Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island, where we are currently experiencing the total antipathy to being in the city, and which is off the coast of Australia about 80 miles south of Adelaide,  is a throwback to a different age. People are encouraged not to go out after dark, so one is forced to do what you can during daylight hours before, I presume,  the wildlife get hungry. With car insurance not valid after 8pm and only one pub in village of Penneshaw the only place to eat and drink, we went to he pub to eat.

First thing in the morning we went, without much hope,  for a walk from the hotel to see penguins, which the tourist guides all claim to be visible. John “Chuckle Brothers” Surtees seemed happy to go in search of them now despite saying when he had seen in the brochure that they sometimes come up to the hotel itself. “They can f**k off then”. He is from up north so I guess they have enough of  unexpected wild life up there.

After discovering that the penguins only come ashore at dusk and leave at dawn, and after breakfast at the next best thing, Penguin Cafe, we set off for a tour of the island. On the way around we stopped at Seal Beach to be ripped off for Australian$15 (about £11 at today’s Currencies Direct exchange rates)  each to see some seals on the beach. I say ripped off because later in the day at the spectacularly beautiful  and rugged Admirals Arch we saw hundreds of seals in far more dramatic surroundings for free.

From there to Remarkable Rocks. Cunning these Australians when they come to name places. They are spectacular and feature in my picture today.

Thereafter it was the Platypus Waterhole Walk in search of wallabies, kangaroos and koala bears. Having walked about 4 miles we eventually spotted a koala high up in a eucalyptus tree, added to one wallaby and two kangaroos until we returned exhausted to the car park to see a handful of tourists pointing cameras up onto the trees directly above our hire car. There were two koalas in the trees, one of which would have dropped through our sunroof if he has fallen off. The irony of the situation is amusing now, more amusing than it was at the time.

Today we plan to drive up to the capital of Kangaroo Island, Kingscote to see if there are any sane people there. All the locals around where we are staying exhibit signs of lunacy. It must be the lack of contact with the outside world but they are all annoyingly ready to talk you into a corner and offer an opinion where none was requested. Good hearted, certainly, but all this enforced bon homie, having to be back in Purgatory, I mean Panneshaw,  by 8pm and going to bed early would get to me if we were staying any longer. We are leaving on the evening ferry to go back to Adelaide for a lightning trip to Ayers Rock the day after, and frankly it is well-timed. I can already detect the first signs of gibbering gathering.

Just one night at Ayers Rock and then it is off to Sydney for the last leg of this Australian trip and the dismal prospect of packing away the shorts and digging out the woollies for winter in  the UK, but at least that means good beer.

Chris France

@Valbonne_News