King Island 2020

We'd planned today as largely a day of rest. Nevertheless, after a leisurely breakfast, Lynn had enough energy to dragus out. So we drove to Grassy, low on the east side of the island. The town itself is high on a hill, set above an old open cut mineand looking out to the sea. It looks tidy but pretty poor. We drove around it briefly then down to the harbour, which has a large breakwater and looks to be the main port for the island. There were only a few fishing boats in. We walked around the rocks and the breakwater, and saw penguin trails and burrows but no penguins. Then, having time to spare, we drove inland and back out to Naracoopa, a bit north of Grassy. It had several cabins and guest houses looking over Sea Elephant Bay and felt like a holiday community. We stopped to walk along the jetty and drove up to a small lookout, tghen headed back. As always this meant avoiding wallabies by the roadside, flocks of turkeys and occasionally pheasants. After cheese and...

We woke up slowly before a luxurious breakfast, made by Lynn from the provisions left for us. Then we had some time as Lynn ahd calculated we needed to leave a bit after 10 to be at our stop by 11am. It was very grey and starting to rain when we set out, but this turned out to be the worst weather of the day and after that there was no rain and only a moderate wind. The first stop was the whale tail house (as featured on the Australian Grand Designs program), built on a grassed over sand dune just back from the coast at Yellow Rocks. We were met by Andrew and Di, who gave us a tour of the house and their art collection before we had lunch - soup and salad, sent ahead from Kittawa Lodge. We were there until nearly 2pm when we drove north to Egg Lagoon, where Ana showed us around their cattle farm on the 'Meat your Beef' farm tour. We saw different pastures, mature cattle and bulls and the calves being weaned. Finally, we drove up to Cape Wickham lighthouse on the northe...

Tuesday. Woke once or twice overnight. Lynn was right to lower the blinds - from the bathroom, one of the fishing boats was blindingly bright, using spotlights to attract fish? It was another lovely, blue-skied warm day. Woke 7.30 and a leasurely breakfast of (excellent) bacon and eggs. By then we were keen to be out and about. First we drove to where the Cataraqui wrecked. The turnoff is only a couple of hundred metres south of our lodge, but the rutted track raun south along the coast for quite a way before the plaque to the tragedy. Hard to imagine on a day like today, when it was so calm and the sea so flat. Then further south the the calcified forest and Seal Rocks. The forest was a pleasant short walk through the scrub, past numerous grey fantails. It was a sandy area with numerous smallish calcified casts of tree roots. Then we drove to Seal Rocks; no seals in view, but a wonderful view south across the low cliffs, and we sat and ate popcorn. We then drove ba...

I knew where we were going yesterday. The Coronavirus scare is on, and they'd just said that everyone entering Australia ahd to isolate themselves. There is a lot of uncertaintyand Lynn didn't want to procede without me knowing what was happening. It turned outn that helped, as it made it much easier for me to pack, knowing roughly where we were going and so roughly what we might be doing. An early flight, at 6.50. So were were up at 5.15 and I thought I'd booked a taxi for 5.30. By 5.40 it hadn't arrived and I rang to find I'd booked it for 5.30pm. I never get anything else wrong like that, so I'm still trying to blame the app for being unclear.  Anyway, we made it to the airport with a bit of time to spare and boarded shortly after we got to the gate. A short hop to Melbourne and about an hour and a half in the terminal, then an even shorter trip to King Island on a Rex Saab 340. It was a lovely day when we arrived. A bit windy but in the mid 20s and probab...

As I write this I'm sitting at the dining table in our cabin at Kittawa Lodge. Lynn is in front of me, preparing lamb and roast vegetables for tea. I can see through the window in front of her, maybe 10 metres away, a wallaby on the hillside amongst the long grass. Before I say more about today I'll just recap the last few days. On Friday we drove down to Hindmarsh Island. Lynn and I picked up Sal, then the trailer and boat at Mount Barker and got to our holiday house (47 Coorong Dr, facing the Murray Mouth) by 4.30. It was extremely windy and quite cold outside. So we stayed in, played scrabble and pool and ate pizza and salad. On the Saturday we drove to the north side of the island in the moring and tried out the boats for an hour or so - just along the island coast, as it was too windy if we got out of the lee. Carley drove down and Lynn brought her to find us. By the time we got back at midday Di and Joe had arrived, and Pete and Lorraine came a bit later. We...