The area is made up primarily of limestone, which is very prevalent as a building material, and so very different from home. Adjacent to the caravan park was a very short (2 minute) walk to a lake. The photos need to be seen to be believed - the lake isn't surrounded by sand, in fact I don't think there is any sand at the lake at all. Instead it is surrounded by very lumpy, craggy, bumpy rock. I wondered if it was either a sinkhole or a part of an extinct volcano, as the area used to be volcanicly (I think I made that word up) active a long time ago.
The kids had a great time playing with the foam that had been whipped up by the wind. It was really weird as when you rubbed the foam on your hands, it was like rubbing them with liquid soap. I guess it was because of the minerals in the water. I can't imagine what it would be like to swim in there. I don't know if people do, but they do use that lake for water skiing so I guess you could.
The town is quite old and you can see the historic nature of it in many of the houses and buildings.We visited the Old Gaol, which is really just a bunch of limestone rocks outlining the layout of the old gaol.
Rory loved the obelisk on one headland. It really is quite classic in its red and white colours. It is all fenced off and you can't get too close to it any more as the coast is eroding and they expect that it will one day fall into the sea. There is a lighthouse (which Rory really loves) just a bit further around the next little bay. I didn't get a photo of it as it was built in the 1970s and is really a stunning (stunningly bad) example of 1970s architecture. It was a star shaped concrete structure with a base about 3.5m wide and the top was 5m wide. I thought it was hideous but Greg thought I was too harsh saying that.
We also saw two seals feeding in the water off the headland near the obelisk. We have now seen seals in the wild 3 times but this is the first time we've seen them doing something other than sitting on rocks.
The kids loved riding their bikes at the "mex" track and skate park. I thought it was quite clever to locate it right next door to the ambulance station, which we fortunately didn't need. Greg decided to relive his youth and rode Tilda's bike on the big kids BMX track and the skate park. Tilda and Rory discovered that the skate ramps are actually quite slippery and you can slide on them (head first, on your tummy, if you are Rory).
There was quite a funny conversation in the back of the car one day. It went like this - Tilda "it's a pyramid" Rory "it's a obelisk". I never thought a 2yo would be correcting an 8yo on the term obelisk.
I was just thinking how different this blog would be if we were travelling either without kids, or with older kids. It would probably give you a review of the different places to eat and the interesting shops we explored, rather than the parks, playgrounds and lighthouses we saw.
Robe is a nice town and was a nice stop for a couple of days. Being off season it was very quiet, and the weather was blowing a gale yet again so even the locals stayed hidden I think.
Beautiful scenery.
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