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Day 55 (Sunday 10th December 2006)
It was up at 04:30 to go duckbill hunting at dawn. Unfortunately we couldn't slip past the Germans, who were up ready and waiting and the four of us made our way into the park, dodging the wallabies as we went.
It was cold and rainy and once losing the Germans and entering the park by foot, we had to climb the barrier still up to stop people entering the walks. It was gone 05:00 now and we had no idea what the Germans were going to do with themselves (the visitor centre not opening until 09:00), not that we cared much!
It was getting light quickly so we hurried down to the platypus waterholes. We stopped at a couple before finding a nice deep pool with a viewing area and then just kind of sat and waited...and waited...and waited...and waited! We waited for a good couple of hours until we were too cold and wet to wait any longer and, just a tad disappointed, we trudged back to the car. We drove back to the farm and went back to bed.
We eventually woke up feeling pretty crappy, but excited about being able to explore the whole national park. We chucked some food in the back of 'Fran' and made our second trip of the day into the park.
Whilst driving back through, we spotted a long black snake-like object lying in the middle of the road and Marc did pretty well not to run it over. He stopped the car and backed it right up, before we both rushed out for a closer inspection.
It was indeed a snake and a large black one at that, with a flat head much like a cobra. We later found out that it was a black tiger snake, pretty poisonous by all accounts and when it does that 'flat head' thing, it means it's pretty pissed off!
Well we thought it was amazing and got some footage on the camcorder and a snap on the camera, before it finally slithered off into the bush. With that little excitement over we continued into the park and once paying our entry fee, we headed for our first attraction.
Along the way we spotted another of Australia's wonderful wildlife...an echidna. Well we say we, but in actual fact, a car load of people had already crowded round, but having yet to spot one ourselves, we muscled in on their discovery. We took plenty of snaps of this incredible little creature, which looked just like a hedgehog with an ant-eater's snout, before another car came round the corner, slamming on the brakes and doing exactly the same thing we did. We sighed, as if to say get your own echidna, before jumping back in 'Fran' and continuing towards attraction number one...the Remarkable Rocks.
They're some rocks and they're pretty remarkable! We took plenty of photos, some with us around them, some with us inside them, before heading back to the car park.
Sarah took the keys and decided she'd have a little spin down to attraction number two...Admirals Arch. However, some fool had left the lights on and 'Fran's battery was pretty flat!!
Stuck in a car park with no mobile signal it was a bit of a worry, so we started stopping every visitor that sparadically entered the car park. Unbelievably, about the fourth person we asked came out of his car armed with some all singing all dancing new jumpbuster 3000 battery charger device, which just a few seconds later, had 'Fran' back on the road!
We thanked the family for their trouble and they all had a good old chuckle over Marc's hat, before we finally cruised down to Admirals Arch. The arch was pretty cool here, but the main attraction was certainly the colony of New Zealand fur-seals, blubbering and fighting around the rocks.
Down by the arch itself, guess who we bumped into...the Germans! They'd skanked a lift off some other unfortunate fool and before we could run off before they noticed us, they spotted us and began quizzing us over the platypuses.
We thought we noticed them as we walked back from the platypus walk earlier that morning and as we revealed to them that there was nothing to see down there, they did their popularity with us no favours.
"We saw one" they said. "It was rising out of the water, swimming about and diving back down and everything...time and time again!" We somehow disguised our utter hatred for them both and quickly made our way back up the steps to the car park.
We were fuming. How dare they see one, just scrounging lifts off of people and if it wasn't for us, they wouldn't have even thought of going there in the first place...and we bet they didn't pay their park entrance fee!!
We calmed ourselves down just enough to head off and visit our final attraction of the day, deciding also, that we would definitely go back on the hunt for platypuses that night. Attraction three was Snake Lagoon and it took a while to get there, along 8km of dirt track not ideal for poor little 'Fran' (who's in desperate need of a little clean bless her).
Along the way we had a perculiar, but funny experience. Sarah said to Marc as she drove along "We haven't seen any koalas today" and then as if by magic Marc replied "There's one"! And there one was, hugging a tree by the roadside, so we stopped for a few minutes to check him out. Koalas don't seem to do much, other than just kind of hug the tree, so we continued to the lagoon.
Once parking up and walking 1.5km through the bush we reached the beautiful lagoon. When the waters are running we'd imagine this place is something else, but even with just the lagoon itself intact as it was today, it was a pretty little place nevertheless. We sat and watched the bubbles and ripples of what we thought might have been a platypus, but after a while we got bored and gave up...the Germans probably turned up 5-minutes later and watched it bellydance across the water...gotta' hate the Germans!!
We dropped into the park visitors centre for tea, but the b******s said they had stopped serving food. They wouldn't sell us any of their meat for us to do on the barbie back at the farm either and we thought it was going to be another one of those days.
Luckily Western K.I. Caravan Park came to our rescue, selling us some chicken schnitzels and bread and stuff. The schnitzels were pretty bad and our nice quiet little dormitory had been taken over by yet more Germans.
We didn't stick around and grabbed our sleeping bags (it was still pretty cold) and a few things and drove back down to the platypus walk. We were there shortly after 18:00 and stayed to watch the sun go down right through untill beyond 21:00, when it became total darkness.
Other than getting a touch of frostbite and a heavy dose of pneumonia, we saw absolutely nothing, unless a few yabbies down by the water's edge count for anything.
Now really pissed off and in no mood for some raving Germans, we went back to the farm. We went straight to bed, but not before Marc marched in and turned their stereo off for them (well it was now 22:00). They persisted to talk and laugh in their gay little language untill well into the night and Marc controlled his anger to just a few thumps on the wall, when a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the face could well have been in order...gotta' hate the f*****g Germans!!!!!
Day 56 (Monday 11th December 2006)
We loved our little farm, but now couldn't wait to get out, so we packed up our suff (making as much noise as humanly possible) and began our journey along the north coast to Kingscote. We popped the farmer's money in his honesty box and like two Jews on the run, left the Germans far behind.
Our first stop was Parndana and we popped into the town bakery for breakfast before visiting their one and only cash machine. It wasn't giving us much money out and we thought it must have been a problem with the machine, but no, it just meant we have no money!
The 1000 pound Marc transfered from his Natwest account well over a week ago now, has still yet to go through and as a result, we have already dipped into the credit card. We took our last $170 dollars out of the machine before continuing up towards the coast, wondering what the hell we would do if it didn't arrive soon.
The road led us to Stokes Bay and this beautiful place did a good job of taking our minds off our money problems. It didn't appear much as we drove into the car park, rather more just a pile of giant black rocks, but good ol' Sandy Kerry had explained all this to us days before and we jumped out of 'Fran' and searched for the tunnel she told us about.
There it was, an unusual walk through a headland of boulders that brought us out to a fine, white, sandy beach surrounded by cliffs. A large rock-enclosed pool would have provided protection from the surf, had it not been too cold and windy to go in, but we stayed long enough to see why residents and visitors alike, frequent this great location.
We were kind of making it up as we went along, so the Stokes Bay Bush Garden looked as good a place as any to make our next stop. However, this so called 'bush garden' turned out to be nothing more than some blokes back garden, which he charged $5 for people to see. We promptly left and headed back up the north coast.
Along the way we spotted a cute little echidna sniffing and snorting by the side of the road. We'd found this one all by ourselves and watched him forage for a few minutes, before hopping back in 'Fran' and working our way up to Emu Bay.
There were no emus there, but it was another beautiful little spot with a 4km stretch of beach that you can drive along. When the beach was given vehicle access they probably had 4-wheel drives in mind, but we had every faith in little 'Fran' and three of us made our way out onto the lovely white sand.
We drove around and took some pictures before heading off to the island's main town Kingscote, insearch of a place to stay for the night. With pelicans circling overhead, we embarked on Kingscote Nepean Bay Tourist Park (www.kingscotetouristpark.com.au).
It was the cheapest place about, but was still nearly twice as much as we were paying back at Flinders. After having a bit of a barney over our financial situation, Marc talked Sarah into leaving the island a day sooner and once confirming our new departure with the ferry company, we booked a cabin at the park.
We went in town for a late lunch and to buy some groceries for dinner, before Marc tried cheering Sarah up with a drive down to Western Cove. It was another long beach with vehicle access, but with the sand that little bit finer here, we didn't risk getting 'Fran' stuck. It would have been a nice spot to go for a walk and collect shells along the tideline, but even that was impossible due to the worsening, bitter wind.
Instead we drove inland to Duck Pond to see what was there. Surprisingly we found a few ducks and believe it or not; a pond. There wasn't much water left in it however, but just enough for Marc to nearly fall into as he climbed a tree, leaning perilously over the water's edge.
If he really wanted to cheer Sarah up, he should have just thrown himself in, but he scrambled his way back on to dry land and we both went home to our cabin to cook up a curry. It was just good to be out of the wind and with us both naively forgetting to bring any kind of warm and wet-weather clothing with us, we weren't looking too forward to the penguin tour at Kingscote Wharf later that evening.
We arrived at the Marine Centre for our 21:30 tour, the sign on the door saying 'warm clothes and sturdy shoes needed'...well at least we had the shoes! Marc had all four of his sleeveless tops on underneath his Arsenal shirt, finished off nicely by a bright yellow 'Bali' beach towel draped across his shoulders and Sarah, despite having a fleece, didn't look a whole lot better. It wasn't much of a fashion statement, but f*** was it cold!
We ignored the many stares from fellow tourists, all with their big puffer jackets, gloves and hats, whilst we viewed the seawater aquariums at the centre. On the leaflet it reads: Come and see our fascinating aquariums where our guides entertain and inform you before taking you outside on an after dark fairy penguin tour. The girl 'guiding' us through the tanks however, probably knew less about marine life than the recently born 'Scuba Sarah', let alone 'Marine Marc' himself and entertaining, she certainly was not!
Infact she was so annoying, we went off and guided ourselves around their mini aquarium, watching the likes of weedy seadragons, seahorses, giant cuttlefish and ornate cowfish, swimming about their tanks.
With the sound of her voice still piercing through our temporal lobe, our fairy penguin guide collected us and led us down to the beach. His jokes weren't a whole lot better, but as he rattled off the same old gags he used last night and every night before that, we actually quite warmed to little plump fella. We weren't warming to the weather mind and despite the ghastly blue plastic rain macs they'd traded us for our beach towels, we absolutely froze as we shivered our way through the tour.
The cute little fairy penguins looked quite at home here in these near Arctic conditions and we watched several return from a day's feeding at sea to feed their hungry chicks. As we remember Melissa saying from her similar experience at Victor Harbour, you're not allowed to use a flash camera to take photos as the light can damage the penguins eyes.
With our camera rendered useless, Sarah did manage to get one decent shot when she accidently fired the flash straight into one little waddling penguin's face. The photo was superb...the penguin probably dead, if not crawled up and dying of starvation somewhere, along with a few desperate chicks...whoops!!
After an our of teeth-chattering, we said goodbye to our guide (and the world's most annoying girl), before wrapping ourselves back up in our beach towels and heading home for one of the coldest night's sleeps we've ever had...we're sure your hearts bleed!!
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