Adelaide

Here’s my third and final post of tonight, whew! I’m not sure how they show up or what the notifications are like, so if you only see this one, make sure you check out the ones for The Great Ocean Road and Kangaroo Island too!

 

Back in Adelaide we ended up spending another night in a horrible hostel, but at least we had a little warning this time. All the high-rated hostels were full for the night, so we had to settle for 24% (out of 100, for anyone who didn’t pay attention in math) or something like that. It was about what you’d expect. It was a tossup whether it would have been cleaner and the same level of relaxing if we had slept on the street.

The next morning we moved on to Shakespeare’s Backpackers, which is where I’m writing this from now, and I’m glad to say it’s a huge improvement. It’s clean and comfortable, and aside from a socially awkward roommate who doesn’t seem to understand that reading isn’t an invitation to conversation about the Titanic (seriously, every time, it’s always about the Titanic) it’s been a really nice stay.

The hostel is close to downtown so we spent a couple of days shopping, exploring the city, doing laundry and generally regrouping after living in a car for the better part of a week. We found a really nice Sheesha (or hookah) bar nearby and spent a couple of nights hanging out there. They do the coolest thing, I’ve never seen it before, but instead of the traditional ceramic head they hollow out a piece of fruit and put the sheesha in it. It’s really nice, you can definitely taste a difference.

Before anyone gets all up in arms, it's not a bong, it's just tobacco and fruit, perfectly legal!

We were loving finally getting some warm weather, and on Wednesday it was supposed to be 36 degrees (somewhere in the 90s, as far as I can tell) so we made for the beach! There were no waves to speak of, but the water was swimmable and the sun was warm. Perfect day!

Glenelg Beach and pier

Thursday it was a little overcast, but we had booked a wine tasting tour so it turned out to be perfect. The Barossa Valley is similar to Sonoma and Napa, and it’s where a lot of Australia’s higher end wines come from. We had a blast being the youngest in the group for a change and drinking real actual good wine. We stopped at a few neat places along the way too.

This was our first stop, it's a dam called the Whispering Wall. It's shape reflects sound so well two people can stand at either end and talk in a regular voice and they can hear each other perfectly.

Our first stop, Chateau Yaldara

I'm pretty jealous of their cellars...

Peter Lehman Winery

 

Tasting at Peter Lehman

Grapevines and eucalyptus, is there any better sight to make a California girl feel at home in Australia?

 Date palms lining the drive to Murray Street Vineyards

Our private tasting room!

Today, Vanessa and I finally parted ways for a bit; she’s going to visit a friend in New Zealand for a few weeks, and I’m leaving tomorrow for a tour north through the outback up to Alice Springs and Uluru! I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I’ve wanted to see Uluru for as long as I can remember, and I’m finally going! The tour is supposed to be great, with some good stops in between to break up the drive, and we will be camping under the stars in the outback, which I’m also really excited about. Apparently they are like nowhere else in the world out there, and I’ve never properly seen the night sky in the southern hemisphere, since I’ve been mostly in cities since I’ve been here and we had so many cloudy nights in Tasmania. So many great experiences ahead I’m looking forward to, I’m sure I’ll have tons to write about and way too many pictures to post.

I don’t think I’ll have any internet access until I get to Darwin, though, which will be at least a week and a half, so don’t expect much until then!

Cheers!

Kangaroo Island

Vanessa and I spent Halloween night Adelaide, we had driven almost 8 hours to get there so we didn’t go out that night, just hung out at one of the worst hostels I’ve ever stayed in. I DO NOT recommend Sunny’s Backpacker’s. The guy who checked us in gave us attitude when he couldn’t find our reservation (which eventually turned up), there was a single toilet, sink, and shower to be shared between the three rooms upstairs, a total of 24 girls. There were two shower stalls, but the fixtures had been torn out of one leaving some gaping holes in the tile. That must have been some sort of new wave decorating scheme I’m not familiar with, because there was also a giant hole in the plaster of the wall next to my bed that who knows what could have crawled through in the middle of the night. Someone had taped a poster over it, but it was all torn up. Probably by the giant radioactive spiders I kept thinking about all night while staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping…

The next morning we happily checked out of that dump and drove 2 hours down the peninsula to Cape Jervis where we would board the Sealink ferry to Kangaroo Island. I’ve never driven a car onto a boat before, so that was kind of fun. It was a quick 45 minute ride, then we grabbed the car and headed all the way west to Flinders Chase National Park. It only takes 2 hours to drive from the east coast of the island to the west. Our first stop was the Platypus Walk in the park.

Hard to believe, but this park was destroyed by a bush fire a few years ago

One of the platypus watering holes. We could see bubbles where they were hanging out under the surface.

How many platypus do you see in this picture.? Yeah, there aren't any. Apparently it's really rare to see them in the wild. I still haven't, but I really want to!

We did see this guy though! He's an echidna, kind of a fuzzy porcupine. They hunt by jamming their nose into the dirt searching for bugs.

I think they might be a little blind too, this one almost walked over my foot, never even saw us there!

Afterwards we went to the Remarkable Rocks; rock formations right on the coast that were named not-very-imaginatively back in the 1800s, like most things in Australia. I mean, they are definitely remarkable, but hadn’t these people ever seen tremors? What about Graboid Point or something? I want to petition to change it, who’s with me?

See what I mean about Tremors? Seriously, that would be way better.

More rocks...  

 

All this sightseeing is hard work. Sometimes you gotta take a break!

 

Here's all of them together. Remarkable, no?

The sun was going down at this point, and we started to get an idea of why it’s called Kangaroo Island. There are signs everywhere in Australia warning drivers that animals are out from dusk to dawn, but I’ve never seen anything like on the island, they were everywhere! I went from having seen exactly one wild kangaroo to dozens in the space of an hour, they are all over the road! Not to mention birds, wallabies, echidna, possums, pretty much everything. You have to drive really slow in the evenings.

These were more of the big ones, cool, but not cuddly.

This guy was a great model, he would turn around any time someone made a noise.

We camped at Vivonne Bay that night, sleeping in the car for the last time. Then it was up early because we still had a lot to see and this was the day we needed to drop our now filthy relocation off at the KI airport.

Early morning in Vivonne Bay

The first stop was Little Sahara, a huge group of sand dunes in the middle of the bush and weirdly far from the coast for that much sand. You can rent sandboards there, which is exactly what we did. Sandboarding is a lot like snowboarding, except you don’t need as many layers, there are no chairlifts, and it hurts SO much more when you fall. You wouldn’t think so, and it’s ok if it’s just a knee or a hand that goes down because that will sink into the sand. But when you land flat on your butt or your back, it feels like landing on concrete. We took some great bruises away from Little Sahara, and about a pound of sand between the two of us. It kept showing up for days!

It doesn't look like much, but this hill was really steep! We missed that chairlift...

The sand looked like it went on forever!

Expert sandboarder, obviously.

The sky was just incredible.

Then it was on to Seal Bay, it’s a kind of a sanctuary for Australian Sea Lions, which are really rare to see in the wild. They leave the beach to hunt for three days at a time, then come back to play in the waves and sleep on the beach for three days straight. Rough life. They even surf in the waves!

This is what a sea lion looks like when he's chattin' up a lady.

Most of them slept right through our visit

I can't think of a prettier place I'd want to sleep for a few days either!

See the one on the right? They roll in the sand to dry off after a swim.

This was a rare shot. There's sea lion yoga in the front, a pup nursing in the middle, and a surfer in the back! The only on we saw do that all day.

This guy was huge and sleeping under the walkway. Otherwise I would never have gotten this close. He was about 600lbs, according to our guide.

After Seal Bay it was time to head up to Kingscote, where we would turn in our car at the airport and stay for the night at Kangaroo Island Central Backpackers, the only hostel, before taking the ferry back the next morning.

We checked into the hostel first to drop off our stuff, because we weren’t sure how to get back from the airport, we assumed there would be a shuttle or something like that. Lucky for us, we mentioned it to one of the owners who was checking us in, because he told us that there was no way to get back from the airport. We would be stranded after turning in our keys. Luckier still, he called up the other owner, who happened to be at the airport picking up a friend, and he was nice enough to wait for us to get there so he could drive us back.

This was a night-and-day experience from our brief stay in Adelaide, and I can’t say enough good things about that hostel. It was clean and cozy, and we even had our own room with wifi! It was heaven after sleeping in the car for most of the last week.

The next day we walked down to the Kingscote pier and checked out the Pelican colony that lives there. I had never seen any up close, and I have to say those are some of the weirdest looking birds I’ve ever seen! They seem to sleep most of the time, like a lot of Australian animals, come to think of it, but when they wake up they do this incredible stretching routine that includes turning their throat pouch thing inside out with their neck… It’s seriously one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.

Lots of sleepy pelicans!

Two different stretches, both pretty impressive

See the one with his face inside out? What's up with that?!

Something woke them up, but I have no idea what. It was kind of eerie, they all stood up and looked that way at once...

I loved this sign, sound familiar?

We spent the rest of the day lounging on the comfy couches in the common room and indulging in the good internet connection, something all too rare here. Our bus picked us up just after 5, brought us to the ferry, then it was another bus ride back to Adelaide. I also can’t say enough good things about the Sealink service, which covers all the busses and ferries. They are super helpful and efficient, and made planning that trip a breeze!

This is where I leave off for now, but I’m going to try and get a post about Adelaide up tonight as well.

The Great Ocean Road

After all the excitement of Tasmania, Vanessa and I decided we needed to do something relaxing for a bit. After regrouping in Melbourne for a few days at Melbourne International Backpackers (free pancakes for breakfast, comfy beds and good showers, what’s not to love?) we decided to head to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road.

The Great Ocean Road is the Australian equivalent of driving the California coastline on Highway 1. It’s all beaches, cliffs, lookouts, and seaside tourist towns that are creepily deserted during the off season. The main attractions are these massive limestone formations called the Twelve Apostles. It also must be a huge tourist destination because there are signs every kilometer or so reminding you that everyone drives on the left in Australia. Not very reassuring on a windy two lane road with no median…

Since we were now veterans of driving down under we figured the best way to see the road would be to secure a car and spend a few days on the way to Adelaide; camping in the car, relaxing on sunny beaches, and just doing whatever we wanted without any moody ride-alongs.

There’s a really cool service called car relocation that anyone considering renting a car for a one-way trip should look into. It’s something that rental companies offer when they need a car moved from point A to point B, usually going towards touristy areas, and it’s an incredibly good deal for the budget traveler.

You find a website that lists the relocation cars available, find one that needs to go where you want to be and request it. If you get accepted they give you limited liability insurance (you can pay more for full coverage if you want), a full tank of gas, a shiny clean rental car and a certain amount of days to get where you need to be, for free! All you pay is gas and other fees you might incur on the trip.

It’s so cool. In our case we had four days to bring the car from Melbourne to Kangaroo Island, which was close enough to Adelaide for us, and somewhere we planned on going anyway. It was so cool! We got a Nissan SUV with less than 100 kilometers on it, new car smell and everything! The only downside was that we had to pay for the car to go across on the ferry, but even round trip tickets for us and a one way ticket for the car cost less than a rental would have for that whole time, so we were happy.

Getting out of the city was a little hairy… I might have said that I was a veteran left-side driver by now, and that’s true! In Tasmania. The difference is that the whole of the island seems to have about as many cars as downtown Melbourne, and people are really horn-happy. There are also trams, which make turning right in an intersection a nightmare unique to the city.

Apparently, instead of everyone lining up in the intersection yielding to all the oncoming cars that are going straight, one or two cars at a time will pull into the intersection and wait until the light turns red, then peel across the lanes as fast as possible to get out of the way. This is supposed to keep the tram lines clear of cars, but as far as I could tell it was just an excuse for everyone to play ‘honk at the tourist’. Knowing this, every time our navigation thingy told us to turn right I would make three left turns instead.

It worked pretty well, and I managed to get us to the highway with only one panicky right turn the whole way. About an hour later we were officially on the Great Ocean Road!

It's so nice of them to put up all these signs! Makes it way harder to get lost.

Our first stop was Bells Beach, which is supposed to be great for surfing. We didn’t see any out that day, but there were a couple of kiteboarders out sailing around.

At least the cloudy skies make for good pictures!

You can just see two kiteboarders off in the background.

Unfortunately the spotty weather we had in Tasmania seemed to follow us to the mainland, and it was cloudy most of the day, windy and cold. We decided to camp early-ish that night and save the Twelve Apostles for the next day, where we wouldn’t have to rush to see them and the sun would hopefully be out.

That night we had some trouble finding a camping spot, and by the time we settled on a caravan park the office was closed. We had every intention of paying, but they didn’t have a pay station like they do in the national parks or anything, what were we to do? Is it our fault we were awake before the office opened the next morning? I figure if they wanted our money that bad they would have made it easier to leave it for them. Anyway, we weren’t all that comfortable sleeping in the car, and if we wanted to use the bathroom facilities we had to wait for a paying guest with a key to walk out and leave the door open, so it wasn’t exactly luxurious. The next morning we drove a ways down the road and had breakfast on the beach, which a great way to wake up.

The beach in Lorne

After we ate we started in on the drive in earnest, and it was gorgeous! The water was a pretty tropical blue, the waves were huge, the beaches are all white sand, yet another place in Australia where everywhere you look could be a postcard.

These were taken out of the car window, sorry for the blur.

I even saw my first ever wild kangaroo standing by the side of the road! He was huge, and definitely not as cuddly cute as the ones at the wildlife park. I definitely wouldn’t have walked up to that guy with a handful of snacks!

Before the Twelve Apostles we turned off the road to find a rainforest walk, which was pretty, but the weather was still pretty iffy so we got rained on a little.

I guess rain in the rainforest shouldn't be a surprise, but still. This is Australia!

 

Then we stopped at an area where you are guaranteed to see wild koalas hanging out in the trees! We couldn’t pass that up, neither of us had seen any yet. It was easy to find the spot, there were cars parked all over the road and people running around taking pictures like madmen. Us included, how could you not, they’re SO cute! Like living teddy bears!

Lucky that we saw one that was awake! They sleep about 21 hours a day, and eat the other 3.

Looks cozy, doesn't he?

The dark blobs are koalas! It's hard to see but the one at the top is a mom with a baby!

 

This poor guy was so tired he fell asleep right next to the road! Probably not the best spot, but great for our pictures!

 

See? I didn't want to touch him, they are not as cuddly as they look, and they have a strong bite and some wicked claws! Of course, he didn't wake up the whole time we were there, but I didn't need to find out what it would take to get him mad...

Finally we got back on the road and made it to the Twelve Apostles. These massive rock formations are constantly under attack from the sea, and one fell down in 2005. You can’t actually see all twelve from any point along the coast, which is probably good for the parks departments, otherwise they would have to change the signs every time one fell down. In the 1800s they were called the Sow and Piglets, which I think is a better name anyway. Maybe they will change it back someday.

This is at the Gibson Steps (you have to walk down about a million stone steps to get to the beach, I'm guessing they were made by someone named Gibson)

 

These are the first of the Apostles, that rubble pile in the foreground is what's left of the one that fell down in 2005

Those big formations at the Steps from the other side

Herman decided to get out of the car for this one, but he insists on being out of focus. Like I said, he's shy. 

This is, can you guess? The Arch!

This is the London Bridge. The part that's in the ocean was attached by another bridge a few years ago and people could walk out to the end, until it collapsed a few years ago. Apparently there was a tour group on it when it collapsed, and amazingly nobody was hurt. There were two people stranded offshore for a few hours though. They had to send a helicopter out to get them.

That night we found a cheap campground that we paid for this time, thank you very much, and it was close enough to the beach that I could wander out to the coast in time to catch the sunset.

The path to the coast, I kept expecting a kangaroo to jump out of the bushes or something.

Rough waters, reminded me of home!

 

The next morning we backtracked a little to try and catch the Apostles when the light was better, but we couldn’t take too long because we had a 7.5 hour drive ahead of us to Adelaide, where we would stay Halloween night before taking the ferry to Kangaroo Island in the morning. That was kind of a grueling day, but it was worth it to have a car of our own on KI. 

More posts and pictures to come on that later tonight! I’m leaving for an outback trek tomorrow and probably won’t have internet for over a week, so get ready for rapid-fire updates. I’d like to get them all posted before I go.