Baileys Rocks - Coorong

Cherrypool Camp was a nice camp site ideally suited to owning some Kayaks as the river was so close and picturesque, far enough off the highway so the noise doesn't annoy. We stayed a night and moved South to the town of Hamilton and then started our journey West to Coleraine & Casterton where we decided to take the road North to the Dergholm State Park and Baileys Rocks Campground #646 CAW5.


Bailys Rocks was an interesting place, huge boulders laying around similar to the Devils Marbles in the NT. Again the weather was unkind to us with showers & cold winds, we saw no one else whilst we were there which was surprising as it really is a nice camp site.


Narracorte was busy with a local field day, we needed fuel but it was too busy trying to get the rig into a service station without blocking traffic so we drove another 40klms to Padathway where things were quieter. Just past the townsite we turned South again and headed to Kingston SE where Vickie did a small shop whilst i waited with the rig. Parking was limited so i parked in the main street, even though there were no signs or painted lines saying not to park i was aware i had blocked an entrance to the main parking area but with two other entrances to enter & leave i wasn't to concerned untill i started getting abused by some locals who didn't have the brains nor courtesy to exit the car park at either end, one bloke actually drove up to the rig expecting it too miraculously part in the middle. I guess i didn't make too many friends that day but i don't really give a damn, cars have steering wheels, use them.



We have been through these parts previously and decided to head to a nice camp site along the Coorong, 42 Mile Crossing. This is a popular camping / fishing spot with the Ocean Beach 1.2klms over the sand dunes, last time here we walked to the Ocean and up & down the beach and we didn't feel the urge to check it out again preferring to just relax, Vickie busied herself in the van while i went and looked for Wombats, plenty of burrows around and it didn't take long to find one with a large Wombat sitting at the entrance. We also saw lots of Emu's and plenty of birds, 3 other van's came in but they kept to themselves and we had a quiet night.



Onto Meningie and a stop to get some milk & bread, and then down to Narrung where we checked out Long Point #42 CAW5 a lovely spot but inundated with millions of sandflies or midgees, I also saw two 3' Brown Snakes not far from where we were camped, Vickie hates snakes so that was the icing on the cake to leave and check out Mark Point, here it was a lot less bugs and with short green grass no snakes to be seen, we did have plenty of Pelicans to watch and the Mark Mill Point to look at, it is a lovely camp area and we are staying here for two nights at a permit cost of $5 per night which is very reasonable. Vickie spotted a strange object floating in the water and with our binoculars we tried to work out what it was, Vick got to the stage of trying to wave down a passing boat much to my embarressment, luckily they did not hear her as moments later the 'object' gave a flick of the tail and we could see it was a large Seal just floating along on it's back with no worries in the World.

If we were to camp here again we would take the dirt track off to the left and through the gate to the Mark Point Mill, here there is a windmill, trough with plenty of water and lovely grassed camp area.