"Birding" at Milang, breakfast at Wellington, on a glorious morning

The railway used to come to Milang in the days when this was a busy freight port. The track is disused now...

...the station and remaining cars are a standing exhibit, with Devonshire Ceam Teas serves on Sundays!
You find historic railway exhibits in many rural places, often with a retired steam locomotive.

Main street Milang in the early morning light: the wetlands and lake are on the right...

Milang wetlands; main street is right behind you.

The long jetty, where barges and paddle boats would unload freight. The old crane is still in place.

A brilliant morning on Lake Alexandrina. It'd be a great day for sailing.

The view from the jetty to Paddlesteamer Drive.

Lake Alexandrina -- the shoreline, with Paddlesteamer Drive just ahead. A major caravan park is on the right.

Paddlesteamer Drive in all its glory. For years, Alexandrina Council tried to get rid of these "shacks," but
the folks who live and/or holiday down here are grandfathered in. Well, would you sell out?!

Pelicans next in the reedbeds opposite the shoreline -- see two pictures above.

Gulls, egrets and pelicans gather on the short jetty ... on your doorstep, if you live on Paddle Steamer Drive.

Turn around, look in the other direction: the sky is changing.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s Milang was as busy with trade as today it's drowsy and laid back with
boaties, fisher folk and people like us just staying overnight to share the peace and quiet.

Where you find water, you find gnats, and where you find gnats -- swallows. These are welcome swallows,
common in all coastal and watery areas in South Australia.

Welcome swallows are tiny and rarely sit still. Lucky to get this shot!

Lake Alexandrina is one of the best places in this region for "birders," and especially camera-happy birders. We sometimes try the Goolwa Bird Hide, which is a timber shed with benches and long windows, nestled in the reedbeds just short of the Coorong; but in a half dozen visits we've yet to get really good pictures. The reason is, the water is a long way off, and the birds usually so distant, they're specks in your camera lens.

At Milang, quite a number of birds are not so shy of humans. They'll hang out on the shore and jetties, and it's fairly easy to get good pictures. One of these days I'd like to go to the Bird Hide with a massive 1000mm lens attached to a DSLR camera, on a glorious blue-sky day. But till then, Milang and, just up the shore, Clayton, are the places to be.

The plan was, we'd hit the road early and head over to Wellington for breakfast. And here we go...

The Old Courthouse is exactly that: the original 19th century building that was once used as a lockup and regional
court. Its recently been renovated with B&B rooms added, while the original building houses a museum...

In the middle of the Courthouse facilities was the most fantastic indoor/outdoor courtyard dining facility.
We absolutely loved this ... sad to say, when the building/business changed hands a year or so later, the new
owners redesigned everything. It's not like this any more. Dang. See the sunny archway? Go through it, and --

--you find yourself on the lawns behind the building, with a view of the car ferry. The ferry runs about every ten
minutes, and its free. Across the Murray River is Tailem Bend, and the Duke's Highway.

Above: As you eat breakfast, look out over the river at the flocks of cavorting little corellas which swarm around Wellington by the thousands. Earplugs might be a good idea. These guys are loud even one at a time, and when you get a hundred ... whoa. (Pictures uploaded at full size: click on them to view.)

Back to the courtyard for breakfast, which ought to be just about ready by now --

There's little to add to the picture captions! Milang in the morning light was glorious -- though it was rather cold, which you can't tell from these images. The day warmed up rapidly, however, and by the time we were in Wellington it was almost hot.

The Wellington Courthouse is a great cafe/B&B, with a nice line in breakfasts and a fascinating local history musem. We haven't used the B&B yet, since we always stay about 45 minutes up the road at the Milang Lakes Motel, but we've had breakfast at Wellington Courthouse many times. It's a great place to stop and fuel up for the day before taking the ferry over to Tailem Bend. Must do the B&B there one day.

Today, we were just meandering, and birding. The whole object was to see what species we could find and photograph, and we lucked out on the shore of Lake Alexandrina, as you see above!

After breakfast we were headed for Rusticana at Langhorne Creek, and the Goolwa Barrages, and then we'd swing home in a northbound loop via Mount Compass. One more post will wrap up this trip!

All posts in order: Naracoorte 2009, done and dusted

Alexandra Cave, Naracoote 

Naracoorte 2009: Preview
...where we're headed, what's on the agenda, from wetlands to wet caves and a dry lagoon,  limestone caverns, Larry the Biiig Lobster, the Coorong, and a lot more.

St. Andrew's, Strathalbyn

Strathalbyn and points east
Cloudy skies in the morning ... Wellington Ferry ... Tailem Bend for lunch, and on into grain country -- Coomandook, Coonaplyn and Culbara. 

Land Rover on a Pole: Keith

Keith - Padthaway - Naracoorte
The Land Rover on a pole (the real deal!), the wind harp, and the swimming lake ... it's a long haul from Tailem Bend to Naracoorte!

Wonambi Fossil Centre

The Wonambi Fossil Centre and the Alexandra Cave
Breakfast by the lake ... wrestling skeletons at Wonambi ... and let's get underground on the Limestone Coast!

Megafauna!

Megafauna! And ... where's the water? Bool Lagoon in 2009
Extinct creatures are brought to life, we step back in time in the Wet Cave, and then the bird sactuary of Bool Lagoon turns out to be ... well, in a word...

The Big Lobster, Kingston S.E.

Fossils and Ibis and Lobsters -- oh, my!
The Victoria Fossil Cave ... Thylacaleo in person ... ibis in profusion, horses on vacation, the world's oddest sundial, the lighthouse that came ashore, and -- Larry the Lobster himself! In other words, Naracoorte to Kingston S.E., in time for lunch.

The Coorong, near Salt Creek

The Coorong at last -- and the sun shone!
The Princess Highway ... Salt Creek ... a lot of black swans and a little bit of history ... and the Coorong is so pretty in the sunshine. Perfect!

Murray River, Wellington Ferry

Meningie - Wellington - Strathalbyn: almost home
Leaving the Coorong, heading home via the dairy country and Meningie on Lake Albert. Around the Lakes District to Wellington, which has been invaded by parrots; then evening light over Strathalbyn...

Meningie - Wellington - Strathalbyn again ... almost home

With the weather changing, it was time to leave the mesmerizing world of the Coorong, headed --

-- into the dairy country around Meningie, where ... ye gods! The UFOs have landed! No, it's just water tanks,
crowned with quite an array of microwave relay aerials. 

Hang a right: we'll be circumnavigating Lake Alexandrina on the way home...

"No Diving," says the sign ... while diving would be a pretty neat trick off Meningie's old jetty -- which ended
long before it reached any water, in 2009! This is Lake Albert, which connects with Lake Alexandrina" We're used to
seeing the lakes from the Milang Side, of course.

Meningie is a popular destination in the region -- a much bigger town than Milang. But we prefer
the peace and quiet of the Milang area.

As you round the lake and approach the Wellington Ferry from the east side, one thing you can count on
is that the weather will be changeable. This shot, and the next, are actually borrowed from our 2011 trip to
Mount Gambier, but they illustrate this point so perfectly, why not borrow them?

Change in the weather (in 2011), waiting for the Wellington Ferry to come back across...

...and here's the exact same place in 2009. Get out of the car, stretch the legs while waiting for the ferry...

A long, long zoom shot of colonial ruins which stand abandoned not far from the river. The region is
full of history drowsing side by side with technology.

There goes the ferry on its way to Wellington. We just missed it. Ten minutes later --

Here it comes, headed for Tailem Bend. Time to get back in the car -- they don't take long to unload.

Halfway across, shooting out of the window -- and already hearing the ruckus! Like Strathalbyn, Wellington
is the home to huge flocks of little corellas ... and when they mill around, they shriek as only wild parrots can.

Little corellas are cousins to sulphur crested cockatoos -- both are common in South Australia.

Invasion of the little corellas! They were everywhere at Wellington on this trip in 2009.

...the trees are full of them, and every ten minutes they'll take off, swirl around in a great cloud,
shriek for the sheer fun of it, and then settle right back down again.

The road back to Stathalbyn takes you through miles and miles of agriculture.

And here we are back at Strathalbyn, where we began --

Ducks graze the parklands, while the Angas River bridge heads across to the bandstand and, beyond, the church.

Wall art ... actually, it's the public rest room beside the park, and -- never miss the chance to
decorate a wall, right?

Detail from the wall art at Strathalbyn ...

-- the work is astonishing, and so beautiful --

-- an unexpected pleasure in the evening light, just before we headed for home.

Evening light o the towers of St. Andrew's church. And now ... time to head home for dinner: we'll
be there in an hour or so.

From the Coorong through to Meningie, all you can do is put your foot down hard, let the Princess Highway zip past at the speed limit, because there's not much there (though it's not as desolate as the area between Milang and Lanhorne Creek, which might as easily be a location on Mars). As you get closer to Lake Albert, on the shore of which Meningie sits, the air becomes, um, shall we say "redolent with the aroma of agriculture." In other words, it's dairy country, with about a thousand times more cows out to pasture than there are people in the region ... your nose will certainly confirm this statistic!

 Meningie itself is a popular holiday spot for folks from far afield; it's quite a large, busy town, though we much prefer the depthless peace and quiet of the Milang-Clayton-Finiss region on the "home side" of Lake Alexandrina. In 2009 the water levels were low (too little rain -- which is becoming way too predictable in South Australia of late; troublingly predictable), and we could only chuckle at the sign stipulating "No Diving!" from a jetty that didn't get anywhere near the lake. Interestingly, "Meningie" is an Australian Aborigine word meaning "mud hole." One imagines the climate used to be a whole lot wetter in the past! (The map to left is a screencap from Google -- see it full sized, if you want to get a grasp on the geography -- it's quite readable.)

Then ... Wellington Ferry again, and the run through to Strathalbyn, where we stopped for a stretch of legs, snack and tea (or coffee, if you prefer; the picnic basket is always well stocked), before we headed home. Wellington had been invaded by little corellas in 2009, very likely the same flocks as gather in Strathalbyn too. They're great to watch, not so great to listen to, since they're LOUD!!

With evening light settling and dinner in mind, we headed straight for home ... which, on the above map, and at the time, was approximated by the "Marion" you see due south of Adelaide. (We've moved since then.)  And "it's a wrap!" That was it for another road trip. Now, where to next?!

• Dave covered this part of the trip with all due hilarity in "The Journey Home: Final Leg."