It's a tough climb...

up Mount Gambier, but worth it when you get to the top. An extinct volcano, the mountain itself as opposed to the town, it is the only relief in many hundreds of square miles of unredeemed flatness, visibility stretching from the southern ocean some thirty miles away to a similar distance the other side.

The mountain was first seen from the sea by Lt Grant, Captain of the Lady Nelson in 1800, who thought it was an island til he got a bit closer.

Just below the peak is a lovely walk through a forest teaming with Roo and other fauna, in particular water birds. Here you can see cjust how high we had to climb to the tower at the top, a monument to Captain Grant and the Lady Nelson.

It was here that we saw our first snake, in all the time we have been here the only snakes we have seen have been dead on the roads, until today. This one is a red bellied black snake, quite venomous so I didn't go too close, and this photo does not show it's head which is in the long grass. It is around one metre long, so most of it is in view here. As I got closer it slid away in the grass.

Further down the hill are three lakes- one of which changes colour by the season. From November to March it is a bright blue, just now in the process of changing to grey. The blue colour is caused by by the limestone reacting with the heat of the summer. The lake being the source of all the drinking water for Mount Gambier, is very well protected with signs prohibiting certain vehicles from the vicinity in case of polution. It is in the caldera of the volcano, below the water table, and is continually filled by filtered water from the limestone underground.

This evening we went to a small park on the outskirts of the town to feed Percy Possum, but the reason there is no photo is that they just wouldn't come out to play!