Naracoorte

We decided to break up the trip to Adelaide with a stop over at Naracoorte.  We got away  by 10am – this a recurring theme for us, and pottered up the Riddoch Hwy for an hour and half.  This was the start of the onslaught of warm weather.  Gone the cold, blustery cloudy days: Hello sunny, hot and 35+.  We arrived at Naracoorte Caves NP and were happy to pay the extra $2.50 it cost to have a powered site to run our Air Conditioner.  The park was pretty empty and we had our pick of sites.  A quick lunch in the cool van and it was off to do our cave tour at Victoria Fossil Cave.

The 700m walk through the dry scrub reminded me of why people die in the desert if they leave their vehicles.  It was ‘only’ 39 degrees and only 700 m but hooley dooley.  The caves were a beautiful 17 degrees – yay!  The cave is the site of a world-class fossil find and was interesting but nowhere near as impressive as Jenolan caves.  We learnt about Australia’s megafauna which (we think) the kids found interesting.

Victoria Fossil Cave Naracoorte

Back out into the heat and we quite sensibly decided to have a picnic dinner at nearby Naracoorte’s public pool.  This is an impressive man-made ‘lake” the size of 11 Olympic pools, chlorinated, with a beach edge on one side and a diving pontoon in the centre.  All free and open 24/7 from December to March. Beautiful on a cracking hot day.  Puts Newcastle council to shame.

Naracoorte Pool

One thought on “Naracoorte

  1. Called in to see Tim & Karen recently. They were in the middle of painting their hallway, nevertheless, an opportunity to catch up. Naracoorte is the home of one of my Navy chums – Wacker Walker and his lovely wife, Peg. Both were on the land until they retired into town. I didn’t have time to visit the caves when I was there in 2004, however I understand they are really worth while. Have been looking at contemporary descriptions of the Murrumbidgee floods in 1844 and 1852. Also am on the track of Jack Peisley, the bushranger who was arrested at the inn at Mundarlo – or was it the inn at Tarcutta? Contemporary news items have two conflicting versions. I would prefer the Mundarlo version as my grandfather was born at Mundarlo, the home of his grandparents. Happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow. At some later stage I will tell you what befell me on Friday the 13th. Cheers, John