Limestone Coast: Into the big blue
FROM quaint seaside towns to sprawling vineyards, the Limestone Coast is a smorgasbord of the best South Australia has to offer.
Tourism
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FROM quaint seaside towns to sprawling vineyards the Limestone Coast is a smorgasbord of the best South Australia has to offer.
The beating heart of the region is the town of Mount Gambier which boasts the James Morrison Academy of Music and the best (and only) jazz club in the region where students perform. The Generations in Jazz festival is a highlight for the region, bringing thousands of students from all around Australia to compete in a range of categories. Each year the festival hosts several internationally acclaimed jazz musicians, creating a formidable performance line-up. The focal point of Mount Gambier is the Blue Lake, an enormous meteor crater with a colour ranging between turquoise and stormy grey, depending on the weather and crystals within the water.
“The Blue Lake is at its brilliant best from November to April,” Tourism Industry development manager Biddie Shearing says. “The rest of the year it is a moody grey colour, but still spectacular.” The Blue Lake is one of four crater lakes on the outskirts of Mount Gambier. Some of these lakes provide recreational swimming and boating, but the Blue Lake is to be admired from the shore.
The impressive Umpherston Sinkhole provides an opportunity to meet the very spoiled possums that call the Sunken Garden home. At dusk they are more than happy to take a piece of fruit or vegetable from the hands of adults or children.
Surrounding Mount Gambier are a series of satellite towns whose football teams battle it out every Saturday throughout the winter season. Each town has its own history from the days of its foundation through to the modern industry changes which have given some of these towns a new lease on life.
The meteoric rise of the wine industry, which is split into six zones throughout the region, has transformed shopfronts into busy cellar doors and increased tourism traffic through the once sleepy towns. Penola, 50km from Mount Gambier, has benefited most with the neighbouring Coonawarra wine region employing hundreds of locals and making for a thriving town in a sea of vineyards.
For many of the wineries the busy vintage period starts in late January and stretches until March. In August, a period of calm at the wineries, many of the owners head to the nation’s capital cities as part of the National Roadshow, showing off the best of their region.
The other Limestone Coast wine regions: Mount Benson, Mount Gambier, Robe and Padthaway, are award-winners. On the coast lie quaint seaside towns from which the valuable crayfish trade is based. While the majority of the shellfish is packaged and sold around the country and sent overseas as luxury items, store fronts offer the local shellfish, which can be cooked fresh that night.
The towns stretch for more than 100km up the coast starting with SA’s most southernmost town of Port MacDonnell, extending to Kingston SE near the start of the Coorong National Park. During summer, towns like Robe and Beachport are packed with holiday-makers enjoying the kilometres of pristine coastline.
EXPERIENCE THESE
Penola Coonawarra Arts Festival
May 17-20
Coming soon after the end of vintage in Coonawarra, the Arts Festival takes over the wineries, cafes and performance spaces of Penola and the surrounding towns and highlights the work of local artists.
Coonawarra Cabernet Celebrations
October 1-31
A month-long celebration of all things wine with a variety of events and tastings at wineries including Brand’s Laira and Katnook Estate.
Robe Home Brew and Craft Beer Festival
October
Based at the picturesque seaside Robe Brewery, the Festival is complete with enough tastings and new beers and ciders to satisfy any brewing enthusiast.
NF McDonnell and Sons
Mount Gambier Christmas Parade
November 17
A Mount Gambier fixture which brings the thriving country town to a halt as hundreds of schoolchildren and volunteers join in the procession down the main street. mountgambier.sa.gov.au
FUN FACT
Umpherston Sinkhole was once a typical limestone cave, formed by the corrosion of limestone rocks by seawater waves. It was naturally created when the chamber’s roof collapsed.
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