We kicked off the morning with a stop at one of the most brilliantly named places we’ve ever seen: Stick-Tomato Cave. It sits quietly in the bushland near Mount Gambier, tucked inside the volcanic region that runs across the SA–Victoria border. And no, before you ask, there are zero actual tomatoes involved.
The name comes from early settler slang. The shrubs around the sinkhole drop small reddish berry-like pods that were nicknamed “stick tomatoes”. The cave inherited the name, and it stuck. Classic Australia. Strange plant, odd nickname, volcanic hole in the ground. Perfect road-trip mix.
The cave itself is a collapsed lava tube, fenced for safety but easy to get down into. Jagged rock edges, deep shadows and pockets of greenery clinging to the walls… i immediately labelled it everything from a dragon nest to a secret base. With the drop disappearing into darkness, I could totally picture both.
After stretching our legs we jumped back in the car and continued the long push through rural SA. The landscape shifted constantly – thick bush turning to open farmland, then pockets of tiny towns, then long empty stretches of highway where you could drive for ages without passing another car.
By afternoon we reached Adelaide, our next base for a couple of weeks. After the big mileage, the bags exploding in the back, the snack wrappers somehow multiplying on their own, rolling into the city felt like hitting a proper pause button.
Quick fact-check on Adelaide while we’re here:
Adelaide is genuinely one of Australia’s safest, cleanest and most family-friendly cities. Crime rates are lower than Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney per capita. Beaches are close, traffic is sane for a capital city, and there’s loads to do even if wine isn’t your thing. So yes, we’ve landed somewhere solid.
It’s a big shift from New Zealand’s mountains, caves, and glowworm magic… but Australia’s already throwing its own flavour at us. New landscapes, new wildlife, new adventures, new weirdly named caves
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