Oongha, Adelaide, and Kangaroo Island

Having safely arrived at Oonagh and Jason's, we were greated in the finest Australian fashion - "There's a cold one for ya in the Eski, here in the ga-rage. We'll get the barbi going shortly." Right on! I can tell right away I'm going to get to the real Australia now - kangaroos, Coopers brews, didgeridoos, and all!

Interesting, their house is solid brick, even the interior walls. Everything except the floor, which is a fine example of that gorgeous dark Koaua wood I've been seeing. A lot of the houses here were built that way, not so much from lack of wood, but because that was the style back home in jolly old England at the time (definitely because they'd used all the trees to make coke for the Industrial Rev - brainless sots!)

But I digress. We met Oonagh's dear mom, who took us to the Cleland wildlife park, where we got our fill of tame Koala's, Kangaroos, and Wallabys, along with an assortment of other indigenous critters that one would not want to meet on a dark night down the track somewhere. It was marvelous, and the kids just loved feeding hand-picked grass to the little Joey's.
















We also got to go out Kangaroo Island and stayed in a wonderful house on Emu Bay, on the north side. Connor and Jason went fishing, which suited Connor very much.

I went kayaking, which was an interesting exercise in balance, more difficult than I expected, but fun. It takes practically no effort to drive a sea kayak as fast as it wants to go (sailors know this as hull speed, 1.2 * the square root of the water line length in feet). Any faster is quite a bit more work for little gain. So I was able to zoom along at a respectable 6 k/h with just little dips in the water with the paddle. Oonagh and Francie cooked and everybody was very ready to spend the next 6 months right there in Emu Bay. We also went to the far end of the island and saw some cool rocks and stuff. But alas, all destinations become departure points sooner or later, and we were too soon headed back to the exorbitant ferry (over $200 for our family walking on, for a 3 hour tour - each way!)

The next day we packed up and headed out for Melbourne to catch the ferry to Tasmania. We took the straight route, right across, hoping to see some interior sights - like kangaroos bounding across the endless flat dry plains of Australia, or indigenous folk. But alas all we saw was rolling hills of grassland with cows and sheep munching away, apparently oblivious to the fact that they are upside down relative to most of their brethren.

Oh, we did get introduced to another of Australia's charming tourist "features". Driving into Melbourne from the north, looking for a place just south of downtown we got forced onto a toll road, which took us way past where we were going, apparently charged us a toll automatically, and didn't give us any clue how to deal with the bill. In fact there wasn't any indication we'd incurred a fee until the car rental billed us for paying it, along with a $50 (!) handling charge. Most expensive 5 miles of toll road I've ever seen. Really nice way to treat tourists. Beware.