I had a moment of confusion when I woke to find bars on the window high above the cell door.
An inmate's shower awaited me in the morning. The water was cold and there was no shower curtain in the bathroom.
Breakfast was included in our accommodation cost so we ate in the Chapel kitchen along with the other inmates. Before checking out we completed the self guided tour of Mount Gambier Gaol in 30 minutes. This consisted of a wander around the prison enclosure beginning at the governor's and the turnkey's offices, progressing on to the main exercise yard which had a mural painting on one wall, which was painted by the prisoners, and squares marked on the ground to make roll calling easier for the prison officers. Along one wall of the exercise yard was six of the original cells, one of which was where three prisoners had spent their last few hours before being hanged. The other cells were built much later on and were much smaller. Through to the other exercise yard and the Chapel area and the long term cells, one of which was our cell last night, and the enclosed area where women prisoners were housed in recent years. It was a very informative tour aided by the 'cell notes for guests and prisoners' which was left in our cell.
We left Mount Gambier and followed the coast road to Kingston SE where we stopped for lunch. It was only then that I realised we had spent the last 24 hours on the wrong time! When we crossed the state border into South Australia we gained 30 minutes but failed to notice, despite the radio announcing what we thought to be the wrong time an hour previously. Over lunch I watched small birds fly in and out of our car radiator grill, seemingly treating it as a play thing.
The afternoon was spent driving, I dozed while Ian drove, and we stopped only once for a stroll to Jacks Point pelican viewing area only to find a distinct absence of pelicans and on one other occasion for a photograph of extremely white bright salt fields by the side of the road.
We arrived in Adelaide at 18:00, did some laundry and researched cyber cafes before dining in a bar serving Moroccan food. The food was good and was washed down with beer followed by cake and hot chocolate.
Our journey from Mount Gambier to Adelaide covered 471 kilometres.
Back in our semi luxury family room with ensuite and balcony we discussed our plans for the next week.
I photographed Ian's feet this evening as a record of his first sun tan in thirty five years. He's very proud of his zebra feet. Bless him.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.