Penola/Millicent 13^th December 2014

The day started with breakfast on the decking with hardly a cloud in the sky and the expectation of high temperatures.

Sheila takes breakfast

We decided to split the day with a spot of site seeing in Millicent, which boasted a living history museum, covering the period of the settlers in the early 1800s through to the early 1900s. This included a collection of horse drawn vehicles, farm machinery, women’s clothing and a room on ship wrecks off the south coast. Outside was one of the blades from a wind turbine. 

Mike takes a shave!

Sheila (nee Holden) took a fancy to one of the street murals.

Real or imaginary?

On the way we had spotted a lookout point near Mount Burr, which we noted before we had time to stop so on the way back stopped to take a look. The lookout wasn’t well positioned being too close to the high trees of Mount Burr Forest.  However, the static display boards were quite informative about the forestry industry and how it had developed. One of the largest employers in the area is Kimberly Clarke, who Sheila recognised as the suppliers of paper products, such as paper towels (Kim wipes). They have had their disasters in the area with one fire devastating 16,000 hectares of forest.

Mount Burr Forrest Lookout

The choice of the trees was undertaken via trials back in the 1800s and the tree species pinus radiate was shown to not only be fast growing and well adapted to the climate but was also able to provide the appropriate products for pulp as well as for building materials. These trees are grown for 40 years before being felled. Forestry is a major industry in this area and the gross value of timber-based producds in South Australia (SA) is $1.3 billion. The annual harvest of SA would make a line of loaded log trucks parked end to end from Adelaide to Sydney!

In the afternoon we headed onto the Coonawarra wineries and sampled a number of wines, well Mike did, Sheila was the chauffeur! The history of some of these wineries was sometimes more interesting than the quality of the wines. The climate here is on average 16C and this might be too cool to generate the intensity found in the more northerly wineries of NSW.

Coonawarra's seasonal surfer

Our final sightseeing of the day was a walk down Petticoat Lane, Penola.  Here there are some original homes built in the 1850s and 1860s, with hessian sack lined walls, simple timber frames and roof tiles made from bark.