Day 15 - Woornambool to Beachport

Ulls: Not that there is anything wrong with Woornambool, we just had to get moving.

We decided to cheat and have Hungry Jacks for dinner, and after hearing how the cashier Jenny's been goin' out with Taylor for like a year, we finally got to eat and hit the sack. But our night in Woornambool was a bit tiresome, with Torsten carrying out some servicing to the bike and getting up early to watch the Socceroos go down the way the did to Italy. Here's one for you all:

Q. Why does Italy never do well at the Olympics in the Diving category?

A. Cause the best divers are in the football team!!!! Ha! I laughed when I heard that.

So, what was our target for the day? We had no idea, just as close to Adelaide as possible. On the Princess Highway, we were slowed down again. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a Koala sitting about 2-3 metres back from the road. Not wanting to miss my chance at seeing one in the wild, I shuddered to a halt, swung around in a not so elegant fashion, and puttered back to where the wild animal was sitting.

Cutting my engine, my bike quietly came to stop in the gravel beside the road. I was a little excited as my only previous experience with a Koala was at a sanctuary in Brisbane. First things first, I grabbed the video camera. Crossing the road to get a closer look, and the little fella looked a bit worse for wear. He was bleeding from the nose, but there was no other indication that he'd been hit by a vehicle. Torsten finally got the hint and had returned to meet me near our native friend.

After a little discussion, and recalling seeing signs posted throughout Victoria with injured wildlife help lines, we decided to call someone. Within a few minutes, Tor was speaking with a lady from some service for injured animals. While he was on the phone, a road services ute came rushing along the road and we hailed the driver. We thought it might be quicker if the driver could take the Koala to a sanctuary nearby. After some back and forthing, she suggested that we should let the people on the phone handle it, as the only local people she knew would probably just put it down in a ... how should I say? Not particularly nice way.

From there we left the Koala in peace for what was probably his last minutes and moved on. We did struggle a bit from there, with headwinds and my bike seeming to struggle, we rode through plantation forest after plantation forest to reach Mt Gambier for lunch.

Windfarms in the background

Mile upon mile of bouncy country roads (SA Highway)

Pine plantation forests

We soon left the wood chip capital to make for the limestone coast and took a route called the Ports Way. The landscape changed dramatically to a coastal, sandy sort of quagmire of sorts. Don't get me wrong, the beach was spectacular, just the wind and surrounding lands a bit repetitive when you are only travelling at 75kph average speed. We hit the not so pumping town of Beachport and set up our tent for the first time. I could say a lot more about Beachport and the limestone coast in general, but I might have to save it for the book, Right Around Australia, when we have it published.

We've realised we need to get a few things when we get to Adelaide, as we were a little dissorganised as a camping unit. We survived, however, and I have to say camping in the cold is a lot easier than in the heat of summer. Quite comfortable, yet, a little cramped. We have so much gear that must be kept in the tent, and it's all bulky stuff like jacket, helmet, technical gear and so on. So we had to set our cocoons up touching each other and just deal with it. Camp site $19, Coffee and Food for the evening $5, needing to pee at 1am at 5 degrees ... Priceless!