As recommended by Parks Victoria, I tried booking a campsite in the Lower Glenelg National Park at the Nelson info centre but they weren't biting. Give it a shot, they say, can't imagine they're full.
Went the long way around, avoiding South Australia: to Dartmoor, along some dirt roads, through pine plantations harbouring emus and kangaroos. The town is pretty dead: I sat in the coffee lounge at the general store for quite a while and no-one tried to sell me anything. The wood sculptures on the main street are quite cute, apparently representing some war veterans. Here's some guys sculpting with chainsaws.
Continuing the loop I found the Waterfall Gardens, a beautifully presented private property on Wanwin Road, fronting the Glenelg River. It's a bit pricey at five dollars for a walk and fifteen for two-thirds of a (good) lunch.
On to the Princess Margaret Rose Cave, which is a single limestone stream cave. There's a boat ride there from Nelson. All I can say is don't go on the 2:30pm tour, as that is when the boat gets in. The guide pointed out some tree roots going down twenty five metres and more in search of the water table. (The one with the green ribbon around it.) The area has subsided due to the overuse of the aquifer, manifesting as broken columns in the caves and a lowering of the Blue Lake at Mount Gambier by two metres in twenty five years. Ironically the whole Cave area uses (undrinkable) bore water.
Once again the Smage has been there before me and has all the vital statistics.
Swam in the Glenelg near the jetty there. Almost no current, few boats, quite peaceful. Jetties are not as useful as boat launches for getting into and out of the water. The idea is to avoid a scramble up a muddy river bank, which is where a concrete boat launch is most helpful.
The campsites at the Cave are fairly pleasant, though the choices seemed to be between ones they were watering and ones with loads of ant nests. There's a single hot shower for each sex, and no potable water. The damage is fourteen bucks a night, which (I now realise) is cheap for several people. A little blue wren joined me for dinner, the bulk of which was Heinz's Butter Chicken soup, not bad keep-alive food.
