OUR LAST DAY ON KANGAROO ISLAND

We woke up to cloudy skies, but it had stopped raining overnight.  We had breakfast at Strainraer.  Good grief - mountains of food again - and we had actually turned down eggs and bacon.  We did have fruit, a wonderful rhubarb-strawberry dish that was superb (glazed walnuts in it too).  We also had wonderful pancakes - and I'm not even a great pancake fan.  Over breakfast we had a great talk with Lyn.  She had been a teacher on the island for 34 years.  She began as a nutrition teacher.  It sounded more scientific than the similarly named class in the States.  She kept taking classes, there's not a lot to do on the island, and ended up being head of the school.  Because the school was small (400 at most) she also ended up teaching all sorts of classes from home ec, to English to Chemistry.  The fascinating part was that the frustrations of teaching are universal - so are the good bits.  We could have chatted all afternoon.  The Australian system has 4 ten weeks terms.  5 weeks off at Christmas (summer) and two weeks in between the other terms.  There are a few days off for ANZAC day (Australian/New Zealand Armed Corps) kind of a Veterans' Day, and for the foundation of Australia as a country-day.

At about 9 am, Rob, a guide showed up.  The van had us, our tour-buddies from yesterday, Judy and Dick, and a couple of couples from Melbourne.  We stopped at the airport and picked up another family, a mom, dad, and son who had just spent part of his junior year of college (University of Rochester) in Sydney.  They were all from Cincinnati, Ohio.  We also had another guide with us (I think mostly to help set up goodies on the road), Gaynor.  She wasn't much use for much else.  We stopped at a local farm first to have a morning tea.  While Gaynor and Rob set up the tea, we wandered around the sugar gum trees (very tall trees) to look for koalas.  They're big, fuzzy, sit in the crook of branches, and don't move much.  I can't find them at all unless they come down and introduce themselves.  Thanks to help from many others, here's one of our koalas.

We had ANZAC cookies for a tea - they didn't have eggs, flour, golden syrup and some dried coconut and were quite tasty.  I'm going to roll home.


We stopped at Stokes bay for a look at the sea and birds, and for a bathroom break.  It's on the North Shore of the island.  There were some great birds here, something called a Sooty Oyster Catcher, which we saw, but the weather was cloudy and he looked more like a raven on the beach. Here's a photo of Stokes Bay.  There's apparently some odd stories about the Stoke brothers - sounded a bit seedy.  Both brothers loved the same woman.  One of them married her, but they ended up all living together in the same little isolated house on Stokes Bay.  Never not interesting around here.

Our next stop was a place where we could march through the bush and look for kangaroos.  Unfortunately it began to rain. We did bump into a few kangaroos hiding under overgrowth so they wouldn't get wet.  They were watching us like we were idiots - get out of the rain, fools.  We eventually did leave.  We were also on the lookout for Shiny black cockatoos.  They are the largest of the cockatoos, but in the rain, no fools they, we didn't see any.  They are particularly fond of a seed of one kind of eucalyptus (it looks like a small black pine cone.)  and they like to roost in holes in sugar gum eucalyptus trees (when branches break off, and termites eat into the wood, a hole forms against the trunk).  When these two trees occur together, you are likely to find the cockatoos - unfortunately, they're black and live in dark holes in trees.  Not a good chance of spotting them.  Besides, the drips off our coats kept us from seeing much except the crouching kangaroos.

After our tromp through the rain, we went to another farm area.  A tent had been set up (and another tent for a duggie) Most everyone went to the tent for wine.  Charlie and I tried to walk a bit in the bush.  We got a few photos, but eventually went back to the tent.

The river above is the Cygnet river again. Seen through the bush.

I'm standing next to a grass tree.  They grow very slowly.  We had King George Whiting for lunch.  We looked it up later, it's a kind of smelt.  Apparently the word whiting can mean a lot of different kinds of fishes depending upon where you are.  Hint:  in Australia, ask for the King George Whiting.  We've had it twice, and it was wonderful both times.

The rain slowed up a bit as we finished lunch.  We drove to the southern part of the island (about due south of Stokes Bay) so we could see a rare Australian sea lion.  They really look different.  Apparently, they spend three days hunting in the ocean, and three days on land.  They don't have much fur, and get cold in the air, so they nestle down on the beaches and huddle together.  Their faces look a bit like leopard seals, but they are about the size (a bit smaller) than California sea lions.  The beach we were on faced the southern sea.  Next stop:  Antarctica - about 3000 km away.  Nifty...

I'm holding a wine glass sponge. 

After our sea views, we drove to Kingscote (an hour in the van) and took our REX flight back to Adelaide.  We wandered to the Fortune Duck again for dinner - it was great.  I seem to need 1000s of calories a day to survive now.  Good grief.

I'm writing this on Sunday, as we sit in the Adelaide Airport.  We're flying today to Melbourne, then taking a connecting flight to Launceston, Tasmania.  We'll get a car and drive to a lodge in Freyscinet National Park.  Internet????