15.3.11 – Holes in the ground

15.3.11 – Holes in the ground  (Mount Gambier, South Australia)
 

Blue Lake, Mount Gambier

The town of Mount Gambier, as the name suggests, is built around the foot of a mountain. It’s not a massive mountain – the drive up to the campsite was gentle, and pretty limestone bungalows accompanied us all the way to the top. But this is no ordinary mountain. It is a volcanic crater – one of several in the vicinity. Bill had heard of this place often when he was a little boy at school, and had always wanted to see it.

So as the morning sun rippled through the trees onto the grass below, we walked out of the site and across the road. And there it was – a massive, deep bowl-shaped crater, perpendicular slopes tumbling downwards, trees clutching at them. And in the middle, enclosed on all sides by cliffs of stratified limestone, lava and solidified volcanic dust like layers on a cake, lay a large lake of brilliant, azure blue, 500 metres across and 77 metres deep. This, not surprisingly, is named the Blue Lake, and it fully lives up to this title - it’s so blue you can’t take your eyes off it. Even more mysteriously, it turns to an ordinary grey in the winter in the space of about three days. Odder still, there is another lake, just over the other side of the campsite, also in a crater, and it is a totally different colour - a sort of greenish silver. There seem to be various opinions as to why this happens – one is that the water is exceptionally pure, but in winter, calcites from deeper water may rise in the cooler temperatures reflecting the light differently. But all I know is that it is beautiful, glowing like a brilliant deep blue sapphire set in an immense ring.

Meg in a Wattle Bush

We walked all around the rim, on a path with regular viewpoints, and shaded with Drooping Sheoak Trees, whose leaves were fronds of thready dark greyish green, with yellow tips, and Wattle, tiny yellow flowers dusting its puffy rounded shape. Clouds of white and orange butterflies kept us company, and little brilliant red beetles with blue green metallic-type markings crawled busily across the path.

Bill in Umpherstone Sinkhole

Meg amongst the ivy

The whole area is built on limestone, porous and full of water. The water dissolves the limestone, making caves and sinkholes – there’s several in the town. One park has a deep cave at the bottom of a large hole. Another has a sinkhole – the Umpherstone Sinkhole, named after the chap who installed a garden within it. I imagined a little shallow indentation, full of busy lizzies or daisies. Walking towards it through the little park, we came to a wall, about waist-height, covered in ivy. Peering over this, we gazed at a totally unexpected immense, deep hole, about the size of a football pitch at the bottom and about 100 feet deep. Long curtains of ivy cascaded in gentle folds from top to bottom, partially hiding the stairway down, so that we felt as if we were walking through a green leafy cave. Way, way below us, tiers of gardens were filled with pink hydrangeas, huge green broad leafed plants, and bright green grassy lawns, sprinkled with a few tourists, lolling in the sun.

Umpjerstone Sinkhole

It was a place with atmosphere, and we got even more of this when we returned in the dark, to see if we could espy the possums whose home this is. It was mysterious in the dark, the lights shining through the ivy curtains, making them look like trailing black lace. Looking up from the bottom of our deep limestone bowl, the stars and moon glowed in a circle of deep blue sky far above us. And we did see two possums – or rather Bill did. I saw one and a half, as I looked away at the wrong moment. They are nocturnal, about the size of a cat, with a small head, huge eyes and a long ring-marked tail. They moved noiselessly, and as we waited quietly for them to appear, the mystery, silence and secrecy of the whole place was palpable.

It’s with some regret that we move on tomorrow, as Mount Gambier is a truly lovely and fascinating little town, bright, clean and full of very individual buildings and parks. But on we must go, because we are ‘Grey Nomads’, as the Australians call retired people like us, whose caravans are forever cluttering up their road system.