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| Admiral's Arch, an impressive sea cave where New Zealand fur seals breed (and stink!) |
| Glenn's Journals 12-07-02 Kangaroo Island S.A. It is Saturday morning and our first full day on Kangaroo Island. After breakfast, which was scheduled for 8:00 am, we packed up and headed out for the day. The day was warm and sunny and we were pretty happy about this. We were a little low on gas and cash and we had to take care of at least the gas issue before we went into the park. We found gas right before the entry to Flinders Chase Natural Park and, being on this side of the island with very few choices, the price of gas was a little outrageous at $1.15 pre liter (approximately $2.45 per gallon). At this point we had no other choices so we filled up for the day. We also bought sandwhiches and chips for lunch later since we could charge the expense and not use up the little cash we had left. At the entrance to Flinders Chase we stopped at the visitors information center where we purchased our day pass into the park and looked around the store before departing for the main attractions. Our first stop was the Admirals Arch where their is a natural overpass cut out of the rocks, along with a colony of Australian Fur Seals. We spent quite a while watching the fur seals frolick in their every day suroundings. The arch was spectaular as well with beautiful views of the ocean and landscape. Our next stop was at the Remarkable Rocks which, again, are rocks shaped over the centuries by nature. We played on these rocks and enjoyed the beautiful views before heading into the park. We stopped at the Rocky River for a 7 kilometer hike to potentially see platypus in their natural habitat. The hike was through the bush so we took our time looking for kangaroos, koala, echidna, and snakes. After about 40 minutes we found our way to the lookout area for the platypus. The signs said to look for bubbles in the water, which we did and saw some, but we never actually saw a platypus. On the walk back we continued to look for animals but only heard the singing of the local birds. By now it was getting on 3:30 pm and we did not have accomodation for the next two nights. On the way out of the park we stopped for ice cream and called for accomodation from Flinders Chase visitors center. We drove up the west coast road (just recently paved) and across on Playford Highway before reaching Brownlow (just outside of Kingscote) where we found the campervan park. The family managing the place had only been on the job for 3 days and there had been a little confusion with our request for accomodation. We had asked about a basic cabin ($42 Aus per night) but all they really had left was a pre-setup campervan ($38 Aus per night) or a ensuite cabin ($70 Aus per night). We chose the campervan which ended up working out just fine for us. We realized that during this trip we have stayed in many different kinds of accomodations and situations, but if you are not flexile you will never survive on the road. We settled in to our new abode before heading into town for dinner. Kingscote is the largest town on the island with over half of the 4000 population living in this area. The Ozone restaurant was recommended to us so we stopped into check it out. It is a very nice restaurant serving plenty of food for the money. Dinners come with a salad bar, bread, and vegetables. You buy your drinks at the bar but you can carry your tab from the restaurant over to the bar so you only have to pay once. It was also very clean and has a beautiful view of the water. After dinner we returned to our humble abode where we worked on journals and read books for the rest of the evening. We crashed around 11:00 pm. Tomorrow we will spend the day on the north side of the island, especially at Paul's Place, a farm near Stokes Bay where you can enjoy the local animals. |
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| Remarkable Rocks, a huge formation of boulders dominating a granite cliff |