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Published: March 25th 2009
Dennis
This is Dennis, yes that's his real nameDAY 138
I heard Andy get out of bed and could hear footsteps around the tent, he reappears and says “Dennis is still outside but he had changed trees”, excellent our very own camp Koala is still hanging round with us.
Andy went to get the kettle on and spark up the laptop, I followed shortly after with the breakfast things.
Thankfully it is a fairly warm morning, though still a bit cloudy there is no sign of any rain. I hope that it stays that way. I did comment in the kitchen this morning but a lady said, “Oh No we need the rain”, I agree I know South Australia and many other parts of Australia need the rain, I am purely thinking from a selfish point of view that camping is a lot easier and nicer when it is dry. I had clothes that were still damp when I did the washing the night before last, I had been unable to dry them completely and hoped that when we arrived here yesterday that I could hang them out to air.
Not to mention of course that the best way to see Kangaroo Island and its
wildlife will be in the sunshine.
After breakfast we finish setting up camp, there was not much to do but we did not feel organised, as the rain had stopped us setting up yesterday. Now we are organised we can get on with the day, the sun is out and there are things to do and places to go.
Today we set off for Flinders Chase National Park, we need to go to the Visitors Information Centre and sort out the usual National Park pass. We have to work out if it’s going to be cost effective to buy a parks pass, or pay as we go. The Tasmania Parks pass was excellent value for money and it lasted 2 months, this is very different. Kangaroo Island is pay, pay, and pay again, so we need to be money smart.
What they don’t tell you until you get there is that a lot of the walks and campsites are closed due to the fires in 2006. Typically we wanted to do “Platypus Walk” hoping, obviously, to see Platypus, but the walk is closed. Sadly the fire wiped out 7 of the 8 hides, the bridges and the
boardwalk that they had. They hope to reopen the walks later this year.
Today we decide to pay $16.00 dollars for the parks pass that allows us in to Flinders Range until sunset only, our first stop is Remarkable Rocks, these were formed millions of years ago when Magma rose up from the centre of the earth and formed this marvellous rock formation, since then of course the elements of 200 million years have taken their toll, erosion has caused these interesting shapes.
Unfortunately when we wanted to take pictures but a couple who appeared to have had a tiff decided to sit on the rocks in two different places, making it difficult for those of us that wanted to take photographs of this magnificent natural phenomenon.
There are warning signs to alert you of the dangers on these rocks, you must not advance past these signs as there is a danger of either slipping on the rocks or being swept into the sea by a wave, sadly a German Tourist a few years ago, ignored the signs, he was swept into the sea and two people from his tour group jumped into rescue him. However the sad
How
The nformation board tell you all about it. part is that the two rescuers died from drowning and multiple injuries, the German tourist survived.
From Remarkable Rocks we went to Weirs Cove to see the “Flying Fox”, this beautiful area has a vertical scar in the cliff face. From 1907 to the early 1930’s most of the supplies came to the lighthouse keepers and their families via steam ship every three months, (can you imagine only getting your shopping every 3 months!!!), the supplies were then brought up the “scarred” cliff face by flying fox. The flying Fox was a winch mechanism, that you can still see the remains of to this day. Even visitors were winched up the cliff. You could only hope that the flying fox did not break when you were half way up, it is a steep fall!
A little further along towards Admirals Arch at Cape Du Couedic there is a beautiful Lighthouse, built in 1904, It was picture book, and hope you like the photo’s we took. Unfortunately you could not go around but in the sunshine was still good to see. One small detail that we picked out was the heart shaped arrow at the top of the lighthouse.
The next on the list was Admirals Arch, it wasn’t the arch perse I wanted to see but the colony of New Zealand Fur Seals, there were certainly a couple of hundred lolling around in the sunshine, swimming and annoying each other vying for the best spot on the rocks.
Mid afternoon we started to head back to base, we wanted an easy afternoon, do some photo management, and just laze around, we really don’t seem to do that much.
Caroline went for a shower and I lay in the sunshine, on the bed, I can remember Caroline saying that there was a cup of tea for me, then the next thing I remember was “Look Out of the Window” and “Where’s the Camera”?
Dennis had come down from his tree and was heading for a new destination, he walked behind Caroline, as someone said to her, “Somebody is walking up behind you” Dennis walked past Caroline, stopped at trailer for about 30 seconds, thought about his plan then started to shimmy to a different Eucalyptus tree, where he sat and all that could be heard was leaves being stripped and munching.
It was starting
to get chilly so we decamped to the camp kitchen for a cup of tea. It was nice and quiet to start with, but before long it started to get busy again as people were coming in to cook dinner.
Seeing a few people that we had met the night before, the stories started to come out of the “break ins” last night. I had seen one of the culprits earlier in the evening and thankfully had put the “possum proof” lock on the tent. All food had been left in the car or the trailer so that it could not even be sniffed out. One lady had told us that she had woken up in the night on the Kennet River after hearing the zipper of the tent opening.
Andy decided to cook sausage, mash, Onions and Gravey tonight. Yummy, I went to get everything while Andy “held” our table, soon we were tucking into a hearty meal.
The washing up is done, the camp kitchen is cosy and we are going to settle in for an evening of cards.
Again out came the cards, after Andy’s thrashing the other night, but he fought gallantly,
Eagle Rock
Being Slowly weathered away one of the girls we had been talking to got her Guitar out and started amusing the children, she had a good voice
When all the tackers had gone to bed, we had a couple of games to “GO SCRABBLE” and then retired about 11.00 pm after quite a productive day.
So until tomorrow bloggers, if we are spared
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