Mt. Gambier is a small town (pop. 35,000) and sits at the base of several extinct volcano craters. The volcano craters have large lakes in them and they are amazingly crystal clear blue in color, almost saphire, especially during the summer. There are numerous hiking trails around the rims of the craters and along the mountainsides. Steve is an engineer for the public water company in South Australia so we had our own private tour guide and he took us down to the aquaifer for one of the crater lakes, Blue Lake. The next day Carol drove us out to the Coonawara wine region- this is another great wine area in South Australia- and you really get the scale of how much wine is produced here on a national and international level. There were miles and miles of vineyards with rows of grape vines as far as you could see.
The area around Mt. Gambier also is really know for its underwater caves and diving. There are some very deep caves formed by the limestone, which make for some excellent scuba diving in the lakes. The whole bottom half of South Australia is know as the limestone coast. The town also has some neat little shops and main street area. The weather for the weekend was pretty cold and got down to about -5 (@ 22F) overnight. This caused a frost in the morning, but it is not nearly as cold as it gets in Denver durning the winter. We visited some neat ponds and lake areas and made our way out the beach for a little bit as well. Kim enjoyed her visit to Grant High School and Mt. Gambeir high school as well - she got a chance to see the differences in schools compared to Hamilton where she is teaching now.
Underwater reeds at Piccany ponds in Nelson.
Sunset at the beach near Nelson.
The volcanic crater lake, Blue Lake in Mt. Gambier.
Rural countryside around the area of Mt. Shank
The bottom of the aquaifer in the volcanic crater lake, Blue Lake - Mt. Gambier
Rymill Winery in the Coonawara wine region.
Sunset along the Coonawara wine region.
