firstly, apologies if the pics are a bit large for some. i've recently built a new PC with windows 10 and have yet to figure out how to resize pics....
so, just a couple of shots..
arriving at the visitor centre.
campsite
we were blessed with pretty good weather all weekend. it was quite cold the first couple of nights but we had enough bedding so after the first night we adjusted the amount of layers... our queen sleeping bag (oztrail) is apparently rated at -5c but after the weekend, i'd have to question how they come to that conclusion. thankfully we had more rugs to put on. the days were quite warm and on the it got quite windy toward the end as well.
the only drama we had was with our gas cooker. the jury was out on whether we needed a regulator on the gas bottle and in the end we didn't use one. this turned out to be a mistake. in the mornings and evenings it was fine, but at lunchtime we were having issues with massive flare ups. had to have the gas turned right down to control it. bottle wasn't in direct sunlight but it was out and must have been enough to change the pressure in it. the gas cooker was also borrowed off a work mate and had been sitting around for a while. it worked fine friday night and sat morning, but come sat lunch time, along with the flare ups, it then decided to get blocked. after a bit of a panic, rushing in to naracoorte to see what options were available and finding everything shut at midday!!... ended up buying a cheap kettle from woolies as the camp ground had a power socket in the bbq area.. common sense kicked back in and i decided to pull the burner apart. long story short, i managed to get one burner working and the other one could get a small flame going but not really enough to do anything. at least we had a burner again though.
apart from that, everything went pretty smoothly. the caves were awesome and plenty of bush walk trails and wildlife to keep everyone entertained. did a trip to Mt Gambier on monday to look at the lake and the sink hole which were both worth the trip.
all in all, it was quite a success i would say and the general consensus was that it would happen again.
next time we would organise a bit more storage, just to keep things tidy, and probably some more lighting. we kind of underestimated the lighting situation, but we also discovered you don't have to spend big dollars to get by. we picked up a couple of LED lights from a cheap shop in naracoorte for $8 each, and they actually worked really well. mind you, they weren't really built to last, but if you are stuck, and need something quick, they did the job.