Day 144 - Encounter Bay, 18th November 2025

The alarm went off at 6.45am - way too early after not enough sleep! The view of grape vines from our wi die was pretty cool though.

I took one last look (and pic) of the house and off we went.

It wasn’t long before we were over the border and into South Australia. We stopped at Karoonda for some much needed coffee and a look at some more magnificent silo art.

We continued on to Monarto Safari Park. 

The weather was beautiful. We hopped on the shuttle bus and got dropped off at the first stop to go and see the cheetah.

The park has a hop on hop off shuttle bus and also 12 kilometres of walking trails. We walked from the cheetahs down to the waterhole, passing a female ostrich we think may have been sitting on eggs and a couple of lizards on the way.

We made it to the waterhole,

and saw the biggest herd of giraffe in Australia.

The chimpanzees have a huge area and there were lots of them, including a baby.

We continued on past an awesome rhino sculpture,

an emu,

and then of course couldn’t go past the meerkats.

We hopped back on the bus and headed to the next stop. These wild Mongolian horses were something new to me.

The elands came over to get a closer look at us, including two babies, one only bought last week.

The bus took us past the cheetahs again,

and then we headed to the lions.

The beautiful mural at the exit to the park was done by a very talented vet at the park.

Back on the road, we headed to Encounter Bay to catch up with Meryl and Geoff. They have a beautiful home at the top of a very steep hill.

The view from their balcony is magnificent.

We had a great night catching up with them,

and getting my doggy fix from their gorgeous Labradoodle Henry.