After crossing the border from Victoria into South Australia in our camper van we travelled up the Limestone Coast. It’s an area of volcanic craters, caves, and unspoilt beaches. Cute little seaside towns sparsely dot the coast before the wild expanse of the Coorong National Park greets travellers on their way to Adelaide.

We had been doing quite a lot of driving that week, as I recall, and found ourselves on the old road between Mount Gambier and Robe with a little black cat who desperately wanted to stretch her little legs.

Note: This story is part of a collection of photo sets that I thought I’d lost from our epic journey across the span of Australia in 2023 from Hobart, Tasmania to Exmouth, Western Australia.

It was on that old road that we stumbled upon the ruins of the Kangaroo Inn which had been built in the 1860s from local limestone. It had once been a bustling stopover for drovers, travellers, and even mounted police escorting prisoners to court in Mount Gambier.

But on this particular day it was hosting a traveller of the feline persuasion and proved to be the perfect little rest spot for a cat and two tired humans. Willow was quick to jump up onto the stone wall and survey her surroundings.

The inn now sits in ruins with the shingled main roof long gone and many walls crumbling under the harshness of the dry Australian heat.

Willow thought the old oven was of exceptional interest and was a little annoyed when I hurried to shoo her out of the dusty thing. Perhaps she was expecting someone to cook her up a feast!

A board on the wall provided some history on the old inn including an extract from the 1863 diary of Commissioner of Public Works, William Milne, who noted the ‘good dinner served in excellent style … with coffee afterwards’.

Without a meal on offer, Willow padded down the old hallway that once led to the traveller’s rooms, sniffing at the old stones.

The State Records of SA indicate that publican, John McDonald, licensed the inn in 1861, though rumour has it beers were being served well before then. An array of publicans followed, however the license was left to lapse in 1878. In 1882, George Kershaw sought to renew the license, however this was rejected due to the inn’s proximity to a worker’s camp for the Reedy Creek drain project; government officials were clearly not willing to risk a potential drop in productivity caused by hungover workers!

Willow settled on one of the old walls and gave out a big yawn; looks like she’s done exploring. I gave her a few scratches under the chin then it was time for us to get back in the van. It was time to find a camp for the evening and soon Steph and I would cook dinner and eat listening to Willow crunch her biscuits.

After, a sleepy little adventure cat would be curling up on my shins as the three of us settled into bed as we dreamed of the road ahead on our way to the red centre.