Australia Day in Meningie

There is an annual fun run starting from outside the caravan park every Australia Day, as well as a 5 km and a 10 km run. I have been psyching myself up for the last 24 hours, I even did a couple of stretches at one stage, but Tracy tells me that trying to climb over her in the middle of the night to get out of the van bed isn't classed as a true stretch. I am sticking with my story.
We dragged our athletic bodies out of bed at around 8:15, only to find the races started at 7 am. I was so disappointed, that I fired up the Weber and cooked some sausages, bacon and eggs for a traditional breakfast. I even thought about cooking some for the rest of the family at one stage.

The kids spent the morning swimming in the lake, whilst we sat in the shade of a Coolibah tree, watching over them enjoy their time in the waist high water.

After lunch, I packed everyone into the car and went exploring, as I like to do. I had seen on Google Maps some indication of dirt roads hugging the edge of The Coorong and curling back up to Narrung, so I wanted to go and see for myself. There was a mild smattering of interest from Tyler, whilst Tracy and Kayla fought the urge to sleep, and Dylan buried his nose in his book. I found my way down to Long Island point which had the potential to be a great campground, but even on this mild Summer's day, the wind would have driven me crazy if we were there. Great scenery though

We headed back along a road that had more corrugation than Stratco's fencing section, which kept everyone in the car a little more alert than usual. Next stop was Marks Point and then finally Pelican Point, where, unlike Google Maps, the road actually stopped at a set of gates and we had to turn around. Rather than going all the way back to where we started, I took a gamble that Google Maps was mostly correct and that the dirt road we had travelled on so far, did eventually get us to Narrung. The first sign of civilisation was a little town called Raukken, which is home to the church that appears on our $50 note. According to Google, this town has 95-100 people living here. We saw their houses, their church, their school and their general store. But we didn't see a single person! It was literally a ghost town that was immaculately maintained.

So off to Narrung, over the ferry, past the only inland light house in the Southern Hemisphere, and back to camp for a drink or 3 to finish off a very different Australia Day for me.

The kids have banned me from taking them on a drive tomorrow, so it looks like we are going on a few hikes to see what can be seen on foot instead.