At 05:45 I had my instructions to get up.
The coach was waiting for us at the Central Bus Station, along with about one hundred other passengers! While we were waiting for the coach to leave the radio presenter was talking about how most public transport seats are too small for the average sized backside. Across the depot a couple were saying a teary good bye to their daughter who, judging by the size of her bags, was going away for a while. That brought a tear to my eye thinking back to 30 September 2002.
A 115 kilometre journey took us to Cape Jervis where we embarked the ferry to Kangaroo Island. I refused to take any preventative motion sickness pills in the hope that I can eliminate this temporary sea sickness problem that I have recently created. I was fine, which I think was largely due to the fact that I was dozing but the fact that the crossing was good might have helped...
At Pennshaw another coach was waiting for us which was to be driven by Kevin, a Kangaroo Island local. It was at this point that we learned what we would be doing today.
Kangaroo Island is 55 kilometres wide at its widest point and 155 kilometres long at its longest. We travelled for 1 hour 30 minutes until our first stop which was a barbecue lunch at Beckwiths Farm. The proprietors of the farm took care of an orphaned female kangaroo so now have her as a pet. Also present was a battered male kangaroo by the name of Danny who, while we were eating our lunch, waited outside the door patiently until someone went out to see him. He had been fighting with another male kangaroo and had acquired some nasty injuries on his chest.
Lunch was immediately followed by a stroll through the bush where we were searching for koalas. Straight away, as everyone in the group rushed straight past them without noticing, Ian spotted a tiny Tammer wallaby hiding in the trees. A few steps further on we saw another one, then another two, then another four. They were seemingly everywhere but well camouflaged in the trees. We did see some koalas, one of which was especially fantastic. She was a mother who was lounging around in a tree branch with her young cuddled up close behind her.
Our journey to Cape du Couedic passed through Flinders Chase National Park which was full of eucalypt scrub and Mallee ash. We paused at Yacca Flat for a view and although we didn't get out of the coach we looked down upon what looked like a continuous thick carpet of Mallee ash right down to the ocean, the only break in the bush being the road to reach the Remarkable Rocks that had been cut away.
The Remarkable Rocks were just that. Beautiful abstract shapes carved out of rock by the wind and sea. They were coloured with beautiful ochre lichen and made for several nice photographs. This was our first real snake alert zone. There was a real danger of stumbling across tiger snakes and goannas here but luckily we didn't see any.
We didn't stop at Cape du Couedic lighthouse which was a pity as it would have made a great photograph with its tapered stone construction. Instead, we drove down to Admirals Arch and nearly got blown away in the walk to the Arch. It was immensely gusty and Ian had to deploy the windstraps on his Tilley hat! There were some fur seals frolicking around in rock pools and the sea, some were basking on the rocks along with a couple of sea lions.
On the way to Seal Bay, our final stop, we wandered around the Flinders Chase National Park visitors centre and enjoyed an ice-cream. In the car park there were some kangaroos resting in the shade of the trees. One of them approached me in search of some food or just merely out of curiousity and nearly stepped on my toes as I tried to photograph him. He ended up so close that I couldn't take a picture anyway as I had the zoom lens attached to my camera.
Seal Bay was magnificent. We were accompanied by a guide throughout who kept the group in order. She advised us to stay on the path as we walked to the boardwalk as eight weeks ago a man who wandered off the path returned to it with a tiger snake on his boot. Uh-oh...
On the beach there was a pretty huge colony of sea lions, basking in the sun and resting, including a pregnant female. One sea lioness had a scar on her side which would have been afflicted by a shark bite. She was very fortunate to have returned to Seal Bay. They didn't mind our presence, despite several groups of large quantities. It was great to be near such fabulous animals again.
We also learned from Kevin, our very informative bus driver, that the grooves on unsealed roads are created by the spinning wheels of vehicles as they drive over them, which is why the unsealed roads require regular grading.
It came to our attention that there is a police force on Kangaroo Island which is three men strong and they are based in Kingscote on the north coast of the island. It is also extremely rare to see another vehicle on the road on the island and Kevin was most surprised to find he had to stop at a junction to allow a car to drive past. The population of Kangaroo Island is only 4,300 and that includes the police force!
We were dropped off at Penneshaw where we ate a cheeseburger sat in front of a tree which, fortunately we discovered after our meal, had a dead seagull at the foot of it with its intestines hanging out.
The return ferry crossing was rather rocky but again I didn't suffer from the usual aversion to swells.
The coach journey home was too long. It was a very long day and we were both tired despite snoozing in between stops throughout the day and were ready for more sleep on our return to Adelaide. Our round trip today was approximately 590 kilometres. Although our day trip to Kangaroo Island was good, I don't really like coach tours. You don't have time enough to see the sights, photograph them or read anything about them. Generally, Ian and I take lots of time at each sight to appreciate them but we found today that we just didn't have that luxury.
I made a telephone call to a friend back home before retiring and it was wonderful to hear he's now making a good recovery from a terrible accident he had six months ago.
I finally laid my head down for a proper rest at 23:30.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.