Bark if you want to go faster

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DAY 143

It was 3.30 in the morning, Andy and I were in the wide awake club, we are not really sure what woke us both up to make us so alert, except that we were quite warm in the tent, so for the first time in ages we had to open the inner panels on the windows to let some of the breeze flow through. It had been terribly windy when we went to bed and the wind was cold, but thankfully the wind had died down.

We struggled for a while to get back to sleep, but we did and soon we awoke shortly after 7.00 when the day was breaking and we could hear the sound of the other campers next to us moving around.

Today we leave Kangaroo Island to get back to the mainland, we are looking forward to getting back to the mainland, but in the same breath sad to leave Kangaroo Island, it seems that every where you go here you see people that you know. It is a small island though so that is no surprise!

We discuss with Cliff and Sue campsites around Adelaide, they recommend a Big4 at West Beach, so we Skype them before we pack up and book two powered sites at $39.00 a night, however this is a 4 ½ star (won plenty of tourism awards) prime site, near the airport, city, outlet shopping (hmmm) and right next to the beach, oh did I forget to mention the two heated swimming pools - Adelaide here we come!

We packed up, glad to get out of the deep dusty terrain around us, showered, grabbed the washing off the line and away we go.

We arrived at the ferry terminal in plenty of time, well too early in fact as we had got everything done and dusted. We parked near the terminal and tried to find a coffee, we headed over to a coffee house and Caroline said wouldn’t it be funny if they were closed on Monday’s, sure enough they were. We rolled on down to the ferry terminal, and parked the truck in a suitable bay for vehicles with trailers, the check in desk does not open until 45 minutes before the sailing, there was an empty ferry with its door down on the dock waiting for its next payload.

Caroline wandered off to the shops to get some squash as we had run out, hoping also to find a coffee to drink while we were waiting for the ferry. I chatted to a chap in the queue next to me, he told me that he came over on the morning crossing to deliver some building materials and now he was going back to Adelaide. This chap explained that the morning crossing was so bad that there were a lot of kids on the ferry throwing up, mind you they had been drinking fizzy pop and eating doughnuts.

It was windy, the sea looked choppy but we had no idea what the crossing was going to be like. In the meantime Caroline returned to find me talking to Cliff and Sue, they too had arrived early, their ferry is leaving at 2.30, but are now on standby hoping for a place on the 1.30.

The queue starts to fill up, we can see Sue and Kath turn up (we met them on at Western K I Campground), the couple that we saw in Ozone last night with their kids and a couple from the first campsite that we stayed on. See it is a small island, you never know who you are going to bump into.

We all stood around chatting about our experiences on the Island, it was great standing around in the sunshine I was truly feeling like I was on holiday. We watched as the ferry currently in dock closed its doors and then pulled out of the way to allow another one to dock and drop its payload onto Kangaroo Island. We watched as this one unloaded surprised a little that we did not board the one that was already in.

“Trailers”! One of the stewards shouted, so quick as a flash Andy jumped into the truck and started the engine, he was first out of the queue and onto the ferry. Again trailers were driving to one side around the back of the boat and then ended up in the opposite direction, i.e. ready to drive straight off again. Other cars will of course reverse on. If anyone had any difficulty, someone from the ferry company would take over.

I see Andy waving at me from the top of the ferry, so I board and meet him up there, we grab a couple of pies and a cup of coffee and sit with Kath and Sue looking at some photographs.

Kath tells us of a Tiger Snake that they saw, they stopped to take photos and were just about to pull away when a tourist bus turned up. The driver jumped off grabbed the tail of the snake (don’t try this at home folks!) and started immediately to describe the attributes of the snake to his passengers, a horrified Kath shouted at him to “Put the snake down, it is dangerous”, but this chap, obviously trained in these things quite happily carried on. The interesting thing here is that the snake flattened itself out and went into a trance like state for about 5 minutes, then it puffed itself out again and slithered off into the bush.

The ferry leaves the dock and we are half hour late leaving already. The sea is choppy, we try and do some work on the blog, but the sea becomes too choppy and when I say choppy I mean this ferry was rocking, lurching from side to side, one minute you could see all of the sky in the window and the next minute you could see all of the sea, there was no horizon at all.

The couple that we were talking to before boarding, their children had started to throw up. I never ate my meat pie, I decided that it would be too dodgy to eat in these conditions, soon no one was doing anything we were all looking out of the window. The crossing was slow to account for the conditions, but we disembarked at 3.05.

Sue and Kath wanted a photo of us for there memoirs so we stopped at the lookout over Cape Jervis and said our goodbyes, we were all back on the road again.

The scenery was beautiful, everything was beautiful, including the Kelpy sheepdog that was on the back of a ute barking at everything as they went, we think that he was enjoying it so much that he wanted to go faster.

South Australia is beautiful, driving through the rolling hills that were scorched by the sun we are driving through the driest State in the driest Continent. There was not a lot of traffic, it all moves swiftly.

I had decided that we would drive up to the M2 and get a bit of a spurt on before turning off for West Beach, which is West of Adelaide, however when we get to the start of the M2 it is closed, there is plenty of traffic coming off it, but we cannot get on, it looks as if it is a one way expressway that only opens for the direction of the rush hour traffic. Never mind I pick another route to get us to the coast, as usual Andy just follows my instruction.

We arrived at the campsite at 4.50, this place looks great, it is huge, but not very busy, and the blissful thing about this site is that we will be pitched on grass, yippee, none of that dust floating around getting everywhere. We need to make the most of this though as we travel to the West and the North most sites will of course be dust; there is no green grass to pitch on. You may well ask why this grass can be so green when they are so short of water in this state. The simple answer is recycled water, there are hoses and sprinklers everywhere (we will try and find out more about the recycled water and let you know).

Cliff and Sue arrive at 5.20, their ferry left on time so were not really that far behind us after all and their satnav took them up the coast road. By 6.00 we were all set up and sat drinking tea/beer with Cliff and Sue who were pitched next to us.

The ducks stopped by and nipped at our toes, then went and got their friends who we then saw running across the grass to our site and then started to do the same again, they were getting no quarter from us, so moved on to another site, no doubt looking for other soft tourists to scrounge some bread from.

We missed out on the swim, as we were so relaxed chatting, but went to the shop to pick up some drink for dinner.

Walking through this site, it is huge, the swimming pools look great, they have really nice cabins in the grounds. We have found that there is a school here for a few days but the kids are not intrusive and they mainly stick to their own area.

Andy cooks dinner, I am sat drinking a “Skyy Blue Lemon Lime and Bitters” (not sure what Bitters are) Vodka drink to help me type the blog, I can hear them all laughing up there while I try to concentrate on editing the blog.

It is a great camp kitchen here, there are about five twin gas hobs, a huge cooker range, microwaves, barbecues, fridge, freezer and of course plenty of seating.

More stories were swapped, we realised it was getting late and so to bed.

Yippee, we are on holiday, this is a great place! I feel really relaxed here in this environment; there is something about it.

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Photos

Ferry
Looking over Penneshaw before we head down to the Ferry Terminal

Last Look
Fantastic Sceney on Kangaroo Island

Queuing
Queuing in the lane at the Ferry

Snap shot
oOf the Surrounding area