The Whole Bunch

After 4 weeks on my own I had to reunite with the family due to my little nephews 2nd birthday and more important my parents 40th anniversary, after all it is a bit hard to say "Happy Anniversary, I'm off to somewhere else." So on Friday, my nephews 2nd birthday, I moved from the Cannon Street Backpackers, where I already stayed for almost a week, to the Country Comfort Motel on Adelaide CBD's South Terrace. A 20 minute walk with a 20+kg backpack and a daypack. Luckily the girl at the Cannon Street BP reception told me I could take the tram to South Terrace and walk the last part as the trams are free if you only travel within the CBD boundaries so I only had to walk for 10 minutes.

I agreed to check-in at the motel earlier than the family as they couldn't arrive before 22:00 but arriving at the reception I started to curse the damn credit card. I entered all the needed details and then they asked me for a credit card due to motel policies, otherwise they couldn't give me the keys unless I would pay a nights rent + $100,- bond (security deposit) and we would get it back once my brother or sister-in-law arrived with the credit card. I didn't have my Australian Bank Card yet resulting in that I would have to pay that from my Dutch account so you can imagine I refused to pay this amount. After an hour of discussion with the family what to do, the motel finally decided to agree to get the credit card details by phone and the family would leave the imprint as soon as they would arrive at the motel. The rooms were pretty ok, they even had a bath so I decided I deserved one. And once the family arrived my brother, my dad and I went to the pub for a couple of beers.

Saturday was my parents big day, 40 years of marriage. We went to the South Australian Museum and after that on towards the Botanical Gardens. In the gardens we found a nice kiosk decorated with balloons (it turned out it was for a wedding but they went out for a photo shoot) so there we gave the presents we bought for our parents and grandparents, which was in Anne and Tom's case. After this special moment we continued our walk through the gardens for another hour after which we took a lunch near Adelaide's shopping street Rundle Mall, where we spent the afternoon in the city just strolling around. In the evening we took our parents to Glenelg, possibly Adelaide's most known suburb, which is located at the sea. Our parents took us out for a 40th anniversary dinner, which we all really did enjoy. On the way back we found out there were loads of crickets (krekels voor de niet wetenden) hopping around and they were not only on the street, but also in the motel room. On Sunday we went to Adelaide Zoo together with our mums cousin who already lived in Australia for more than 30 years. At the zoo we saw all kinds of animals such as crocodiles, giant tortoises, koalas, orang-utans, meerkats, hippos, tigers and lions but the biggest attraction were the 2 giant Panda's. And they were lazy! Due to the time we spent at the zoo we didn't take much time in the city anymore as it was already time to look for a place to eat, which we did at a surprisingly good Chinese restaurant on Gouger Street. Back at the motel we had to go on a killing spree because the amount of crickets in our room had increased from a few to a many. We killed about 50 and thought we had them all, but after returning from playing a game in the other room, there were another 30 or more to kill. Now in know what they mean with a locust.

After 3 nights spend in Adelaide we went on to our next destination: Kangaroo Island. And the name says it already... It's an island so we had to take a ferry to get there. From Cape Jarvis you can already see the island but it still takes almost 50 minutes to cross Investigator Strait to Penneshaw. And from Penneshaw it still took us over an hour to get to our accommodation: Lathami Lodge. Arriving at the lodge we were a bit awed by the location where it is at. On top of a ridge, view to the sea and no town within 20 km. And it was were we saw our first Kangaroos of the island, grazing at the ridge in front of the lodge. Also there were about 8 Glossy Black Red Tailed Cockatoos which is not so common as that bird is an endangered species, turned out wild life preservations put up 2 breeding nests. And our greatest furry friend lived in the tree in our back garden. A koala. And the lodge itself? Just to good to describe, I think 2 families could live in it easily. Anyway, we had 5 nights in this luxury lodge so more than enough time to explore Kangaroo Island (150km long and between 900m and 57km wide). During this period we visited Kingscote (the main town on the island), Cape Borda, Cape du Couedic, Admiral's Arch (where we saw loads of fur seals and sea lions up close), Remarkable Rocks, Vivonne Bay, Parndanna (incl. the wildlife park), Cape Wiloughby and of course our nearby Stokes Bay. This last location was actually a very well hidden beach if there was not a sign giving you directions to the actual beach. From where you park your car you need to walk through the rocks, bend a couple of times until you reach a beautiful beach. We also visiting some farms during these days ranging from a bee farm, a sheep diary farm, an eucalyptus farm and a lavender farm. But maybe the best attraction I've seen was the Birds of Prey show at Raptor Domain. Here the hosts show and tell you about the birds and specially the birds of prey which live on the island, with the highlight: Rex, the Wedge Tailed Eagle. This Eagle is the largest bird of prey in Australia (and one of the largest in the world) with a wingspan of 2.27 meters and is about 1.04 meters high. It was a unique chance to see this bird up close seeing his powerful claws and beak. It was just magnificent how he absorbed a rabbits foot including fur and bone. Besides the Wedge Tailed Eagle we've been shown a Kite (sort of Falcon) and some Owls and a few non predators but common birds such as the Magpie, Grey Currawong and two Kookaburras. And kind of wildlife have we spotted? Quite a few Wedge Tailed Eagles (not as close as the one at the show), some White Belied Sea Eagles, an Echidna, heaps of Kangaroos, Wallabies and Padamelons, loads of different parrots, a few penguins in their burrows and some Iguanas. One strange thing we found out, the island had more sheep than Kangaroos so I wonder why did call it Kangaroo Island and not Sheep Island.

After 5 nights and 6 days our time at Kangaroo Island we headed back to Penneshaw and just before leaving the island we wanted to climb Prospect Hill for a nice 360 view of a big part of the island. The 522 stairs to the top were walked by 2 year old Tom and 4 year old Anne on their own. The 522 down we took them on our shoulders. Anyway we were heading of from the island taking the same ferry back to Cape Jarvis and from there it was about an hours drive to our next destination: Victor Harbor. Also here we had a beautiful house we stayed in. Although the weather wasn't on our side we still saw some nice things. In town we visited the Whale Museum, getting to know all things about whales and about the whaling history of this part of Australia. We also took a nice walk around the town and its historical buildings. On our way to Hindmarch Falls we found out that driving in low clouds (approx. 300 meter altitude) can be compared to heavy fog but luckily this was not at the falls itself. Either was this the case near Coolwa at Murray Mouth, the place were almost all the rivers of the south-eastern part of Australia will mound into the Indian Ocean. Murray Mouth is part of the Coorong National Park and the mouth itself appeared to have moved about 1 to 8 km in the last 3000 years due to eroding of both high river and rough sea.

Our time in Victor Harbor was also limited so after 3 nights we headed of to our next stop: Aldgate, located in the Adelaide Hills, just 19km from the CBD. And guess what? Also here a nice holiday home to spend 3 nights. Our route towards Aldgate was a bit of a long detour, well a very long detour of a couple of hours. We even managed to cross the Murray River by barge. Arriving in Aldgate we found out our accommodation was in the middle of a forest, but this time with many houses around. We passed the house twice before we knew which one it was. I took one day of myself when the rest went to the Chocolate Factory, a cheese taster shop and a Oak Mill. The other day I joined them on the trip to Morialta Falls on the outskirts of Adelaide. The walk in Morialta Conservation Park was nice, at some places very steep and at one place barely walked. On the walk we saw a few Koalas of which the last one was great to see as it decided to start eating while we were watching. In the afternoon we went to the historic town of Hahndorf, an original German settlement dated around 1850. The buildings on the main street have a typical German look as if you were walking around in Bayern, unfortunately it only had one real German restaurant and only one shop selling real German (but also Dutch) food. Of all the places we've visited so far we didn't do that much when in Aldgate, partly because we had one day of mainly rain.

Our last place we would visit on the family trip was Clare, instead of a huge house for accommodation, this time we stayed in a cabin on a caravan park. The trip towards Clare was a nice one as we visited Gumeracha, the town of the Wooden Toy Factory where there is the biggest rocking horse in the world. A really big structure. From Gumeracha we headed of towards the world famous wine region Barossa Valley, where we tasted some wine at Chateau Tanunda. A very nice old building with some tasty wines. While driving through Barossa Valley and later Clare Valley you can really see it are two wine regions, it was as if you were driving through some of the French wine regions near Dijon. All you could see were vineyards... and sheep. Also near Clare we visited a winery, this time the Sevenhill Winery where you could have a self guided tour along the winery and the little museum including the wine cellar. This small winery is originally an Austrian Jesuits community which made their own wine in a later stadium of their settlement. So it wont surprise you this winery also has a number of religious buildings on the property. The day before the Sevenhill visit we went to Burra which is famous for its historic copper mine. The town has over 50 historic sites and buildings telling about the mining history of the town. You can also visit the quarry mine if you have the key to get in (to our opinion it was to expensive to get one). Next to Burra we also visited Worlds End at Burra Creek Gorge, which turned out to be the Murray River in ancient times. Driving here was if you were driving in no mans land for over an hour. In the evening dad, my brother, Anne, Tom and I went to the rodeo across the street at the caravan park. And I have to say, it is something you need to experience at least once and a good opportunity to see the bull riding at least from up close. It's a nice big event attracting quite a big crowd from all ages. Our visit to nearby Martindale Hall was to my opinion a bit disappointing. It is a very nice big building to see but it could have been maintained so much better as it didn't look inviting to me to spent much time around.

On our route back to Whyalla we didn't do much as my brother also had to work on the same afternoon, so when we arrived back home we decided to chill out a bit. My parents left for home the next Wednesday making an end to their holiday in Australia and I started preparing for my trip to Perth... so next entry will be about the 2700km trip to Perth (and the 2700km back).

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