The Manna House: Waves of heat in Victor Harbour

Our arrival in Victor Harbour was a little disappointing as the heat had followed us and the hoped for sea breezes had completely died .Also our spot in the caravan park was totally devoid of trees and in order to create some of our own shade, we had to park facing the central social gathering tent of 12 or so youthful campers whose tents almost surrounded us. We unhooked our bikes after dinner and had a long ride around the waterfront on one of the many bike tracks. The frivolities of our neighbours, continued well into the night and as we had planned 3 nights here, we requested a move to another spot which we were allowed to have later in the afternoon. We decided to leave the park till then and plonk ourselves down by the water, where the breeze had finally materialised and we were much cooler.Victor Harbour is a delightful town with water everywhere, but not really suitable for swimming. It is very shallow for a long way out, but lovely and clean. Our new site was excellent and even had a tree for some shade, which we badly need for the next 2 days when the heat really cranked up to 42C making it dificult to do anything. We did manage a few short ventures into town. The farmers market was on Sat morning. It was fairly small, but had an abundance of local produce. Marnie did a late night penguin tour on granite island, which is connected to the Harbour by a 650 meter causeway. I didnt feel confident enough to cycle in the dark, so stayed in the RV with the air conditioning on full blast. By 9am the next day, the temp was already 40C so decided to get going to our next destination.Marnie did something to her back while we were packing up, so we headed to Mount Barker where she was able to see a chiropractor later in the afternoon . The main expressway to the Limestone coast, started from there, so it seemed to be the best place to go. By 10.30pm the temp was still 34C, but the next morning it was wet and cold! It was great to see the badly needed rain and it helped enormously, to reduce the catostrophic fire danger for the region we were in. We had a good look around Mount Barker before leaving for the Limestone coast to a place called Hacks point, 25km south of Meningie in the area known as The Coorong.We planned to stay at an Aboriginal cultural wildernss center which had powered sites, a restaurant and offered a cultural experience. However, our arrival was greeted with a closed restaurant, an empty caravan park and not a soul to be seen anywhere. We poked our heads in a few of the buildings, to find that every tap in the place was leaking buckets of water, the laundry was overflowing with wet washing , and we wondered what we were doing there, when we finally found a man and his dog. I think everyone else had gone walkabout. Anyway, we decided to stay after we were offered the use of the ensuites in the bunkhouse, where the taps only dripped a little. It was potentially a wonderful place in which an enourmous amout of money has been invested, but sadly lacking in maitenance. We were unable to have any of the cultural experiences (one ,was the hoped for bush tucker dinner) as the only gentleman there, had just come out of hospital after suffering from heat stroke the day before, and the other 6 staff members were nowhere to be seen. Another caravan joined us just before dark and we chatted to them and watched the fantastic sunset over the Coorong. We saw a few emus disappear down towards the waters edge.
We drove to Robe the next day, a monotonous 170km drive along an almost unbending road with great scenery of pink lakes, salt lakes and endless sand dunes. We are having 3 nights in this lovely small seaside village.The caravan park is on the magnificent beach and just a few minutes walk to the town. The sun is shining brightly and it is a cool 22C and everything in the garden is rosey!
Vicki