I'm a bit late posting because internet access was limited over the weekend. On Saturday I travelled from Mount Gambier to Adelaide by coach - a distance of about 400 miles. It took six hours. On Sunday I travelled from Adelaide to Perth by plane - a distance of 1800 miles. It took under three hours. I curse the six hour coach ride, but I also know it would take at least three weeks to walk and not much less in a bullock dray, which is how the early settlers of Mount Gambier would have arrived.

The south-east of South Australia is replete with history. It cannot, of course, boast the kind of history that has ancient monuments and centuries-old homes to document its passage, but it has deserted old farmhouses from a century or more ago, and a fascinating landscape that includes defunct volcanoes and limestone caves. Aborigines lived in the area from time immemorial but tragically, they were rendered extinct by white settlement over a hundred years ago.

There is much to love in the Mount Gambier district, but its winter is too cold for me! I am glad to be back in the relative warmth of Perth, which lies some three or four degrees closer to the equator. I have two house-sits lined up here and lots of people to catch up with, too. I'll do a proper post next weekend, when I am fully settled in.