Day 129: Meningie

This morning we packed a picnic lunch and off we went to explore the western end of the Coorong around Lake Albert and Lake Alexandria near the mouth of the Murray. It is interesting country as you have the two fresh waterlakes and then the Coorong which is very salty water and full of bird life. The Coorong is actually the narrow strip of salt water east of the Murray mouth which runs for 140 kilometres. If you have seen the movie "Storm Boy" well it was set in the Coorong near where we drove today. At no time did we lose a phone signal but you still feel like you are in pretty remote country.....

We visited the tiny aboriginal settlement of Raukkan which sits beside Lake Alexandrina - it is famous because of David Unaipon....... if you look at one of our $50 notes, you will note on one side an aboriginal man standing beside a small church - the man is David Unaipon, (1872 - 1967) who was an Australian Aboriginal of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. He was the most widely known Aboriginal in Australia in the 60s and broke stereotypes of Aboriginal people. On the note, David Unaipon is standing beside a church - this church is also in Raukkan and David used to preach there. Refer to my photos below.

After visiting Raukkan, we visited the Point Malcolm Lighthouse (had to get there on a vehicular ferry) which was Australia's only inland lighthouse - it was lit to mark clearly the narrow waterway between Lake Alexandrina and lake Albert when these lakes and the Murray were used extensively in the 1800s by paddle steamers. It operated from 1878 to 1931.

Tomorrow we will drive down the Princess Highway along the Coorong. We may end up spending the night in a free camp so we may not have a phone signal or Internet tomorrow. After leaving the Coorong, we plan to visit Nuricoote to see the world heritage listed caves - probably on Wednesday.