March 28, 2026
VICTOR HARBOR, is a popular coastal town in South Australia, known for it's beaches, wildlife and heritage attractions like the horse drawn tram to Granite Island and their whaling history. It is about 80 km south of Adelaide, and was our third stop on the Viator tour, where we also had a yummy fish & chips lunch included. Below shows the bridge walkway over to Granite Island, it was lovely soaking up the sunshine.
The native lands are highly remembered and noted throughout the area, along with the whaling history. I thought it was interesting that they pointed out that when the whales returned to the area after the 1860's, so did the shark and seal populations. I never really thought about the effect the whaling industry had on the whole ecosystem before.
Some days I just don't want to sight see! My birthday was one of them. I just wanted to indulge in a good movie in a comfy, cool theater, eat some popcorn and follow with a yummy lunch! That's exactly what I did, despite some of my friends trying to convince me go on a 5 hour van to see 2 gigantic temples.
The ancient temple of Soo Poo Kong was our next stop. We were all wilting in the heat by then, but they promised an air conditioned room for a 20 minute movie on the history - so we rallied! Basically, the Temple was erected as a thank you to the Chinese Muslim Admiral Cheng Ho who let the fleet stop here on their way somewhere else in Asia back in 1416 because his helmsman, Wang Jing Hong, was sick. Wang recovered from his illness in a cave on this site and built first the statue and then the temple to thank Ho for his life.
SEMERANG is the capital of Central Java , the world's 13th largest island and the 5th largest in Indonesia. Despite it's size, it is the world's most populous island, holding over 150 Million people (over 55% of Indonsesia's population). Today, I did a 50 person bus tour of some of the Semerang's history , so I could cover a lot in one day.