Visited Naracorte then stayed overnight ay Horsham

Naracorte nunnery to be demolished
see all photos »

Unfortunately we left Mt Gambier after a lovely sun rise and a little shower of rain and headed for Penola and the bottom end of the Coonawarra region of wineries. First port of call was The Poplars and it has a great restaurant for those who wish to stay longer and a short time cafe, wine and cheese tasting areas and a specialty food area. Very friendly staff whom both listened and knew their products. We left with a big bag of cheese, some melt in your mouth feta in olive oil and some buffalo cheddar and lemon flavoured sheep milk yogurt. On to Wynns Coonawarra winery and Helen tried a few more wines, she wasn't fussed with Poplars but the Wynns came to the taste and we came away with more bottles of wine. Then we looked for Kidman Wines and the gateway going in was on a funny angle and I didn't want to try it with the van attached so we kept going on up to Naracoorte. An interesting little town and we stopped at the end of the main street, parked and had some sour dough bread and some of our new feta cheese. Then after such a lovely lunch we went for a walk down the main street. Helen found a Nepal products shop and bought a couple of beanies and some lovely coloured scarves. I got talking to the lady running the shop and her brother turned out to be a Vietnam Veteran, another National Serviceman drafted from South Australia, but he committed suicide in 1979. I talked to her about all the help Vietnam Veterans can tap into these days and a special program for those who have suicidal tendencies, but it is too late for her brother. But I was able to give her the web site to get information on his service and she was very happy with that. Helen went off to the Post Office and I followed, but our paths didn't meet and a fuming Helen turned up at the car half an hour later after she had searched the town for me. I was busy photographing the buildings and the rosemary flowers. The Nunnery has been bought by Woolies and is to be demolished, how terrible is that. The town has divided and some want it to stay, some don't care and the council has commissioned a mover to pick the building up and move it to another site at a cost of $800,000 plus the land cost of $80,000. And some of the town think my way that the existing building could have its interior redesigned to turn the old building into specialty shops. We are now 180kilometers north of the Great Ocean Road at Horsham and tomorrow we'll continue to head toward Hay.

The power of the Dollar always wins