Well, we finally took another trip within Australia. Every since my best friend moved to Adelaide in January 1989 I have wanted to go visit him, and finally talked Dorothy into going during the week that the schools had a week's vacation.
We left Alice Springs Saturday afternoon, April 7th, and although the flight was uneventful, it didn't take long before the first incident. On the approach into Adelaide, the stewardess announced that they could make arrangements for car rental. I had made my own arrangements but suddenly realized that I had forgotten my driver's license. Let me explain - during the warm months in Alice I wear "Stubbies" - Australian shorts. They are quite short with only one small pocket on the back and one smaller pocket on the front. There is no space for a wallet, so I carry my driver's license in my van. This incident wouldn't have been so bad, except that I forgot both my Australian and U.S. driver’s licenses on our trip back to the U.S. less than four months ago. Needless to say, Dorothy was not amused. But as they say here, “No worries, Mate!" The rental car agent never asked for it.
We drove (rather I drove) to the flat where we were staying. The U.S. govt. rents flats in Adelaide for a variety of reasons. Years ago the only air route to Alice was through Adelaide, so when you moved here, most people had to stay overnight in Adelaide. Also, even today, if someone has a medical problem that needs treatment in Adelaide they are sent there and may use, or whoever accompanies them, may use the flats. If you are in Adelaide just for vacation and they are open, you may reserve one. There is a charge for them, but they are quite cheap compared to motels.
After settling in we went out to eat at (guess where McDonalds, of course). We had seen one downtown, but it happened to be on the busiest street in Adelaide on a Saturday night, and after driving around looking for a parking space, we gave up, returned to the flat, looked up McDonalds in the yellow pages and went to the next closest one. Since Dorothy is not a big McDonalds fan all of this effort to find one did not overly impress her.
When we were getting ready the next morning to drive to my friend's house, Toby went to get his cowboy boots out of the suitcase only to discover that I had mistakenly packed two left boots. We reached my friend's house mid-morning. Jeff and his family live in a nice older home set in a hilly secluded area about 15 miles south of the city center. The yard is about 1/3 of an acre and is covered with trees and shrubs. A winding path leads down a hill to a bench at the back of the property from where you can't see the house. There's no grass to mow. Since Jeff's wife wasn't home from work yet, he took us for a ride to the highest point in the area from where you can see all of Adelaide, then, after stopping at a restaurant which some of Jeff's friends manage (only to discover they weren't there) we ate lunch and then stopped at several flea markets in the area. We returned to Jeff's house, visited with Jackie for a while and returned to town to go see the movie The Hunt For Red october. Dwight had seen it and was so impressed that he sent his poor old father who has a son going to Stanford, 10 Australian dollars to see it. We all enjoyed it.
The next morning we went back to the airport to fly to Kangaroo Island. The roads are so bad· on the island that the rental car companies on the mainland won't let their cars be taken over (by ferry), so we flew over, returning one rental car in Adelaide and picking up another one on the island. The car I picked up there looked like a well-worn reject from the mainland, but it is understandable. The majority of the roads are dirt/gravel and the accident rate is supposedly very high. Maximum speed is supposed to be about 35-40 mph. I survived three days without going off the road. I wasn't so lucky when I rented the car, though. The lady asked for a license. I explained my predicament. No problem - she just wrote on the rental agreement, "Mr. Grimm assures me he has an N.T. driver's license," and sent me on my way (after a long spiel about the things to see and do on the island and admonitions about the roads - 65 cars had gone off the roads just this year so far).
That day we mainly spent wandering around Kingscote, the largest town on the island with a population of about 1400 (if you are looking for shopping malls, this is not the place to come.) We did drive to a beach and in the afternoon went to a boat ramp where a guy shows up every day at 4 p.m. to feed the birds. The seagulls and pelicans recognize his truck and are flying into the bed of the truck even before he stops. Toby stopped wading in the water long enough to feed some fish to the pelicans.
That night we tried to find some of the fairy penguins that nest allover the island. These small penguins (about a foot high) spend all day in the water and come onto land late in the evening to nest in the rocks and caves on the island. We did not have any luck seeing any.
We got up early Tuesday to take an all day trip down to the National Park at the other end of the island - the island is about 90 miles long. I asked the ranger at the park if it was possible to see some platypus and she said some had been sighted in a portion of the river that starts in the park. After driving about 10 miles down another dirt road, we walked a mile or so back through the woods to the river, but failed to see any platypus. We did see several kangaroos on the way to that spot. Then we drove to a place called Admiral's Arch. From the parking lot there, we walked past a lighthouse and downhill over a rough walk. Just before the walk or track turned to go on down behind the hill it was possible to stand and see many New Zealand fur seals sunning themselves on rocks at the base of the cliff and on a small island a short ways off the coast - plus some playing in the waves. We continued on down the track and rounding the bend carne on the phenomena which resulted in the name "Admiral's Arch." Under the hill that we had just walked down was a huge hole that had been worn away - the top an arch with rock formations resembling stalactites hanging down and the opening framed a beautiful scene on the other side of a portion of rocky coastline with crashing waves. It was pretty spectacular.
We next drove to another location in the park called the Remarkable Rocks, which are a group of granite boulders set on top of a hill right beside the water and the elements have worn them away into very odd shapes. We left the park and started back to Kingscote.
As I was driving down the road I saw an animal in the road and braked fairly hard which demonstrated the condition of the roads my front wheels ended up in the soft dirt on the shoulder, but thank goodness I was able to get back on the road. The animal turned out to be an echidna, a spiny anteater (the spines are similar but shorter to those of a porcupine). It was the first time we had seen one in the wild. Later, we stopped at a farm that had a colony of koalas in gum trees on their property. This is a good example of the lack of commercialization on the island yet. There is no charge, only a box tacked up on a tree for donations. We saw 10 koalas. We stopped at some caves, but missed the guided tours by about 3 minutes so continued on to Seal Beach. Park rangers are there to talk about the rare Australian sea lions, which are lying allover the beach, and to protect the sea lions. The ranger said they are not there to protect humans. There are hundreds of sea lions allover the beach and even over the sand dunes in among the plants. Visitors are not allowed in the dunes or within 10 feet of the sea lions, and the ranger said that their policy is only to keep humans from harming the them. They do not interfere with the sea lions even if they are injured. Our last stop of the day was at a marsh which is supposed to be a haven for many birds, but that day there were not many there, so we soon left and headed back to town.
That evening thanks to Toby's persistence, we saw a number of fairy penguins in the rocks by the water right in front of our motel. It is a wonder how those little awkward-looking animals manage to climb those rocks. They didn't show up until about 10:30 or so, so I guess we were ~here too early the day before.
The last day on the island, we drove to a place called American River, so called because the American ship the Independence was built there (I wondered how many Americans knew that). It is a beautiful place but not much is happening there - I figure the population is probably a couple of hundred. We drove on to the· other town, Peneshaw which is a bit larger than American River, but smaller than Kingscote. We were walking around looking at the half dozen shops when we bumped into some other Americans from Alice Springs. The man and his son were going fishing on a boat that afternoon from a wharf in American River. The boat trip was only four hours, returning before our plane left, it was inexpensive, and included use of fishing gear and bait. I declined going since our trip to the Great Barrier reef years ago when I got deathly seasick. But I was able to get Toby on and he thoroughly enjoyed himself - he knew the American boy who went so he had a friend and he caught the biggest fish of the day - something called a Blue Devil - about a foot long with a blue tinge to it, plus two Whitings. I probably could have gone since the boat never actually went out to the sea and the water in the bay (American River is more of a bay) was calm.
While Toby was gone, Dorothy and I drove over to a place where Gypsum-is loaded onto boats. On the dirt road back to the place, I blew a tire and ruined it, so with only the spare on the car we decided not to go anywhere else. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around American River, and finally resorted to sitting on the wharf for about an hour and a half where I took a nap in the back seat, Dorothy wrote letters and we both took turns feeding bread to seagulls. It was loads of fun. We flew back to Adelaide that evening- and once again the car rental agent didn't ask me for a driver's license.
Thursday we walked from the flat downtown and spent the morning and part of the afternoon shopping in the mall area - primarily we visited comic shops (see the last U.S. trip report), and a couple of stamp stores. We walked back to the flat and then drove out to a suburb looking for more comic shops. Toby found comics that day, but I did not find a lampshade that some friends had asked me to look for, or a wedding present for some other friends.
That niqht we visited a guy whom we had met in Alice Springs when he was here to read poetry. Geoff Goodfellow is a rugged individual who visits prisons reading poetry and teaching inmates how to write. I found out when he was here that he had visited and stayed with Ken Kesey when he visited the U.S. I've been interested in Kesey since I first read his renowned novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo'S Nest," and then a partial biography on him in a book called the "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." Someone in the U.S. made a video documentary on Kesey, but according to Geoff, President Reagan had used his influence to make sure it wouldn't be shown on TV in the U.S. because of the emphasis on drugs (only because Kesey bad a long history of using various hallucinogenic drugs). Anyway, Geoff had a copy of the tape and offered to show it to us if we came to Adelaide. Geoff's wife, Sally, had prepared a delicious curry which Dorothy and I enjoyed. (Toby ate some plain rice, and a few molecules of curry, but was rescued by some delicious apple pie for dessert). Between having a nice chat with Geoff and Sally and seeing the video, it was an enjoyable evening.
Since Australia closes down for Good Friday, we were at loose ends the next day until we were to go back to Jeff and Jackie's for a barbecue. We drove over along the ocean and stopped in a suburb and walked around for a while - a few small shops were open. Finally, we went to Hawthorndene, where Jeff lives, and by coincidence, where a friend of Toby's also lives. Elizabeth is a real character and we all like her (as long as I don't have to raise her). I know Toby misses her - they were good friends until she left Alice Springs in December 1988 - but they have kept in touch. We took Elizabeth along to the barbecue. Although Jeff was a bit disorganized as usual, it was a good meal and nice evening.
The next morning we went to an arts and crafts fair at the Show Grounds. Fortunately, we got there early, found a place to park and were near the front of the line when it opened. The place was soon mobbed and even when we left an hour later, there was still a line to get in. We soon found out why - nothing else was open. The stores in Adelaide closed down for four days over Easter. None of us were impressed since we had looked forward to doing more shopping We drove south quite a ways to see if a mall in the suburbs had opened - no such luck - and to a wine, food, music and art fair at
a winery way out in the county. I took so many turns to get there that I was beginning to wonder if I should have dropped bread crumbs to find my way back. It was not all that exciting and we drove back to the city, stopping at any little shop we found open, and also stopped to say hello to the parents of some other friends here in town.
We had made arrangements to meet Elizabeth at the mall at 5:30, after which we ate, went back to the flat for awhile, then returned to the mall to meet Jeff and Jackie. The four adults went to the movies to see "Driving Miss Daisy" while the two teenagers (both of whom said they wouldn't be caught coming from a "G" rated movie) went to see "Tango and Cash." Jeff took Elizabeth home and we returned to the flat.
On Easter Sunday, I returned the rental car unscratched and we had an uneventful flight home to Alice Springs.
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