I noticed much to my discomfort, was christened “Warnie” after the scourge of many of South African cricketers, Shane Warne. I decided to rename our bus for the journey to “Jonty”, and we all came up with “Caddick”, the new name for the trailer after England’s kiwi bowler, because they always come second. We journeyed along the Dukes Highway to imaginatively named Bordertown before heading south to the small town of Fraces where we actually crossed the state border.

So on into state number four. It had become a cold and blustery sort of day with low cloud cover and chill wind. I swear it was the first time I had not seen a sunny day since leaving Western Australia. Welcome to Victoria. As we made our way to the Northern Grampian mountain range I noticed that these country towns are very partial to the sport of bowls – old man’s marbles – even floodlighting their bowling greens. My dad, an avid bowler, would appreciate this.

Moving on into the state of Victoria I noticed a series of low mountains loom up on the horizon. The first of these cliff outcrops was Mount Arapiles and Mitre Rock, just west of a town called Natimuk. This state park is one of Australia’s most popular spots for rock climbing. Even on a cold, mid-week spring day like it was today the camp site in the shadow of the towering cliff rock face a sprinkling of climbing enthusiasts had encamped. We had lunch before exploring the many tracks and climbing routes to the top of Arapiles.

After lunch we drove on into the Northern Grampians proper. At one stop we did a bushwalk up the hillside near Mount Stapylton through thick bush of gums trees and palms we came out on the edge of a cliff face to find some Aboriginal rock art. This was the Gulgurn Manja shelter and was used by tribes long since disappeared from this area to teach young Aborigines about their laws and land.

Interesting there are still many farms in this area. The sheep pastures were teeming with hundreds of red kangaroos that bounced off as we drove by. Once in the hills and in still worsening weather we came to the Mckenzie Gorge and clambered up a series of cascading waterfalls contained within high cliffs. The top of the climb culminated in a sheer rock face over which the river falls over 100m. Literally alongside the Mckenzie Falls a steep wooden staircase ascended to the top of the cliff and we were drenched by spray from the falling torrent. Still we had more to see and as dusk closed in for the day we arrived at Reids Lookout which is a fire lookout atop the Grampian Ranges, but darkening skies and inclement weather made it difficult to appreciate the views that spread out all around us. That evening we holed up in Brambuk Backpackers in Halls Gap. That evening a storm howled and raged outside and I thought back to the hot humid days in Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. I was only there a few short weeks previously but it now seemed a world away.

Next day the bus driver once again followed the road that wound through sandstone cuts in the wet gum forest. We went back to Reids Lookout to get the 360ï¿½ panoramic view of the surrounding mountain ranges. It was still freezing cold but the view was spectacular, the gum forests covered the mountains for as far as the eye could see and to make scenery even more serene nestled within valleys were Lake Wartook and Lake Bellfield. But even these magnificent views only confirmed to our guide that the worsened weather had settled in making more bushwalking impossible. Instead we went to the ergonomically shaped Brambuk Aboriginal Culture Centre to watch a video about ancestral dreaming and the “creation”.

Moving on through the western district on a road between the Serra and Mount William Ranges a break in the weather afforded us the opportunity to climb a small outcrop with the African diminutive name of Piccaninny. Here we got great views of Mount Abrupt and Mount Sturgeon and across the swamps and plains leading up to the Southern Grampians. But while descending, the infamous Victoria weather got us again and we were drenched by hail and rain. This meant drying off with a cup of coffee in the small town of Dunkeld before heading on further south towards the south coast. We drove through rolling grasslands and on through the Irish named town of Koriot. Now the landscape was dotted with extinct volcanic cones and it was over one of these crater ridges, at Port Fairy, where we at last spotted the windswept Southern Ocean. More out of finding shelter from the wind than anything else we descended into the crater and lunched alongside a lake beneath Eucalypt trees with koalas sleeping high in the branches.

Now we proceeded east along a coastal road, and we were in cattle country. I could tell when saw one cow humping another in a field along side the road. The rather large town of Warrnambool was dominated by a large Nestle factory and kiosks offering cheese tasting. Its proximity to the ocean meant the air was very clean and the surrounding countryside, river and creeks hardly polluted.

By late afternoon we made it to the start of the Great Ocean Road. The road winds its way along the coast following dramatic limestone cliffs that tower above the ocean. It is a fact that the destructive forces of the ocean is slowly eroding away at the coastline making Australia infinitesimally smaller each year. Not far out the sea is dotted with rock stacks, arches, grottos and blowholes. We stopped at a gorge carved out of the cliffs, the Bay of Martyrs and gazed back as the setting sun silhouetted the formations of the Bay of Islands. Despite the inclement weather this scenery was fantastic.

Finally we came to a natural rock arch quite close up to the coastal cliffs. This was London Bridge, which was once a rock platform linking the stacks to the mainland. Visitors would run across the fragile precarious walkway to access the seaward stub. In 1990 it collapsed, sending tons of rock debris into the surf below stranding two startled but miraculously unharmed tourists. Rescue helicopters were dispatched to rescue the fortunate pair and it was well covered by the press. Subsequent follow-up stories on the couple revealed that although the two were married they were not in fact married to each other. Busted! I am sure next time they will think twice when skiving off for a dirty weekend.

We arrived in Port Campbell Township, a secluded enclave between two headlands. Our home for the night was Port Campbell Ocean Backpackers which was really just a house on the beachfront and our group pretty much had the place to ourselves. So with the fire lit and music playing on the stereo we ate a hearty dinner whilst again the weather continued to rage outside.

Again I awoke to a cold and blustery winter-like morning but we still had much to see along this famous coastal drive. First up was Loch Ard Gorge, which has a sad tale to tell; In 1878 the iron-hulled clipper, Loch Ard, was completing its journey from England. As is customary on the final night of a voyage much merry making is had by passengers and crew. The Loch Ard was driven onto rocks around nearby Mutton Bird Island (the bird apparently really does taste of mutton). Of the 55 people aboard there were only two survivors, a merchant sailor named Tom Pearce made it onto the beach in the gorge. Eva Carmichael clung to wreckage and was being pounded by the surf. On hearing the cries for help Tom swam out and rescued Eva, but being weak all Tom could do was make Eva comfortable in the shelter of a cave whilst he went to seek help from a nearby sheep station. Tom and Eva were both 18 and on their arrival in Melbourne the press of the day picked up on the romantic aspects of the rescue and speculated on a romance between the two. But Tom, being penniless (in those days sailors where only paid on completion of a voyage), soon departed aboard another ship and Eva returned to her native Ireland. The two never saw each other again.

Close by we viewed more formations, Island Arch and Razorback. Then we were at the Twelve Apostles. This is another of those postcard icons that the tourist agencies use to promote Australia. I distinctly remember seeing advertising posters of these formations, bathed in subtle orange light, when riding the London Underground to work every day. Well, they were as gorgeous as the posters promised and I was not disappointed. Before leaving these limestone formations we climbed down Gibson’s Steps to a treacherous beach to view the towering Twelve Apostles from ground level.

Now the Great Ocean Road cuts inland for a while to bypass Cape Otway to the south. Here pine forest plantations dominated with ugly scars left across the land where the trees had been felled. Apparently there is a move to replace these forests with more politically correct, indigenous gum plantations. All of a sudden the countryside took on a distinct, rural England feel. Sheep grazed on green pastureland with creeks and streams winding across the fields. But typically, just as you have this non-Australian thought something typically Australian turned up – a kookaburra perched on a wooden fence, or a flock of sulpher crested cockatoos grazing. In the Melba Gully State Forest, part of the Otway Ranges, we stopped to walk through a cool, temperate rainforest. This place was like a scene from the cartoon movie Fern Gully. The giant eucalypt trees gave way to mountain ash, Myrtle Beach and huge tree ferns. The place was typically damp but boardwalks meant we could traipse through and explore this gully of diverse vegetation.

Now at Apollo Bay the road again reached the coast and turned in a north easterly direction getting ever nearer to Melbourne. This original part of the Great Ocean Road is torturous, spectacularly winding its way along steep, wooded, semi-tropical hills which plunge straight into the sea. Every now and again we would sweep around a sandy bay where Victorians had built small towns like Kennett River, Lorne and Aireys Inlet. These towns are popular holiday retreats for Melbournites and can become crowded and rowdy during the Christmas/New Year period. Finally we made it to Bells Beach, another famous beach immortalized in the film Point Break. More realistically it is also the venue for the Bells Beach Surfing Classic held over Easter. We stopped and watched some knarly surfer dudes catching waves off a good left break.

We quickly passed through the town of Torquay, which used to be a sleeping coastal backwater but is now the capital of Australia’s surfing industry. Rip Curl and Quicksilver have their headquarters here. Another 20 odd kilometers and we had soon bypassed the bayside city of Geelong and were hurtling down the Princes Highway approaching the city of Melbourne. The M1 is a four-lane freeway that connects Melbourne to its neighbor, Geelong. From as far as 30km away the Melbourne skyline is perched on the horizon and seemingly grows as the distance to the city diminishes. It reminded me of the Johannesburg skyline of my childhood which similarly sits in the far distance to the west as my father drove us to school each morning.

So eventually in the evening of October 24, I drove over the West Gate Bridge which impressively spans the Yarra River. Our bus driver dropped me off at the Spencer Street Station. I sat there amongst my belongings and waited for my best friend from Cape Town, Juan and his fiancï¿½, Rï¿½ne, to collect me.