Wild Places and Open Spaces

Needless to say, we left Flinders Range first thing in the morning to try to get away from the flies. We headed to Adelaide, which was on the way to our next destination of Kangaroo Island. However, before departing Adelaide we caught up with an old aquaintance of Jim’s. George Hayward, a hockey coach of Jim’s when he was a kid lives in a suburb of Adelaide. George and his wife Margaret invited us in and we had a wonderful lunch and lots of laughs.

So, off we were to Kangaroo Island. The island lies 13km off the coast of the Fleurieu Penninsula south of Adelaide in the state of South Australia. The island boasts Fairy Penguins (aka little penguins), seals, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and the endangered glossy black cockatoo. Too much to pass up, so we bought our tickets for the isle, and camped on the penninsula before departing in the AM. That night was possibly the windiest one we’ve seen yet. Although our tent did not blow away (which has happened before) we nearly did when we walked out onto the wharf at the ocean.

The wind didn’t let up and the tent flapped like it was going to take off all night. With weary eyes we packed up our tent the next morning and I started worrying about the rough waters we were about to cross.

We certainly got a taste of the turbulance of the Tasman Sea – dishes crashing, people vomiting, and crew members discussing how rough this particular crossing was – hopefully this is not a forecast of how the waters will be when we do the 10 hour crossing to Tasmania later this trip….

After kissing the ground after docking, we ventured to the visitors centre where we were a bit disappointed by what we were told. It seemed that to see much of what Kangaroo Island has to offer is only available via a tour. Now, as far as we are concerned, taking a tour to see wildlife is kinda cheating, not to mention bloody expensive. So, we left the centre discouraged, but in turn it fueled us to try even harder to see stuff all on our own.\

The first day we saw an echidna, a flock of glossy blacks, and wallabies and kangaroos by the hundreds before settling down at a “dodgy” but free campsite by the rocky beach.

The next 2 days were spent in Flinders Chase National Park. After a long walk in the morning where most of our exercise was from swatting the flies, we drove close to the shore to see some seals. Sure enough, after a short hike down to the rocks, we saw hundreds of sea lions and fur seals happily basking in the sun.

Still, we had seen no koalas, and it wasn’t from lack of trying. We mentioned our ‘lack of koala’ situation to a park ranger and she walked us out the doors of the ranger centre and pointed up to a tree…our 1st wild koala! It turns out we had been looking in the wrong type of eucalyptus trees all along. We got chatting more, and the ranger either trusted us or felt sorry for us, because she told us her secret spot for spotting Fairy Penguins! We promised her the secret was safe with us, and ventured out into the parking lot where we spotted ~ 5 koalas in trees, and petted the wild, but tame kangaroos.

That night we heard possibly the most frightening noise we’ve ever heard before. It was like any other night – we went walking to see what night creatures we could find. Then, suddenly from the trees came the most gutteral, evil sounding holler…it took us a moment to realize what it was – a Koala!! It is too dificult to describe the sound…kind of like a cross between a pissed off bear and a horny ape. Go on the web and Google ‘koala sound’, and I am sure a site will come up that will let you hear for yourself. We couldn’t believe such a blood curdling call could possibly come from a cute and cuddly looking Koala!

After our nerves had been shot from being awoken periodically through the night, we were up for a relaxing day. We drove to another part of the national park called West Bay – a beautiful beach surrounded by cliffs that we had to ourselves all day. It meant sunning parts of the body that otherwise remain white as a ghost and listening to the waves all day. No swimming was done though – the water was freezing!

Can’t sit for too long, so the next day we headed for the secret Fairy Penguin spot. On the way we stopped at a sheep dairy farm. Yup, you read right – they milk sheep at this unique farm. The sheep are raised from little lambs to get them used to going in and out of the milking facility just like cows. Apparently in Mediterranean countries sheep dairy farms are very popular, so this is what the Island farm has modelled themselves after. It truly is a funny sight to see sheep run to their favorite milking spot and have the milking equipment set up on them as they happily eat away as the whole process takes place. After tasting some sheep cheese and yogurt, we headed for the secret beach. The campsite turned out to be another ‘free but dodgy’ place, but worked just fine for us.

The penguins only come on shore after dark, so while it was still light out we scoped out the bay. It was huge, and we really had no idea where the birds would go. There was lots of sand, lots of rocky areas, but none looked sheltered enough for our feathered friends. Around the pier was very rocky, and it would be well lighted at night because people fish off it and we figured it would be too noisy for penguin habitat. So, we were at a loss. Nightfall came, we went looking, and came up empty. No penguins. Discouraged, we walked back to the campsite. Then a voice from the darkness came…”Did you see the penguins?” It was an older fellow, camped near us. “No” we replied, obviously upset by this fact. He then told us we need to go down to the pier, that there would be lots of them. Surprised, we did as he said, and we were thrilled when we saw dozens of penguins fluffing up and stumbling across the rocks. We watched them in fascination for a bit, and were happy that we saved $30 by not going with a tour!

Now that we had seen all the wildlife we came to see, we decided to head off the island. ON our way to the ferry we stopped in at 2 farms – a(n) eucalyptus distillery and a honey farm. Both very interesting, sustainable and produced wonderful products. After sampling the honey ice cream (which by the way may be the best ice cream we’ve ever had) we headed for the ferry. Of course we didn’t have return tickets, because we never have solid plans, so we waited in the ‘standby’ line and watched as the ferry got filled. It really didn’t look like we’d get on, but with our small car we just squeaked on. Lucky us!

The ride returning to the mainland was a much smoother crossing, and I spent most of the time watching the sheep on a transport truck – there was about 500 all crammed on a huge truck – and watching military planes flying over the ferry doing training exercises. Kangaroo Island was an expensive trip – the ferry was $150 each way – but it was a successful venture as we saw all the wildlife we went for, and got a taste of their island culture.

View pictures HERE

So, with the desert behind us after Coober Pedy, we looked to the Flinders Ranges National Park as a place of refuge from the monotonous flatness, fierce flies and flaming heat of the outback.

Let me just say right up front that the flies were over the edge ridiculous and the heat was turned down barely a notch to the mid to high 30’s. Regardless, we were after the sighting of the rarely encountered Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby which are no longer found anywhere else in Oz except Flinders “Range”. I use that word loosely as the word “Range” itself conjures up visions of high, craggy, snowcapped mountain peaks. At 1500ft elevation, they are not what I expected. They are merely highlands – but in retrospect the word ‘Ranges’ does have several meanings (for example: there are mountain ranges, shooting ranges, ranges you cook stuff on, not to mention home, home on the range(s)) in our glorious english language and the aussies will most definitely make use of the alternative definitions. At any rate, I’m not sure what range they had in mind, but in relation to the vast tracts of the world’s flattest continent, maybe they actually did mean mountains!? Who knows.

We wended our way to the visitor center which is a novelty in an Oz National Park and enquired about the usual; where to camp, where to spot wildlife and the condition of the roads. The friendly ranger behind the desk told us we couldn’t go wrong camping in a remote area of the park to get a good chance at spotting the yellow foots. She also assured us that all the roads in the park are 2WD roads, unless otherwise posted which kept our minds at ease.

So, it was decided we’d venture into the park to the remote campsite, but first we’d camp locally and have a shower, relax, take in a sunset at a local lookout and hike in the morning before heading out.

We picked out a spot amongst the gum trees and both took showers, had some dinner and sampled some of my bargain wine – $9.00 Australian for 4L! It was 6:30pm, so I was in a hurry to take in the sunset so we made haste to the local lookout. The only problem with that was – due to the southern latitude – the sun didn’t set until 8:30pm or so. We killed time wandering around the prickley spinifex, looking at the kangaroos, sunning ourselves until the sunset occurred, very unexceptionally I might add. No harm done, as we didn’t have anything else to do anyway.

Once we arrived back at our campsite I was alarmed to see my bargain wine had been mauled, chewed and sampled by some party-roos! No worries, I salvaged what was left and put it into whatever containers we had and I’m still here days later, so there was no transmisson of ‘kangaroo-fever’ – at least that I’m aware of.

In the morning we made a hike up to the Wilpena Pound – Flinders geological highlight. I guess we’ve been spoiled iwth geological splendour and were in less awe once we set eyes on the Flinders attraction. Oh well, it was a good hike and thankfully we did it early as things were starting to heat up!

We broke camp yet again, and began our drive to the northern reaches of Flinders Range. Let me say; if an aussie tells you the road is a 2WD road, it doesn’t much mean the same thing in Canadian! If hte road was any worse we never would have made it. You would have had to see it to believe it!

We made it to our campsite – barely – and as soon as we exited the comfort of our vehicle’s airconditioning we realized the Flinders Ranges were well below the requisite altitude to reduce the temperature significantly – actually at all! It was blazing outside and the flies were over the top!

A word on the outback flies – every fly one encounters will make at least 10 attempts to land on your face, particularly targeting your ears, nostrils, eyeballs and mouth. It truly is enough to drive you bonkers. As a matter of fact, even though it was a bit hotter than a Finnish wood fire sauna outside, we set up our tent on a dried up creekbed – which are not in short supply – in the little shade we could find and sat in it to escape the bombardment of flies! No worries, as the flies would settle down at dark 4 1/2 hours away. The good news at this point is we got our first fleeting glimpse of the yellow foots!

After an hour or so, we realized that we couldn’t bare 3 1/2 more hours in the tent baking, so we braved a short hike to attempt to find some shade, solace from the flies and some rock wallaby habitat. Before exiting the tent, Kristin devised a mask using her bandana which made her look like a terrorist but she assured me it was working against the flies!

We found some shade and a slight respite from fly activity. Whilst sitting in the shade doing basically nothing other than waiting for night and ultimately morning so we could get the heck out of there, we were approached by 15 feral goats! Funny thing is we had just read a sign that said this area of the park was closed the previous weekend – to shoot feral goats! Guess they missed these guys…..

That evening we were fortunate enough to encounter and photograph some yellow foots and as a wildlife bonus, encountered a red backed spider in the mens outhouse. So, all in all it was a successful adventure and one that we will not forget anytime soon. We will not miss the dry, hot, fly ridden Flinders anytime soon either.

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