An Amazing Day!!

G’Day, Everyone!!

Ever have one of those overwhelmingly, truly wonderful kind of days??? Well, let me tell you, that’s what today has been – (and hopefully will continue to be, as we leave in half an hour for Kingscote, where we hope to see fairy penguins coming ashore!) So…where to begin!

Got up fairly leisurely, round about 6:30 a.m. and showered…Now, when was the last time you washed your hair in rainwater??? Do you know how SOFT that is? My hair feels wonderful, but is WAY too soft to do anything at all, and traveling without any of the gels or whatever, my hair is just flying away! Oh well!!

Were out the door by 7:45 a.m. and heading to Hanson’s sanctuary and their koala walk. Driving down the highway, a few km from Vivonne Bay, stopped as there were two kangaroos on the road!! A car was coming in the opposite direction, and I tried to signal them – blink my headlights, but managed instead to turn on the windshield wipers … oh well; other car slowed down as well, which was good, because the roos managed to cross the road in front of us, hop a few yards in our direction, then darted back onto and across the road in front of the other car! Whoo! Made it safely to Hanson’s. Nobody else there when we arrived (one other car pulled up while we were there) so we paid our $2 AUD each (on the honour system!) and walked right in. SO nice having the place to ourselves! And talk about camouflage! Those gray koalas against the gray trunks of the eucalyptus – really hard to spot! Finally found one – WAY up in a tree; looked like a furry blanket almost! Found 7 in all!! Including THREE in one tree, two of them actually awake! (Apparently they sleep 19 hours a day … R says it sounds good to him…) SOOOO cute!

From Hanson’s, we drove into Flinders Chase National Park, which occupies the entire end of K.I. Stopped first at the visitor’s center to buy passes and check out the exhibits. Exhibits weren’t much, but they also had a café! We each had a pasty – (is that spelled correctly??) It’s like an empanada, and these were stuffed with onion, carrot and beef – YUMMY! Perfect for breakfast! We then headed out for our first “sight” in the park, called Remarkable Rocks. (See Picture!) They are TRULY remarkable! They are part of a granite dome that split into blocks thousands of years ago and have been weathering ever since – which makes them have such interesting shapes. We read that this is the same kind of thing that happened to form Uluru (Ayers Rock), but without the sea and wind to cause erosion. At any rate, really beautiful!

From there we drove to the de Courbec lighthouse on the southwestern tip of the island, and a place called Admiralty Arch. This area is home for a huge colony of New Zealand fur seals – and they’re all over the place! There was a wonderful wooden walkway down very close to the seals. They were having such a terrific time! (The ones who weren’t sleeping, I mean!) Several groups of them playing with each other; lots of activity! There was one group that was splashing in a large cutout in the rocks that was filled with water – like a Jacuzzi! Wow! SO neat to watch!!

R then wanted to look for platypus – have no idea what the plural would be! So we headed down yet another dirt road for 30 km or so to a platypus pond overlook area. We were VERY quiet (and the only folks there!) and watched for quite a while, but no luck! I think we’d really need to be there either at dawn or dusk to try and catch them … and R says they is NO WAY he is going to be out there then, as WAY too many critters would be out then!

From there, we continued down the dirt road another 20 km or so, to the turn off the Cape Borda lighthouse … which was then another 17 or 18 km but this time, it was on a main unsealed road, other than a secondary unsealed road … both were awful to drive on; don’t see what the difference was! Arrived at Cape Borda after passing the Lighthouse Keeper’s Cemetery; talk about a miserable existence…We were a bit early for the 2 p.m. tour, so spent the remaining time looking at some artifacts from bygone days. The tour guide/National Parks caretaker was a wild-looking long-haired blonde bloke who, I am sorry to say, must have been hit in the head by his surfboard a few times too many … full of lots of stories; we were supposed to try to figure out truth from fiction! The lighthouse is still in working order; very short, as the cliff it’s perched on is very tall. Went through it and listened to the stories … interesting, but we do prefer the seals!

From there, drove back another 50 or so km on washboard until we FINALLY reached pavement, right at the edge of the park! Picked up three Goanna at various points along the road (see picture). (Note: By “picked up” I mean SPOTTED – NOT touched!!) An amazing looking lizard – the largest we saw was about 2 ½ feet long! And with a tongue to match!! YECK! Also, a WONDERFUL echidna!! He was walking right across the road, so we stopped to watch as he disappeared into the brush…a monotreme!! And one of my favorites!! Headed this time for Kingscote, as it was getting late, we were hungry, and still needed to do email and post the blog.

Arrived in Kingscote about 4:30 and settled in (yet again! I’m sure they’re loving us!) at the Ozone Seafront Hotel’s bar. I posted the blog then went for a wander through the neighboring souvenir/Hallmark shop; R did his business. The nice people at the Ozone took pity on us and we were able to get a toasted foccacia sandwich filled with roasted veggies – it was yummy! R had a toasted cheese and bacon sandwich, followed by several schooners (small glasses!) of beer. From there, headed for home, timing ourselves so we would know how long it would take us to get back to Kingscote for the penguin viewing.

Once home, I put in (naturally!) a load of laundry (need to get it started, as no dryer!!!). Quite an interesting machine; lots of buttons to push, but don’t forget to 1) turn on the electricity to the machine, and 2) turn on the water taps!! Glad I checked, otherwise it would have been a VERY interesting wash! Also started yet another batch of beef tips over rice … like R got sick of his French chicken in mushroom sauce, I’m getting VERY tired of BTOR! This will actually be our last chance to cook, as we are in a hotel in Melbourne for two nights, and then one night in Merimbula and our last night in Rooty Hill before we head out of Sydney next Wednesday! Just had time to finish the BTOR – wash was STILL going around and around … and we headed out the door for the drive back to Kingscote to see the penguins. Got there just as the Marine Center opened their doors at 8 p.m. It’s a very small operation (miniscule, if you compare it to the one on Phillip Island!) but they had some nice aquariums and interesting exhibits…including one on the night sky…but unfortunately, at 8:30, it wasn’t dark enough to point out any stars!! (And besides that, I have my own astronomer if I want to look at the sky!!) We then headed out on the penguin walk. There were 48 of us in total, and we were divided into two groups to make viewing easier.

The Marine Center in Kingscote, along with a large group of volunteers and the State of South Australia, have joined together to completely redo the penguin habitat and viewing areas. They have a lovely new boardwalk that provides the penguins with easy access, and the cliffs have been terraced and relandscaped and nesting boxes provided. Our young guide with a BIG flashlight with a red lens (apparently penguins are color-blind, and the red light doesn’t disturb them) walked us first along the beach and then along the boardwalk. There were quite a few penguins in or around the boxes or the cliffs; either they hadn’t gone out today, or were already back. We saw others coming out of the ocean and starting to make their way up the beach. They are truly wonderful birds to observe, and we SO much preferred this environment to that of Phillip Island, where hundreds and hundreds of people actually sit on bleachers to watch the penguins come in; this was MUCH more up-close-and-personal! Tour was over by about 9:30 p.m. and we then had to make our way back home…carefully…

Took us almost an hour, as we traveled at fairly low speeds. Didn’t see much wildlife, though, until we got back to our house – and there were the wallabies waiting for dinner, as well as a wonderful possum, who actually came up on the front porch and right to the door! So! All in all, a truly incredible day of wildlife spotting and scenery watching, all on America’s Thanksgiving… for which we are well and truly thankful! Can’t wait to see all the pictures!!

Take care; more later!

Love,
m