December [week 1]
Laura & Mark - 1st December 1999
Wow, December already, not long and it would be Christmas, and what comes with Christmas? 32 degree sunny weather. It was going to be that hot today and we could feel it already when we got up this morning. Laura was working at 7.00am again, and Mark got up with her at 5.30 so that they could catch the bus together. When Laura went in to work, Mark went off to wait for the internet centre to open so that he could do some e-mailing before going up to the charity office to collect his pay. While he waited he bought a newspaper and had another look through the positions vacant column. Unfortunately there was nothing suitable again, unless you were an experienced toasted sandwich maker or a hairdresser.
Mark decided not to work as the weather was far to hot, so when Laura got home, we spent some time being tired and hot together. For dinner tonight we had a little more time, so we made a little more effort and threw together Teriyaki chicken and rice. Unfortunately, Laura had another 7.00am start the next day and we were both surprisingly exhausted, so another early night was in order. Not before a quick swim of course, in the crystal clear, completely still sea, just as the sun was setting, very, very magical.
Laura & Mark - 2nd December 1999
Another sizzling day today, absolutely roasting. Laura got up to catch the bus at 6.20am this morning and it was already 27 degrees. At 8.00am when she heard the news on the radio at work, the temperature had soared to 30 degrees, and wasn't going to stop there.
The temperature peaked at about 38 degrees this afternoon and caused havoc throughout Adelaide. There were massive powercuts due to the overuse of electricity by air-conditioners and many shops and offices had to shut for the day.
Powercuts hit much of the Glenelg area and our fridge defrosted merrily in the heat for about 3 hours before power was restored. When Laura finished work and headed back to Glenelg to the internet centre to meet Mark, se was surprised to note that it was closed. She was not the only one waiting hopefully outside, and after a couple of minutes of toasting in the sun, someone came to let them in. This was the first that Laura learnt of the power cuts in Glenelg, and she went in to use the only bit of the shop that they'd bothered opening up again: the internet cafe.
Mark joined her a few minutes later and told her of the troubles he'd had with the power cuts today. Not only had the fridge been defrosting, the supermarket been shut and most of the other shops on Jetty Road too, but without power he couldn't use the washing machines at the laundrette either. All in all, a minor disaster, as food and clean clothes were in high demand in our flat.
Well, we did at least manage to do some e-mailing and went home to eat the few things that we still had left in our fridge. We then went down to the beach to have another quick swim before trying to go to bed and escape from the heat. Unfortunately the heat followed us, haunting our rest, and we spent quite a while battling with it as we tried to doze off.
Laura & Mark - 3rd December 1999
Today is the last working day for Laura before Kangaroo Island, and she was very excited. It's funny how work goes by faster when you have a smile glued to your face and you look on the fun side of every "interesting" customer. Today just flew by. Meanwhile Mark returned to his charity collecting as it had finally cooled just enough to ensure that you didn't pass out upon exiting an air-conditioned building.
We spent the evening being tired and hot after the weeks activities, and decided that another boring early night would still be a wise move, especially for Laura, as Paul would be around at 8.00am the next morning with the car.
Laura & Mark - 4th December 1999
On more day, and then we'll be going away!
Laura was greeted by the bright and smiling face of Paul again this morning and together they drove off to attempt to teach Laura some more skills. The lesson went O.K. No better or worse than usual, which can only be considered good.
Mark meanwhile had a little lie in and then got ready to go to work. He'd decided to do a little more collecting, as he would miss out on the opportunity on both Sunday and Monday.
This meant that Laura had the whole day to herself and she spent most of it at the internet cafe. This is how the diary suddenly takes a running jump back to being almost up-to-date, and the long lapses of entry in between are times when both of us are excessively busy.
WE cooked ourselves some simple food and relaxed in front of the TV, worrying (for the first time in almost two months) how we were going to pack for the next couple of days. But one weekend is easier than one year, and the packing was completed quickly and easily (we decided simply to travel light).
By ten o'clock we were ready for bed again, as a weekend on Kangaroo island meant getting up at 5.45 to allow for two FULL days.
Laura & Mark - 5th December 1999
The alarm clock woke us bright and early again this morning and we got up slowly, but less reluctantly than when we were getting up for work. By 6.38am we were off, walking down the street to where the Glenelg pick-up bus would be waiting. We got on and were surprised to find that the bus was already almost full, and that we were in fact the second last people to board before "take off". This first part of the trip did not last long, and within a quarter of an hour we were being shepherded off this mini bus and onto a larger coach for the journey down to the port (Cape Jarvis). From here we would be on the 10.00am ferry out to Kangaroo Island, where Daniel of Daniel's tours would be waiting for us.
The ferry was disappointingly smaller than we had expected. It was a sea-link ferry, and as we knew the crossing took 45 minutes we expected it to be quite a long way, hence a big ferry. As it turned out the ferry did not even nearly compare with those of the Dover-Calais crossing. The Pride of Dover would have swallowed up this little boat twenty times over. The reason that the crossing took so long turned out to be not as much the distance, as the power of the boat. Cape Jarvis to Pennishaw was a 13km crossing and the boat simply did it slowly.
That didn't matter to us though as we enjoyed first a short introductory video about Kangaroo Island and then the scenery. We decided not to follow the Thunderbirds episode they showed during the crossing too closely, but we did indulge in a little light refreshment (cappuccino's and sausage rolls). When the captain announced our impending arrival, we went up on the front deck to watch the boat draw up to the port. We then joined the queue of people in walking the last few metres to solid land, down the ship's gangplank.
It wasn't too hard to find Daniel, as he seemed to be the loudest tour guide there and was already surrounded by a small group of people our age. We decided immediately we had chosen the right tour, as with people our age group, and a nutty tour leader it looked like it would be a lot of fun. Meanwhile others were being hounded off the boat and straight into posh air-conditioned coaches by a fat man in neat trousers.
Our fist stop in our little minibus was only a short drive away along a dirt  track. Here we would embark on a short walk "to get rid of the sleepiness from the bus and boat travel". Daniel showed us a map of the island and explained a little about what we would be doing in the two days to come. One of the things that he asked immediately was how we all felt about doing a 16km walk. Apparently there was a small beach that you couldn't get to by car that he'd like us to visit. It would mean an 8km walk each way over coastal headlands, but when we got there he thought it would be worth it. Apparently this beach was inhabited by a colony of sea lions which we would be able to view, walk among and even swim with. We agreed unanimously that it would be worth it, as long as the sea lions hadn't moved away for the summer.
But first we walked just a few metres and looked down a little burrow in the hill. At the bottom of this burrow was a little streak of white which, according to Daniel, was in fact a baby penguin. It was at this point that we realised he was right: there was no point in going penguin hunting out of season as this was as good as it got (not very).
We then set off on a short walk across and up a hill. As we walked up and the scrub got a little denser we spotted our first "up close and personal" Australian mammal: a wallaby. Lots of them in fact, we had walked into the middle of their colony. They seemed quite happy to stand there while they had their photos taken as long as you didn't get too close. If you cracked a branch too near to them they would hop off in that beautiful and characteristic way, and that in itself was a real treat. We saw dozens of them, and even a few youngsters, they were all unbelievably cute!
We walked back to the bus where we got in and returned briefly to Pennishaw. We were dropped off at a toilet and drinking water stop where we could prepare ourselves for the 16km walk while Daniel went off to fetch some lunch. It is at this point that we should perhaps introduce our group: two Swiss girls, a friendly English girl all on her own, two jovial Canadian boys, and two tattooed Danish girls (they had cling film wrapped around their tattoos, which were on their ankle and tummy respectively) who couldn't swim due to the freshness of the tattoos. In fact one of the Canadian boys had a tattoo on his shoulder too, and the general joke for the weekend was about the "nipple cream" which had to be applied to the tattoos regularly to stop dehydration and infection.
Anyway, after changing into our bikinis/swimming trunks, we waited in the sunshine for Daniel to return with the bus. It was then a 1 and a quarter hour drive to the point on the cliff from which we had to walk. During this journey we realised just how large Kangaroo Island was. It measured 150km long by 55km across which meant that it was one quarter the size of Holland, and so we were to be travelling some rather large distances while we were there.
Once we had reached the point where we could go no further in the bus we got out and admired the sea. We were on the Southern coast of the island which meant that there was nothing but water for thousands of kilometres as we looked out to sea, and then there would be thousands more kilometres of ice. The waves and the water were different here to the sheltered coast of Glenelg and they battered the rocks with brute force, even though there was little wind. The water was such a clear blue colour and looked so fresh and cold (as indeed we found out later it was). We munched on the cold pizza that Daniel had provided for lunch and sucked on the deliciously cold slices of orange as we watched the huge, crashing waves. Once we were fully refreshed we set off on the first leg of the long hike. We walked along a half sandy-half chalky track between fields of scrub and heather. Occasionally along the track there would be metal poles sticking out from the scrub. This was for the people responsible for the preservation of the area and were used for taking photographs of the plants. Apparently there had been a large bush fire in the area in December 1997 and they were observing closely how well the species were recovering. Other than those few posts, there were few signs of inhabitation along the track. It was obvious that a car could drive down it if necessary, but this was only for the vehicles of the conservationists and the emergency services. The path lead to the tops of the headlands and down towards the bays, keeping always within 20 metres of the edge of the cliffs. From each headland we could see the path leading on endlessly around the coast. We finally reached the last headland before the beach we were heading for and as we began to walk down we were told to keep low and out of sight, as if we looked tall, we would frighten the sea lions. And sure enough, as you peaked down the hill, there were lots of large, fat, brown bodies basking in the hot sunshine, both on the beach and the rocks. There were a few young sea lions already playing in the water when we arrived and we sat for a rest on the top of the hill to watch them.
After a few minutes we crept our way in one long train slowly down to the beach. And it was as simple as that, we were standing among them. To our left lay some large, male sea lions on the rocks, to our right were some mothers and babies on the beach. It felt almost magical. We headed straight down to the rocks beside a small pool of water into which the sea flowed more gently (as it was broken by the rocks further out). As we sat, the young sea lions played in the pool. They swam around each other and swayed up and down on the waves. They watched us and swam closer, asking for attention. They weren't shy, but any large movement and they would back away a little. They had just swam past the other rocks and a little further out to sea, when Laura and the tattoo-less Canadian guy decided they would brave the water. Mark quickly decided to join them, and once they were in, the other Canadian followed. Soon there were 4 of us sitting low in the water, waiting for the sea lions to return to the pool. It didn't take long for them to be back, but they stayed in the other half of the pool, playing and watching us with a little suspicion. Every now and then one would get more curious and brave and edge a little closer, but they were not near enough to touch. We sat in the water watching them for almost half an hour before some real action occurred. One of the Canadian guys went off to try to get closer to them and Mark followed behind him. Laura was a little more nervous and stayed behind Mark. Then Mark and the other guy decided to move towards the rock at the other end of the pool, behind Laura, leaving her closer to the sea lions.
At this point one of them started to get very playful and swam over towards Laura. Daniel called from the side for us to wave our hands, and we did so weakly (thinking that this would mean we were playing with them). Then Daniel started calling more anxiously for us to wave our hands and we realised that the situation was a little more grave. We waved harder and Daniel distracted the sea lion from the other side. Once it had moved away a little, we made a mad dash out of the water to the safety of the higher rocks (and the safety of numbers). We were a little shaken up by the thought of being attacked, and when Daniel told us we could easily have been thrown in the air by a sea lion of that size, we felt glad to be out of the water safely. It did nothing to diminish the magical feeling of being in the water with them though, and we sat and watched them for a few more minutes before heading back. In the meantime, the aggressive sea lion, having thought it had won the battle with us, decided to take on one of the large, fat sea lions laying on a nearby rock. We smiled as we saw this sea lion took no interest whatsoever and merely shooed him away.
We got dressed again and walked back up the hill. We then walked back up and down the coastal path, all the way to the bus. The return journey of course took longer, as our feet were beginning to feel it.
We finally reached the bus, where we regained our spirits by tucking into a few more oranges before driving off towards the youth hostel. On the way, we stopped at a little shop, where we bought some very welcome chocolate. Just before reaching the youth hostel, we pulled into a side road where we stopped to look for koalas. Mark and Laura were very pleased with what they saw, with was a few large, hairy blobs in the trees with very cute faces, but Daniel wasn't happy. He considered these to be classed only as blobs and not worthy of being dubbed koalas and decided that we would return in the morning to see if there would be any closer to eye-level.
The Youth Hostel was situated in Flinders Chase National Park, the largest National Park on Kangaroo Island and as we pulled up we were greeted by Gracie. Gracie was a baby kangaroo who had been rescued by a friend of Daniels when her mother had been killed by a car. Gracie had been found in her mother's pouch relatively unharmed and was now thriving in Daniel's care. She wasn't shy at all, she'd no doubt seen enough visitors, and she hopped around following people and offering her paws to us.
We unpacked our things and relaxed for a while before starting to prepare dinner. Dinner turned out to be "Mexican" and was very close to our version of Chilli Con Carne. When we had to open the cupboard for some more onions, we discovered that it must be "Mexican" for dinner quite often. The cupboard was completely full of the tins and packets that we had used to make dinner. When we confronted Daniel with this he confirmed our suspicions, he made "Mexican" for dinner for three months, and then "Chinese" for dinner for the next three months etc...
In between the cooking we played some cards and soon enough, the dinner was ready. We tucked into the red mush and rice and it was actually very tasty.
Once we had finished and had washed up, we played around with the record player for a while. One of the Canadian guys thought it was a marvellous invention and was quite happy to watch it go round and round. He was even more excited when he discovered that the record could actually be played on both sides, and that the music was different on each.
Just after dark, we gathered around the campfire while we waited for Daniel to come and take us on our tour to find the nocturnal animals. We got onto the back of a ute and stood firmly, holing tight to the bars while he bumped us at great speed down the road and into a field. Once there, he turned on a bright spotlight and chased kangaroos around the field. We held on with all our might and watched the kangaroos bound in and out of the spotlight. Once we had chased enough, we circled the edge of the field looking under the trees for possums. However we were unsuccessful in finding any and we raced back off to the youth hostel through the cold night air.
Mark, Laura and one of the Canadian guys sat outside by the fire for a while once the others had gone to bed and watched the clear night sky. The Canadian guy was planning to take Daniel's possum-spotting advice and sit out after everyone else had gone to bed to watch them come past. We left him too it after a while and went exhausted to bed.