April 26th, 2011
Mount Gambier
Distance: 23km
Total distance: 1930km
At Mount Gambier, I am about midway between Melbourne and Adelaide, hence a perfect place to take my rest day. Apart from cleaning and maintaining my trike and laundry, I did what every other visitors of Mount Gambier did – checked out the famous Blue Lake, a 70m deep lake in the crater of an extinct volcano.
It was only a 5km ride up to the crater and wow, the lake was really blue! Apparently its not blue all the time, it changes to grey nearing winter. The other lake was Valley Lake with a normal lake colour but this gives you a comparison of the blueness of the Blue Lake.
My next stop was the insane Cave Garden in the City Centre. It’s insane because there’s a freaking cave right behind the city hall! Not just any cave but the opening is a sinkhole the size of 2 basketball court. This place is so awesome! Mount Gambier is definitely not an ordinary city!
Next unusual thing I saw was another sinkhole, about ten times larger than the Cave Garden, called the Umpherson Sinkhole, named after the owner of the sinkhole who popularised it in the 1860’s. My jaw dropped when I first saw this sinkhole. This place is so surreal. I liken this to a real life fairytale setting, the council did a fine job of beautifying this place with various native and exotic plants. I spent more than an hour here taking photos and simply admiring the beauty of this sinkhole. I reckon if they manage to somehow attract a few wallabies and birds here and there, this place would be megatastic!
