It was on the list. Alongside Tassie, Ayers Rock & Kakadu... Kangaroo Island was an absolute must. We wanted to see the abundance of seals, the penguins and the beautiful surroundings. Tom especially was really looking forward to spending a week or so on this little island about 2hours drive south of Adelaide.
So, we beelined straight down towards Cape Jervis to catch the ferry across. On route, we stopped in at the Goolwa Inspiration Centre, just to grab some brochures on the many things to do when we got there. Now, bear in mind the ferry boasts to be a 'comfortable 45 minutes on a luxurious passenger and vehicle vessel.' Taking in to consideration that the 45 minute barge to Brunie Island was $35 (except that was certainly far from being a luxurious vessel) and the 10 hour ferry to Tasmania was $400 ... we were expecting to pay somewhere around the $100 - $125 mark, which would have hurt the weekly budget but we saw it as a very worthwhile expense.
So, we beelined straight down towards Cape Jervis to catch the ferry across. On route, we stopped in at the Goolwa Inspiration Centre, just to grab some brochures on the many things to do when we got there. Now, bear in mind the ferry boasts to be a 'comfortable 45 minutes on a luxurious passenger and vehicle vessel.' Taking in to consideration that the 45 minute barge to Brunie Island was $35 (except that was certainly far from being a luxurious vessel) and the 10 hour ferry to Tasmania was $400 ... we were expecting to pay somewhere around the $100 - $125 mark, which would have hurt the weekly budget but we saw it as a very worthwhile expense.
I think a felt like I was hit by a 18 tonne semi trailer when the information centre lady proceeded to tell us both that a return ferry to Kangaroo Island was... $175 for the vehicle PLUS $88 per person!!! $351 for one vehicle and two passengers to travel on a boat for 45minutes. Obviously, running a company such as a passenger & vehicular ferry of massive vessels voyaging over rough seas is bound to have some pretty hefty overheads but BLOODY HELL!! We just couldn't justify it. We'd seen seals, we'd seen penguins and we'd certainly seen a load of kangaroos but these ones had to be gold plated in order to justify such a ludicrously high expense.We were shattered. We were so excited to go to what we were certain to be one of the most beautiful places in Australia. I remember saying to Tom as we hobbled out of the (un)inspiration centre and into the Troopie... what if we forked out $350 to go on that ferry and we get there just to experience terrible weather for 5 days? How mortified would we be then? It just wasn't worth the risk. If we hadn't already been to Tasmania for the last 5 weeks, I think we would have given it more thought but as far as we were concerned, Kangaroo Island was simply a no go.
That led us to our next hurdle. The difference about being on the road verses having a home is when you're so bitterly disappointed about something, you don't have your own homely comforts to go snuggle back in to and feel sorry for yourself. Nope, we were in no-man's land. Now, we had no destination and no idea of where we would sleep that night. There were zero campsites in our Camps 5 book anywhere less than 1 hours drive away. We just were not in the mood. We even considered once again breaking the golden rule and staying at a Big4 in Port Elliot. But after just having had a knife stabbed into our hearts, that'd just be twisting it (a little bit extreme perhaps! :)
Thankfully, we stumbled across...
Thankfully, we stumbled across...
Rating : 13 / 20
Facilities : Any of our single guy friends would have been in their element - there was a 16 year old girl's volleyball team practising right next to us ;) Amazingly clean infact probably the cleanest facilities we've had. Free, good hot showers. Great camp kitchen area with free BBQ. But the best of all, my favourite (and I know I sound like a broken record) the BEST fluffiest, greenest grass EVER!!!
After tolerating my whining and moaning for the last few weeks, Tom set about making some alterations for me (uh, I mean us) in one of the drawers commonly known as "The Cutlery drawer". This drawer houses all of our cooking utensils, herbs & spices, salt & peppers... you know all of that crap... but it was just becoming far too much of a pig sty for my liking. Things were getting too difficult to find and I just couldn't cook under such disastrous conditions :)
It was all pretty simple really (particularly for me), we just went into a Bunnings and bought a 1200mm long plank of plywood and WA-La! I (I mean we) now have some partitioning in the cutlery draw...
Oh, and I must mention too that we saw and then crossed the Murray River... a VERY full Murray River at that...
No comments:
Post a Comment