18 Feb: The March of The Chinamen. The Coorong

- February 24, 2023

We wandered around Robe in the morning, visiting the old jail and the Robe Obelisk, which was in danger of falling into the sea and could only be viewed from afar.

The Robe Obelisk was built in 1855 on the point of Cape Dombey. It was used as a landmark to navigate the entrance into Guichen Bay and to store rocket fired lifesaving equipment for stricken ships

Long Beach outside Robe. It's... long.

The old Robe jail.

Then we wandered up the coast via Cape Jaffa, which we blinked and missed. At Kingston SE we stopped for smoko and a quick peek at the beach before taking a photo with Larry the Lobster, because that's what you do when you travel through Kingston SE.

The stuff of crustacean-based nightmares.

There was a bit more to Kingston SE than Larry of course. Namely, the Cape Jaffa light house, sadly closed to self guided tours.

The Cape Jaffa lighhouse was not land based. Unlike at Cape Otway, you couldn't run out to the farm and complain to the pigs about your fellow lightkeepers. Here you lived on the bottom floor, worked on the second floor, and had an itty bitty balcony on which to sulk if sulking was necessary.

Life boat from the Olivia, which traveled 12000km after going AWOL whilst the Olivia was in the process of wrecking herself off Nightingale Island, half way between South America and Africa. 99 months later the lifeboat washed up at Salt Creek in the Coorong and was nabbed as a fantastic addition to the Kingston SE historical collection.

The whole point of the day was not to hang about Kingston SE but to explore the Coorong on the way to Meningie, so explore we did, wherever the limitation of two-wheel-drive and time would allow us.

We had lunch at the 42 Mile Crossing, the last point at which it was possible to cross the lagoon of the Coorong to the sandhills that separate the lagoons from the open sea. At this point the lagoons were more salt than water and the scenery was stunning - sparkling white salt pans; heath in shades of red, purple, grey, and green; and bright blue sky.

Yes, some people see a salt lake and immediately think 'How far can I drive out before I get bogged in that?' Not that I can get too sanctimonious - there were a disturbing number of bicycle tracks heading out across the salt to get bogged too.

Next on the agenda was Jack's Point, looking out over the low islands which provide sanctuary for nesting pelicans. The pelicans of the Coorong turned on a fantastic display for us, at least 30 of them playing in the air currents above us.

Then we came to the Chinamen's Well, one of numerous wells built around 1856 on the path walked by Chinese heading for the goldfields around Ballarat. Seeking to avoid the 10 pound/person that Victoria insisted on gathering, they disembarked in Adelaide (and later Robe) and walked across the border to Ballarat instead. There is hot debate amongst archaeologists as to whether the well we saw was built by Chinese overlanders, but general agreement that it was used by them as they struggled with heat stroke, exhaustion, and dehydration.

This is where the well-builders dug out a circle of granite, lugging it several kilometers to use as a lid for the well. Whoever they were, I take my hat off to them for accomplishing this feat of luggage.

We had a brief stop at the very-slightly-pink lake for the sake of photographs.

I've seen pinker.

But it was still very pretty.

We found our home for the night at the Lake Albert Caravan Park, with waterfront views of the lake and the fishing jetty where two industrious young men spent several hours catching, as their girlfriends so eloquently put it, "Lots of H2O molecules!"