Penola, a saint and a sinkhole.

I stopped in at Penola for lunch, and while I was walking around I saw this sign. Petticoat Lane. How could I NOT take a look here?

Apparently this street got its name because in the 1890’s so many girls were born here. It has quite a few National Trust houses and one of them was open.

Gammon Cottage’s front gate was ajar so I prowled around the yard. It even has the old well!

Have a read in the next photo of what happened to the builder of this cottage when he went to find gold!

Not everyone who went to the goldfields had a rollicking good time.

This is one of Sharam’s cottages. This couple had so many kids that he had to build another house next door, just to house them all.

This reminded me of Wordworth’s cottage in the Lake District.

The roof was only just above my head and I’m only 5’2″.

And people have the gall to say that I have a large family. Compared to this couple, I was positively restrained! Only 4 boys.

At least the poor woman ended up with one nice room.

This is inside the original cottage which was only divided up into 2 rooms. As you can see, the wall didn’t even go up to the ceiling. Not much privacy going on here…

But look! At some stage she got a pump to get water instead of a well. LUXURY!

The garden out the back is still run by volunteers. There was a woman working there when I walked through and we started chatting. At first she was merely polite but when I showed that I recognised most of the herbs growing here, she warmed up and I walked away with a packet of lovage seeds from the garden. I’ve never grown lovage before. Its like a strong tasting celery.

Growing food means that you can bond with people wherever you go.

Next door was the McAdam slab hut. Anyone who wants to romanticise the lives of the pioneers should have a quick look inside this place.

I would NOT have been happy in this place. Can you imagine the wind whistling through all of those cracks in winter? Plus every neighbourhood Peeping Tom could be glued to your every move and they wouldn’t miss a thing.

Penola also has a museum dedicated to St Mary McKillop. She started off her teaching here and due to her efforts, Penola had the biggest library in South Australia outside of Adelaide. I guess that’s what happens when you raise the literacy level of an entire district by educating every child, not just the rich ones. People need reading materials, once they know how to do it.

I knew very little about Mary McKillop, aside from the facts that she was on the $5 nots and that she’s Australia’s first Catholic saint. I don’t have a religious bone in my body. I decided to invest $5 in an entry fee to the Mary McKillip museum and see what I could find out.

First I went to the church where they have this little ante-room where you can have a chat to her, if you’ve a mind to.

I went to the museum but the only new information I came away with was that she and her fellow nuns were excommunicated for a while. Can’t remember why, but the bishop who did it reconsidered on his deathbed and lifted it.

The $5 fee also allowed entrance to the schoolroom where Mary and her fellow sisters taught school. It was all a bit interesting but for me, once is enough.

I jumped in the car again and made it back to Mt Gambier. I drove around the Blue Lake again, then headed for the Umpherston Sinkhole.

This was originally just a huge hole in the ground but the guy who owned the land back in the 1890’s decided that summer in South Australia was too damned hot. Why not build a pleasure garden down in the big hole where it was so much cooler?

It was about 4PM when I arrived.

You walk along the top of it…

… and then you see this.

Down the steps you go.

View from halfway down the steps.

Imagine being able to punt along in your own lake…

I wandered around here for. little while, then decided I could push on a little bit longer. It was that time of day when it was too early to think about stopping, but too late to think about driving for too much longer.

I saw some cool things as I drove along to Portland for the night.

There were contented cows.

This farm decided to put old bikes at the entrance and up the driveway. I suppose that’s one way of making sure that when they give directions to their place and say, “You can’t miss it,” then they’re correct.

Lots of pine plantations. It worries me to think of bushfires happening here – pine trees go off like rockets.

I got in late-ish to a cheap and cheerful motel. One thing I’ve found about motels for around $100 a night – they don’t include bowls in the crockery they supply. So annoying if you’ve planned on making oats for breakfast and you have a sneaky tin of baked beans to have for a dinner.

But I wasn’t going to let them steal my rights and repress me. If I want a disgustingly cheap dinner in a sad motel room then I’m going to have it, dammit!!

Baked beans in a mug… mmm mmm!

The dinner of champions.

Costs of the Trip:

Running total so far: $1,935

Costs for Day 8:

Entrance fee for Cave tour: $35

$13 lunch

$5 St Mary McKillop musuem

Accomodation: $108

Total for Day 8: $161

Running total: $2,096