Our S.A. coastal adventure – day 1

Many months ago, we were invited to share a journey with some photography friends to Kangaroo Island (KI), off the South Australian coast, of course, we said yes. We have had a few adventures with these photography friends and they are always so much fun.

There is so much to see, do and explore in KI, it really does need several days, even though it is not a very large island. This has been on my bucket list for a while, we just had not got around to exploring this part of the coast yet.

Firstly we had to get to KI, which took up the first few days of our trip…

Day 1

We left Melbourne on a really cold and grey morning and headed off towards Ararat for our first stop. We drove to One Tree Hill lookout, great views of the area, but it was very cold 7°C and howling winds, and it was a little more 4WD than we were expecting on our first day. The constant rain and buffeting winds kept us mostly in the car, perhaps we could explore the area a little more on our return? We drove through Dadswell Bridge (unusual name, must be a story there?) to Horsham for lunch at The Figtree Cafe, which offered a fairly ordinary lunch, to be honest, some friends ate at the Cheeky Monkee(so we found out afterwards)…we should have gone there. We spent the afternoon exploring the area, revisited the Silo Art at Rupanyup…we actually wanted to capture another silo in the area but it was fenced off. We drove out to Taylors Lake, wonderful spot to visit, albeit VERY muddy and still quite cold and windy. We then finally got a break in the weather and drove to Dimboola through barley and canola fields in the sunshine, felt so good. We drove to Little Desert, late in the afternoon, this was my Bucket List destination on the way to KI. I have not been there in many, many years and wanted to see it again, although it has been so long it was like seeing it for the first time. We were greeted by emus and lots of kangaroos and birds. We spent some time driving and walking around until sunset, it was wonderful to see so many Australian animals, sadly there were not as many Spring wildflowers as I had hoped, perhaps still a little early. Little Desert is not a typical desert, like most people expect, it is teeming with life and greenery, especially in Spring. Situated on the banks of the Wimmera River, surrounded by towering Red Gums, with several hikes, walks and camping grounds. We drove the Horshoe Bend Track and River Track before calling it a day. We then headed for pretty much the only Motel in Dimboola for the night. We had dinner in the local Victoria Hotel, actually quite fancy for a country pub.