Cave Garden, Mt Gambier

The event I attended was in a theatre near the town hall. I had time for a 5 minute wander before lunch break was over. There is a very tidy rose garden...

Oh, here's a path, I wonder where that goes?

It goes towards a massive hole in the ground.



I had no idea about this sinkhole in the middle of town, so I found it quite surreal - ordinary street, nicely planned gardens, then stairs descending into the bowels of the earth... well actually only to a couple of lookout points.

It looked pretty dry but apparently there is a waterfall in winter.

Mt Gambier - Crater Lakes

Last week I had a work trip to Mt Gambier, and managed to carve out a little bit of time to be a tourist.

Very close to the town is the stunning Blue Lake. The lake sits in an extinct volcano crater and changes colour at different times of year. I don't think I saw it at its most turquoise colour, but you can see hints of it in the shallower parts around the edges.

I had been dropped off by taxi to make the most of a spare hour before I was due at the airport. It was a hot day and extremely windy up there in the lookout area. It seemed a slightly crazy thing to do with my (smallish) luggage, but I changed into more sensible shoes and slogged up what seemed like 100 or so steps, to see what the view was like from the higher lookout.

When I got up there, I was disappointed to find a lot of trees and foliage obscuring the view - I'd been hoping to see the shape of the lake/crater better - but I did enjoy those glimpses of the farmland beyond the lake.

The photo below is the lookout over the Leg of Mutton Lake, in another crater right next to Blue Lake. I think its water level is very low, I couldn't see the lake but loved that curving line of pine trees.

I thought it was gone forever

Then I found Armytage again.

The 'Side Saddle' colourway reminded me enough of the old 'Sticky Date' that I just had to order several balls of it and make more brown pears. Indeed, these are brown/white/grey pears, but I'm just as happy. I certainly could manipulate the striping to just get browns, but I quite enjoyed just knitting the pears and letting the colours fall where they would. The four below (pre-felting) are from a single ball.



I did order a few other colours as well. And now that I have confirmed it really is the same old Armytage, I won't be able to resist stocking up again soon.

Do these glasses make me look smarter?

This is my new favourite brooch, made by Carly Altree-Williams. There are available here.

I think it is delightfully surreal. And I always kind of wanted to wear glasses. In fact I'm the only member of my immediate family who doesn't.