Things to do on Kangeroo Island

I left Adelaide drove to Cape Jervis and took the Sealink ferry to Kangaroo Island, the crossing takes 40 minutes. I had booked my own room at The Kangaroo Island Backpackers in Penneshaw, the town where the ferry arrives to.

Penneshaw people are a bit weird, a lot of the businesses don't understand customer service and give the impression that you are an inconvenience, even though they are running some sort of public facing business, I wasn't the only who thought this. Gordon Ramsey would have a field day.


Penneshaw. Reminded me of North West Scotland little fishing villages.

The first day on the island I visited a honey farm, here's some information about bees, none of which I found out on the farm.

Honey in the top cells, larvae in the lower cells

Bees drink nectar from flowers and puke it up again into little buckets in the hive, the nectar now combined with a magic enzyme in the bees stomach has become honey. Boom. The honey cells are covered over with wax and stored, the wax is secreted from the bees wax glands.

They also use this wax to make the cell walls. The cells are used to house new bees which are then cleaned out by nursing cleaning bees when vacated for more eggs. Other cells are used to store the honey and others to store pollen. Bees eat Pollen, honey and royal jelly which is a juice nurse bees make and fed to new larvae, and if lots is fed to certain larvae it becomes a fertile female bee - a queen bee. Drones are males and Workers are infertile females and do all the bloody work. The bees have to keep the temperature inside the hive consistent for the larvae to grow properly, so sometimes they have to fetch water and fan it about inside the hive for cooling, or they swarm together to heat the hive up. Bees are the most important thing on the planet.

To make one teaspoon of honey bees have to make 154 trips.

 

Then to Seal Bay - a bay where seals congregate, only it's blocked by an 'information centre' which is basically a pay portal, it's $16 to exit the other side of the building. This kind of thing pisses me off, I don't agree with charging like that for something that's already there. So I moved on to Vivonne Bay down a nasty bumpy road to Vivonne Bay. I spent some time there.

Vivonne Bay

On the way back I visited a few more places but that was pretty much it for Thursday. I was glad to meet Su at the Backpackers, she was on an organised tour, the rest of the hostel was made up of noisy Europeans who worked there or just hung about there all day, actual guests found them annoying.

Friday I went to the far end of the island to Flinders Chase National Park and Hanson Bay wildlife sanctuary, the Sanctuary was excellent, I spent around 3 hours there looking at Koalas and Wallabies. Plus it was only $7.50 and the lady behind the counter knew how to be hospitable, I really enjoyed it. I saw 17 Koalas, and dozens of wallabies, there was also a nice friendly dog who sat in the doorway.



Hanson's Wildlife Sanctuary

On to Flinders Chase where it cost $11 but that included the whole park so again very reasonable, at Remarkable Rocks the weather came in and I was drenched in moments. I hid a cave for a bit, the weather was really getting its wild up. On to Admirals Arch I saw hundreds of seals, I could lean against the wind here and it supported me. It had stopped raining and the wind was so strong it dried my wet clothes out. I drove back, quite a few roos skipped across the road in front of the car, I drove back slowly. Back in Penneshaw the storm continued. The next day I learnt it had been a force 12, Hurricane force -that's the end of Beaufort scale!

Admiral's Arch

Remarkable Rocks

The last full day on the island I had a walk around Penneshaw and read all the history plaques. I didn't want to travel very far so I went to Cape Willoughby where the roads get really crappy for the last half and I crawed along at a jogging pace, in addition to the pot holes and corrogrations in some parts of the road, trees had come down in the night onto the road. I took a tour of the light house, where the lamp and lenses went from the size on the left, to the bank of lights on the right, to now a single LED.

 

 

Nearby was a lovely café who knew about service, even they thought Penneshaw was a bit odd. A big Roo came up to a water bucket for a drink, after a while a Goanna waddled up for a drink too and the big Roo got scared and went away.

The noisy hostel workers had gone out to look at the sun set, a quiet couple were in the kitchen who I hadn't heard over the others racket, 40 minutes of peace of quite later, they have now come back and once again filling the place with their irritating loud voices and awful attempts at guitar playing, they are the worst kind of backpackers, they only talk to those in their little group and they don't really do anything except work in cafes and backpackers and spend as little as possible and don't really see anything of the country they are in, what's the point, they give the impression of just wasting time.

This is why I don't stay at backpackers any more as a rule, it's full of bloody foreigners.



View from top of Cape Willoughby light house

6 Days in Adelaide - Part 2, Brighton and Hove

Also on the to do list was cycle along the Torrens River path, Judy said I could use her bike, I had some stuff to sort out like car hire in the morning, the doorbell went (Judy was away again) her cleaners had arrived, and they were fabulous, the chap was a luvie and told me his life story while he cleaned the kitchen and extolled about what a fabulous specimen of a man Daniel Craig is, and how fabulous everything was darling, they were an ab fab cleaning team.

It was getting on for noon when I had finished all my boring tasks and went to get the bike, the tyres were flat but there was a pump, the pump didn't fit well and I could only get the front tyre to hold air, the basket was also missing most of its screws and I couldn't find any tools to remove the last one. So I got the bus to Glenelg and hired a bike, south of Glenelg were Brighton and Hove! I visited Brighton beach, it has a pier, I walked along it and a big seal was floating about underneath just looking up at the pier. I cycled north back to Glenelg and had a coffee at the Grand hotel in the conservatory with some old timey jazz in the background, and not far away was a swimming pool with lots of flumes outsides like the King Alfred. I continued north until I was almost back to Henley Beach and cycled up one side of the Torrens River path and down the other side and back to the hire shop, who had forgotten about me and shut up shop even though they were meant to be open till 8pm. I phoned them and locked the bike up behind the premises and put the key in the letter box.


Brighton and Hove, South Australia

 

Brighton Pier



Hove, actually.



The Grand Hotel

The last full day in Adelaide I picked up the hire car, a new Toyota Corolla, the newest version of Cuthbert. It was Australia Day/ Invasion Day and there were to be festivities in town later, so I went to the Barossa wine region instead for some wine tasting. I only went to one winery chosen at random - Turkey Flats, the ladies were so much fun to talk to that I stayed chatted for hours. Jo, bakes a different cake every week for the staff, and this week was a cross between a Lamington and a Pavlova called either the Lamlova or the Pavington. We talked about everything, isn't it wonderful you meet strangers and they appear to be such similar people to yourself. They had a lovely dog, a cross between a Beagle and a Pug - called a Puggle! The most fun wine tasting, it felt like I was with old friends, especially all the silly names.

Puggle dog at Turkey Flats vineyard



New Cuthbert Corolla

I set the talking GPS on my phone to take me back to the beach, where I had a swim. The water is warm, warmer than the indoor Kilbirnie swimming pool in Wellington, much warmer.
And so ended a splendid day. I could hear the fireworks going off in town that night. Tomorrow I move on to Kangaroo Island.

6 days in Adelaide - Part 1

 

Goodness I've been too busy doing things so I'll have to split this post into two. First of all, Judy - the lady running the airbnb I'm staying has been away most of the week, so for the price of only a little more than a dorm room per night at the YHA in Sydney, I have had the house to myself, it's a very nice house, and guess what - she has two Maltese Terriers! Anyone who heard the previous Maltese Terrier experience may think this is a bad sign, but these two dogs are absolutely lovely, completely different and I would be very happy to dog sit them! So there you go, it is all down to the owner.

Judy told me about Tour Down Under was happening right now in Adelaide, this is the equivalent of the Tour De France, this got me up and out the house quickly the next day as the next stage was starting 2 buses across town in Norwood. I got there in time for the start and afterwards walked slowly back through Norwood, across the parkland and through the city back to Ashford, where I was staying just south of the centre.


Santos Tour Down Under village back in the city

Glass tunnel sculpture at the Botanic Gardens

Rain storm Rundle Mall

It had been pretty hot and in Rundle Mall, the pedestrian shopping street, a heavy rain storm occurred. It hammered down. Later in the paper I read a man had actually been killed by lighting out of town during that storm.

There are bicycle lanes everywhere, the people in charge of cycle lanes in Wellington should visit to see what a cycle lane is. The CBD is small and very walkable, public transport is good and I never saw a traffic jam or much traffic at all, some main city roads at regular office hours had no cars at all. It reminded of Vancouver, it's amazing how much nicer a city is without hordes of cars everywhere. Wellington is really falling behind in this respect.



Central Markets

The next day I took the bus with Diane who I'd met on the Indian Pacific train to Henley Beach.



Henley Beach

Diane was a really easy person to talk too, meeting people like her are part of the joy of travelling. She was off to Alice Springs on the Ghan train the next day with a quick tour to Uluru and Kings Canyon before flying to Brisbane to continue her world trip.

Josie had written a list of things to do in Adelaide which included Morialta Conservation Park on the edge of the city to the East, again I took the bus. Inside the park it doesn't feel like it's near a major city at all. I did a loop walk up to some falls which were dry and then up the top and around, blackberries were ripe everywhere and totally delicious, I picked them while walking around.

At the end near the carpark area was this chap:

Morialta Conservation Park

The Indian Pacific to Adelaide

I had booked a cabin on a very expensive train from Sydney to Adelaide called the Indian Pacific back in November, and had since then been trying to justify the cost. But to heck with it! - besides I'd never been on a luxury train journey before.
The Indian Pacific train, runs between the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. The route used to comprise of a number of different gauges so a journey on the same train was not possible until 1970 when the gauges were converted to one standard, the Indian Pacific was the first train to travel the whole route. There are 3 classes, I was in Gold class in a single cabin.
I had spent a couple of nights in Coogee in Sydney at a lovely airbnb. It was hair drier hot in Sydney, after a walk along the coast I went to Wylie's baths on the waterfront, a sea water pool, which was splendid. My airbnb host, Sean, kindly gave me a lift to the train station where the Indian Pacific had it's own check in booth.

Wylie's Baths at Coogee

Looking towards Coogee beach

The train is in two parts in the station and hooks up when it departs because it's so long, a very nicely dressed crew member directed me to the Gold lounge where guest could have drinks whilst we waited for access to our cabins, it was an open bar. At 2pm we were allowed to check into our cabins, I was turbo excited about this.

I was turbo excited for probably at least 10 minutes after getting my cabin, opening every cubby hole and just marvelling at how ingenious the space was.

Double cabin and super fun snaking single cabin corridors

My room!

Cabin in bed formation, and the clever sink that folds away.



The Gold lounge

The lounge was open the whole time for drinks and nibbles, one of the crew members came to each cabin after the train left to take dinner time reservations. At dinner I was sat with an American lady and a couple made up of an Australian woman who was stuck on transmit and a quiet serene Dutchman who didn't feel like eating anything, despite this she ordered his food for him and then tutted when he didn't want to eat it. I was quite hungry and had eaten all my food, so asked if I could have his soup, he said yes, so I ate his soup while the Australian woman went on about bad everything was and that she had been on a 12 day train journey in Europe and it had cost $25'000, and she'd been on this train journey and that train journey and blah de blah..... she was mainly talking at the lady opposite from the states, I was glad of this. She made me think - I should never get used to this luxury, otherwise it will loose everything that's special about it and you no longer appreciate it.

During dinner service the crew had turned my cabin seat into a bed. More excitement. I was tired from all the excitement and went to bed somewhere past the Blue Mountains.

When I woke up the landscape was proper outback red earth Australia. Baby Roo had finally come home. We had an excursion at Broken Hill, a mining town which involved getting up at 6am as the train was due to arrive at 6.30.

Baby Roo looking out of the cabin window

 

In Broken Hill we had a choice of excursions, one to the minors memorial and one to a local artist called Pro Hart. I thought Broken Hill was going to be a couple of big sheds and bits of old mining clutter but it's a town of 19000 people. I went to the art gallery, think Lowry + Dali and you get Pro Hart. I thought it was brilliant.

 

Painted Rolls at the Pro Hart gallery

 

After the excursion we had breakfast, I sat with Diane, a nice lady from Seattle and a sweet lady from Perth.

 

At breakfast with Diane from Seattle

And then there was nothing else to do but enjoy the journey until lunch time and arriving in Adelaide. It was quite strange, a number of people of the train reminded me of other people, I felt like Dorothy quite literally in Oz.

A wonderful journey, and totally worth it.

The legend of Cuthbert

Once upon a time their was a man called Cuthman who pushed his Grandmother around in a wheelbarrow looking for a good place to build a church, he pushed the wheelbarrow for many years and eventually he stopped and built a church and was made a saint. Saint Cuthman is the saint of a local village near to where my parents live now and the church is still there, to wind my Dad up I called the Saint - Saint Cuthbert. When we bought the car in Whangarei I called it Cuthbert because he would be transporting us around many miles for many years, and so he did. And now he has stopped at A La Francesca's. Tatapuranga island knew Cuthbert was going to stop there because it's a magic island which is actually a church disguised as an island.
And so the legend of Saint Cuthman continues.



New owner TJ with Cuthbert

Cuthbert will be staying 'in the family' as he was bought by Dolf and Francesca's son TJ.

Cuthbert dear Cuthbert,
saggy old cloth roof bert,
wake up and see these things which I bring
oh Cuthbert, hear what I sing.

Cuthbert was just an old red Toyota, saggy and a bit pink at the edges, but Claire loved him.



Part of Cuthbert's joy came from the smiley face on the dashboard.

I took Cuthbert out for one last slow drive around the Wellington bays.

Traffic on Shelly Bay

Earlier in the day I also had to say goodbye to my favourite dog Leia, who I love very much and who loves me very much.

Leia knows how to dress

And of course my good friend Josie who I met up with several times this week, she's been a great friend to me.

Leia and Josie and baby Chloe

But all too soon it was time to leave, like Bilbo leaving the Shire or Paddington Bear leaving Deepest Darkest Peru, or Christopher Robin leaving the Hundred Acre Wood or so I had to leave Island Bay.
I said goodbye to Dolf at the house and Francesca took me to the airport, I checked in for the first time using my Kiwi passport and then we had a glass of wine in the upstairs Mojo café that no one knows about. It was very nice not to have to wait on my own, we whiled away a pleasant hour chatting until it was time to go through, we said our goodbyes. I knew I had about 1 minute before I would need to find somewhere quiet or put sunglasses on, I got as far as the spirits sections of the duty free after going through security, so I had to spend some time in a corner by the Dows aged 10 and the Deutz Bruts to regain my composure before continuing. I felt sad, but it was a happy sad from leaving people I love, who I care about and who genuinely care about me, a very different departure from 6 months ago on every level.
See? It was it a happy ending after all.