Adelaide to Stokes Bay, Kangaroo Island
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We slept late (some later than others) and enjoyed a slow start to a day for once. I went for a brief wander around the hotel area and got some pictures. We didn’t get out of the hotel until around 10:30. The lady who ran the place seemed to be keeping a close eye on us although I don’t think we did anything to warrant suspicion, other than being Americans or showing up at a hotel in a camper. Who knows. We acquired a new round of ants in the process as well. Not a serious swarm like last time, but they’re wandering around the van again.
We went out and had breakfast made for us. Which was a nice treat for Les. (I get breakfast made for me every day, which is nice.) Ran an errand or two and headed into town. We needed to be at the ferry at 3:30 and it was supposed to be about a two hour drive. We got into town around noon so no problem.
We did a quick survey of central Adelaide and declared it good but we both agreed we liked Perth better. Can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s just not the same feel. But we were struck by how clear the skies were. It’s a good sized city but it doesn’t have the brown haze that most American cities seem to have.
The central core is surrounded on all sides by parks. The buildings downtown aren’t as interesting as Perth, maybe that’s it. The people seem to move with more purpose and are more serious. Perth had a laid back sense to it. But it reminded me a lot of Portland and if placed there by fate, I think it would be a nice place to live.
We went into a food mall where we came across a children’s ride — seesaw with your friend the koala. But the koala looks like he’s a member of the Manson family if you ask me. Come on kids, come seesaw with the maniacal koala. No Mom, don’t make me!
We also discovered a very nice cathedral we spent a few minutes wandering through.
We headed out of town around 12:30. Through the suburbs of malls, appliance stores, car dealerships, video outlets and everything else that makes the suburbs so unattractive here (and elsewhere). But once we cleared the burbs it became the rolling yellow hills we saw on the way in. It looked a lot like the northern California coast north of Monterey or San Francisco.
We stopped for gas around 1:30 and since we were doing so well on time, we decided to call home. I used Les’ calling card and he went off to find another phone to do the same. I assumed he was doing that while I talked but it turned out he couldn’t use it while I was using it. So he wanted to call after I did and by the time we were both done, it was 2:30 and we still had 70km to go to the ferry terminal at Cape Jervis.
So we put Les at the wheel and went as fast as our poor van could go on the twisty roads down to the cape. The van is not built for speed, or cornering, and it was a bit exciting to say the least. I was convinced we wouldn’t make it. And we didn’t actually. We arrived at 3:35. But it wasn’t a problem. They were still lining people up. Must be all the clean living. It would have been a MAJOR disappointment if we had missed the ferry when we had 9 hours to get there.
The ferry loading was an interesting experience. You could only get on and off one way, so the cars, trucks, vans, cars pulling campers, etc. all had to back onto the boat. Which was quite a production. It’s a lot like a Tetris game for the boat loaders, trying to optimize the space. They did pretty well, including putting a little Dhaitsu in the front corner. The ramp closed with about 2 inches to spare in front of the front car’s roo bar.
The trip over was about 45 minutes. Pretty calm but very windy. The brochure said sometimes dolphins run alongside the ferry but no such luck for us.
Once on the island, we headed for Kingscote, the first major town. We passed a couple of nice beaches and lagoons along the way. We’ll come back and check them out tomorrow. Kingscote is where the caravan park is and we stopped in to make sure they had space before venturing out to see if we could camp along a beach somewhere. The woman at the caravan park suggested Stokes Bay, which we had already considered. We decided to make for it.
Away from the coastline, the countryside looked a lot like the area south of Adelaide. Rolling yellow hills, looking very much like California. Except for the large amount of road kill. We didn’t see any live animals, but plenty of dead ones. Primarily kangaroos but some other things as well (we weren’t sure what).
We turned on to Stokes Bay road, which is a dirt road. 18 km to the beach. It started out very flat and smooth and just about at the point where we were thinking we were in pretty good shape it started wash boarding pretty badly. We rattled over the roads for about 10 km knocking every thing that wasn’t tied down, and some things that were, all over the van. We had bungee corded the cabinet with our pantry items closed and even that came loose. All the extra bedding and what not we had up on the shelf above the bed came down.
But we made it. And just before we pulled into the campsite at Stokes Bay, we came across a field with maybe a dozen roos in it and another 5 or 6 in the field on the other side of the road. A mob scene! (More kangaroo humor.) It was pretty dark so we couldn’t really photograph them that well. They were a smaller variety. Possibly wallabies (but we don’t really know what they look like).
We found a campsite and went to look at the beach. When you first head out, there’s a nice little rock beach in a cove and it’s nice enough. But you have to know the secret. There’s a path through a series of huge boulders that takes you to a very nice beach on the other side of the hill. The path through the rocks was really cool. The rocks are 10-20 feet high and at various points on the path it became a tunnel.
We took a walk along the beach, once again commenting on the fact that we were the only people out there. This has happened a number of times. It’s getting so we’re annoyed when anyone else is on the beach with us.
As Les was making dinner, a little kangaroo (or wallaby?) came into camp and wandered by. He was very cute. He kept his distance but it appears he makes his living off camp food.
The sky is clear and there is no light here. So we’re hoping to get the star show we missed in the Nullarbor. It’s showing some signs of being good as I type this. Tomorrow we head off to explore Kangaroo Island and hopefully make it back in time for the ferry.
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