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Published: March 12th 2018
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This morning we headed back to the Dudley Peninsula at the eastern end of KI to visit the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse. Yes, another lighthouse! This lighthouse also has a tour available so we timed our arrival to coincide with the 11.30am tour. Although this is not a REAL lighthouse (according to Mick) it is taller than the Cape Borda Lighthouse and more traditional in stature, being tall and circular rather than short and square.
Ranger, Megan, explained that lighthouses were built having regard to the local terrain and materials. Her lighthouse is tall and round and built from granite because Cape Willoughby is a granite outcrop that is not as elevated at Cape Borda therefore granite is the building material that is available and it has to be tall so that the light projects far enough to be seen from the sea. Mick’s lighthouse is short because Cape Borda is more elevated and therefore a short, square lighthouse could be built.
There’s no competition here on Kangaroo Island, ha, ha. Megan said that everyone on the Dudley Peninsula thinks they are better than those on the rest of the island and then those on the rest of the island
have their north/south parochialism.
Well, we didn’t have a canon firing today, but we did get to go out on the balcony of the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse which afforded us excellent views of the Devils Kitchen - a natural cleft from which the granite was quarried - and the coastline.
From Cape Willoughby we drove northwards towards Antechamber Bay which was rather an anticlimax! The river (Lashmar Lagoon?) was pretty enough, but the bay itself must have been a long way from the car park and we gave up without actually seeing the ocean. We did see another goanna though, sunning itself on the samphire. I am so grateful that most of our reptile sightings have been goannas rather than snakes. If it has legs it’s OK in my book!
We stopped for lunch at Dudley Wines before continuing on to Penneshaw where we visited the Maritime and Folk Museum. The museum is housed in the old school building and holds a wealth of information about the early European settlers. It is operated by the National Trust so, as National Trust members, our entry was free.
At the museum we learnt about Frenchmens Rock at Hogs
Bay so we took the short drive down to the bay to see it. Crew members of Le Geographe, captained by Nicolas Baudin, carved this rock when they came ashore in 1803 to collect meat and fresh water supplies during their expedition to map the coast of New Holland. Baudin knew that there were good supplies of food, water and timber on Kangaroo Island following a chance meeting with Matthew Flinders (Captain of the Investigator) at Encounter Bay a year earlier. Of course, Matthew Flinders was also on an expedition to chart the coastline of New Holland. Despite England and France being at war, the two captains exchanged details of their discoveries.
Back in Kingscote we returned to the Caltex Servo fish shop to buy more fish for dinner tonight. The sardines were so good earlier in the week we bought another pack of filleted sardines and some salmon steaks to follow.
Just before 5.00pm we drove down to the jetty to watch the daily pelican feeding at five o’clock. The Pelican Man told us all about the pelicans as he fed them King George Whiting!! He also told us about the black swans and the pacific gulls.
The swans are strictly vegetarian so they continued to graze on the sea grass in the bay, while the pacific gull - and the seagulls - tried to scavenge what they could from the pelicans.
The plan was to BBQ the sardines and the salmon, but the gas cylinder ran out after the sardines were done. Not to worry, the kitchen had plenty of frypans so we cooked the salmon indoors instead. Definitely need to check out if any of the fishmongers at the Preston Market supply filleted sardines. I have bought whole sardines before and gutted and cleaned them myself, but that is way too gross and then you still have muck about separating the flesh from the bones as you eat them. Filleted is definitely the way to go!
Steps: 7,415 (5.47kms)
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Caroline Brunner
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Yayyyy, I saw Steven!
So, Steven found you on Kangaroo Island ?!#$?? And he brought all his 'bros' to the pelican feast too! Clever Steven. Great photo Tracey.