Places We Like to Nomad: Christmas Hop to Kangaroo Island

Wagga Wagga
In the last rays of sunshine, large flocks of screeching, hissing galahs surrounded us on the grassy campsite.

Cape Jervis
A detour through the Fleurieu Peninsula - lots of tree-shaded narrow roads and farmland dotted with horses and waterholes. En route we passed a beautiful old bridge over the Murray at Tooleybuc.

We stayed the night at Cape Jervis Station run by a retired farmer from Queensland whose wife had escaped the heat whilst he needed a break from the economic stress of running a cattle and cereal farm in a depressed economic climate.

Evening and morning we were surrounded by large flocks of little corellas and galahs ripping the bark off the tops of the trees.

Ferry to Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
The ferry is run by Sealink and skims across in 45 minutes with daytrippers, all the supplies for Kangaroo Island, and tourists. When one of the two ferries was in drydock for repairs a few years ago, the other ferry broke down and plunged KI into starvation mode temporarily whilst supermarket shelves were cleared of all food and delayed tourists left their hire cars behind at the airport.

Penneshaw
A drive from the ferry port to the far side of the bay revealed a splendid view.

Antechamber Bay
Heading out on the Cape Willoughby road, we bushcamped at a sheltered campsite within easy reach of the sweeping Antechamber bay, miles of beach all to ourselves.

Cape Willoughby on a windswept headland has a lovely lighthouse built in 1852, surrounded by white-painted walled garden lovingly tended by volunteer rangers. We did a short hike to the ruins of the old landing - blue sky, turquoise sea.

Returning past remote farms we spotted Father Christmas have a break by the roadside.

American River
A detour via Pelican Lagoon and flocks of black swans napping, took us to the beautiful American River campsite where we added a dent from a tree branch whilst reversing, but all worth it for the panoramic view across the lagoon.

Pelicans, ibises, black swans, oystercatchers, all gathered at dawn together with a dolphin in the rippleless waters.

Later in the morning Gen was ecstatically announcing the photo of the trip when a seagull arrived out of nowhere with a large octopus flailing tentacles around its beak whilst Gen clicked on its every move until it downed the octopus in one gulp. Later, Gen retired to the van to check the photos for sharpness – suddenly there is a loud moan from Gen as she announces all the shots are unsharp. The rest of the day is doomed to moody silence.

In an attempt to lift the mood, we visit the Oyster Farm Shop – a treasure mine of abalone, oysters locally grown, King George whiting, and marrons, a local crayfish. We settle for two trays of delicious oysters: Kilpatrick, melted cheese, natural. We chase off a relative of the octopus seagull trying to muscle in on our oysters.

Final visit for the day was to Red Bank, a highly colourful beach with flaming cliffs to match.

Stokes Bay
The local Rockpool Cafe allows camping on the adjoining field - a sign indicated there would be an all night party, loud, long and raucous in the next few days - so we stayed a night beside the bay with its rocky beach dotted with hooded plovers of which only 200 are left on KI.

A tiny gap in the rocks leads through a secret labyrinth of rocks to a beautiful sandy beach in the next bay.

As a sidetrip, we took the backroads to Cape Cassini, wild and windswept.

Seal Bay
On the first real day of summer, the temperature on Seal Bay beach hit 45 degrees when we joined a group of toddlers and tourists sporting facenets to defeat the swarms of flies to see the sealions cavorting in the surf.

Vivonne Bay
Stayed overnight in the campsite and met a pair of Alaskans on bikes pedalling across KI and then Tasmania. Next door was a family with four girls, 12, 9, 5,4 off on a Big Lap with caravan, 4WD and a ton of gear. Mother toiled all day with washing and cooking, putting up Tarzan swings. Dad was a quiet guy, toiling all day with watertanks, shifting gear, and organising beach trips. Mum said Dad even had a chainsaw ready for all eventualities. Hats off.

Kingscote and KI Western Caravan Park
Unexpected pleasure was the company of rain for three days. So we spent a night in the Kingscote Tourist Park with rain drumming down. Next day, we fuelled up on an all day breakfast in the local cheery café where all the pensioners were dropping in to swap gossip, ailments and news of visitors.

En route we saw local humour in action and commiserated with roadkill.

Emerging from the rain and a cold, we bathed in sunshine again at the KI Western Park – a shady 42 acre site with galahs, Cape Barren geese, possums and wallabies bouncing around the visitors. A delightful phone booth provided communications.

First thing in the morning, a possum zeroed in on the campervan and made a dash for the bread , ripping a corner off the packet before being manhandled by Gen out of the van and herded away. This was not what possum wanted, and as a final parting shot, he took a nip at Gen’s toe. A laundry session in the afternoon in the laundry block was enlivened by two possums jumping around the washing machines and disappearing into the men’s toilet block to leave their visiting cards. Later, sitting outside with a chilled glass of wine, I felt something wet and cold poking up my shorts and discovered a possum nose in search of my nuts.

On a whim, we dropped into the KI Wilderness retreat across the road for a meal. The menu tempted with a Barramundi topped with capers and a butter sauce. Gen insisted on finding out why what we got served didn’t have the magic capers.

After a long pause, the waiter came back with the chef’s dodgy answer which was that the menu wasn’t an accurate description of what really happened which is that the capers disappeared, magically chopped into the sauce. My successful attempts to turn the conversation to dessert meant we didn’t have a meltdown scenario such as the famous Robert’s 60th Birthday Battle of the Credit Card and defeat of the poxy artificial candle.

Down the road from the Caravan Park, a splendid switchback road led to Remarkable Rocks where we discovered not only the dominant rocks, but also found a dripping basin outside the toilet block that attracted dozens of local birds.

Further down to the rocky coastline, we visited Admiral's Arch with its resident NZ and Australian fur seals boisterously frolicking in the waves and quite happily bouncing off the rocks.

Oblivious to the passing crowds, a lizard curled contentedly beside the path.

Christmas Eve was enjoyed with a self-mixed caipirinha of lime juice, sugar and cachaca. Romance was in full bloom at the Swiss neighbour’s campervan where the couple celebrated in style with champagne, candles, and flute glasses, whilst the man broached a question we think by handing over a ring onto the lady’s hand which she looked at repeatedly until the sun set. Galahs rained on the parade by perching above our chairs and dropping precise bombs onto Gen – a sure sign of good fortune to come.

Christmas Day broke with sun, blue sky and a drive down heavily corrugated road to Snake Lagoon for a walk through the bush down to the Rocky River and on to a sweeping vista of the sandy beach with crystal waves breaking in a burst of surf.

Beautiful lizards camouflaged to blend with the lichen sunbathed on the Rocky River rocks.

Next we headed to West Bay where we again met the Aussie family with 4 kids celebrating Christmas Lunch in a cave. The Bay curved in a wide arc of white sand and turquoise breakers. Overlooking the bay is a splendid campsite tucked into windswept trees and large bushes of white flowers.

Last stop for the day was Hanson Bay, another cracker of an Aussie beach, home to hooded plovers and cavorting kids.

Boxing Day got off to a pugilistic start when we dropped into the KI Wilderness Retreat for an Internet fix. Gen went into reverse and we heard a sickening thump of bumper meeting bumper. Within seconds, there was Detlef, an irate Berliner, posturing at the passenger’s (my) side ready to do battle to vent his frustration that we had just scratched his rental car. Several soothing words later and we had swapped insurance details and shook hands with smiling wishes for a better New Year.

To keep our minds off bumper car incidents, we travelled to the Raptor Centre to see their bird display and sample a supersize raptorburger. The show presented owls, falcons, and eagles - magnificent birds - the owl had been trained to hop round the knees of the crowd and to skip bare legs.