First on our list this morning was Mercato. We wanted to visit, and still leave before the 10am park checkout in order to get to our next stop, Victor Harbor, as quickly as possible.
Fortunately the store opens at 7:30, meaning we had plenty of time. We got there around 8am and Teresa spent a lovely hour perusing their wares. She was happy because she had the whole store to herself! They were a little more upmarket than the Italian stores we usually buy from in Melbourne. We bought some staples, plus some sliced meats from the very well stocked Deli.
We packed up the caravan and left spot on 10am. While packing up, I met our neighbours – a retired couple who had been travelling in a caravan for years. They have a laminated map of Australia on their caravan showing where they’ve been. They’ve driven on almost every major road all around the country. I asked them their favourite place, and they answered WA. The laminated map is a good idea. We’ll organize something like that.
The Drive to Victor Harbor
It took a while to get out of Adelaide. Although Google Maps i’m sure takes us the quickest way, it seems to always find the hilliest route – which isn’t perfect when towing the Caravan. If I were to make two alterations to Google Maps, it would be: 1. Follow a level track and 2. Keep to main roads.
The scenery was stunning though – particularly once we got to the hills and could see the sea in the background. You would think after spending a week in the Adelaide hills, we’d be sick of mountains, but not so!
Victor Harbor
We arrived in Victor Harbor around midday and checked into a lovely caravan park called the “Victor Harbor Breachfront Holiday Park”. They kindly set is up away from the amenities. Actually, away from everyone else! We’re in a lovely grassy area at the back of the park. The closest van is about 50m away.
We setup the caravan and I took Leo for a walk around the caravan park and the beach. While it’s a protected beach – most of the large waves crash offshore – I don’t think it’s as good as our beach in Cowes. It will do though. I think Leo recognized sand, because he lead me towards the water as soon as we stepped on it.
Next we headed out to see what was around. Teresa wanted to look at the op shops here, and I wanted to visit the information center to see what was on this weekend. There are lots of activities, but most of them, unfortunately, are indoors or inside transport which makes it hard for us to participate. There is a farmers market tomorrow morning which we will definitely go to, then we’ll play it by ear.
We have booked for 2 nights here (2 night special – 20% off!) so will have all of tomorrow. However, we both really like the park and what we’ve seen of the town so far we may decide to stay here a little longer. We’d like to stay a week, but that will cut out Great Ocean Road trip more than I’d like too. There is so much to see!
After dinner, we went to The Bluff which is an outcrop of land at the end of the bay. From there we were able to see the whole bay, as well as the next one. We timed out trip to be close on Sunset to make use of the best light for photography. I used my good camera to create a panorama and will stitch the images together for posting tomorrow.
The temperature should warm up tomorrow. It was a very pleasant 22 degrees today, but will reach 28 tomorrow with some wind before a change and showers on Sunday.