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Continuing my theme of one camping trip for every month this year, I did a big one for March over the week just passed. I had never been to KI before, but my car has pretty much exactly 40 years ago. I booked the ferry and camp sites 2 or 3 weeks in advance and had no issues. The weather was pretty well perfect for the whole week apart from the wind which got a bit much at times.

The car just worked, didn't give a single hint of trouble over the 8 days except needing to air up the rear shocks every morning (there's a leak somewhere I haven't located) There are more dirt roads than sealed on the island and corrugations abound, some extremely severe. With the car loaded up to the roof just about, and my 44 y/o rear torsion springs giving up the ghost I needed the shocks to be at 100psi to get the suspension away from the bump stops, which I hit numerous times.

It hasn't rained on the island at all this year and it shows, really bad in some places. I really feel sorry for the farmers that are de-stocking and cutting back to nothing because they can't afford to truck in food and water for the animals. Rainwater tanks and dams are empty. There were some areas around Kingscote where the paddocks have gone beyond brown now they look grey. The malle/trees around the field borders looked dark grey/black like they were in hibernation. This all made the landscape literally look like a black and white photograph sometimes.

The Western end at Flinders chase was very much different with lush green growth everywhere. The density and variety of different native plants was a sight to behold. Some had not been seen in more than 50 years since the last fire.

I packed the car on Thursday night with the non-perishable items. Finish work early on Fridays so I went home, packed in the food and last little things and got to Cape Jervis for the 6PM ferry.



Planned to have a pub dinner in Penneshaw to find they were all closed except one which was too busy for the number of staff they had. And everyone was speaking French! Gave up and went straight to camp at Chapman river campground so I could set up at least not in full darkness. Got there to find I couldn't get the car near the tent spot. About 10 paces away which made things harder. Also the car was parked on a very steep angle (can't see in pics) so everything rolled to the side constantly. The site was on the river bank, quite nice in the end. Spent 2 nights here.



Explored the Cape Willoughby lighthouse and did some fishing off the beach there, Antechamber bay. Caught a handful of mullet, kept a couple of the bigger ones before a dolphin cruised through very close to shore. Didn't catch anything after that.


After packing up this camp I did some sight seeing on the way to the next spot, a caravan park near Kingscote (can't go 8 nights without a shower!) Did some fishing at Nepean bay where you can drive on the beach. Didn't catch anything Can see my cars saggy butt in this shot.


Explored a very interesting local museum in Kingscote, in the maritme section I found a photo of the old ferry that my car would have gone on in the early 80's, from Port Adelaide. Dad says it was a much longer trip back then and the car deck was a bout an inch deep in sheep poo!


The farming areas around Kingscote were the driest I saw on the whole island.


I visited the Emu Ridge eucalyptus oil distillery. That was a fantastic couple of hours, very highly recommend taking their tour. It was a story of Aussie enginuity and graft to revive a long dead KI export industry and make a great success out of it. They have an 80-90 year old plantation of KI native Malle trees to get the oil which grows back readily and thrives in the conditions. They used to run entirely off of steam power (steam engine even!) in the 90's when they had no mains power or water. Even today the oil still is wood-fired.

This is the steam engine which powered a water pump for the still, and an alternator to charge 12v batteries so they could make their own 240v power.


I visited Seal bay, as everyone does. There were indeed a large number of seals lazing about on the beach. $28 to get in! for the self guided tour e.g., walk down the boardwalk to the viewing platform


Visited Vivonne bay to check out the jetty after this. Was very windy and the road in was terrible. Stopped for lunch at point Ellen.

The day I packed up from Kingscote I went to Stokes bay for the obligatory rock tunnel entry onto the beach. The wind was fierce, shins got sand blasted. And the carpark was full.



After this went round to Snelling beach for morning tea


Then headed west to check out Cape Borda lighthouse. Encountered the worst corrugations I've ever seen, big enough for my wheels to sit inside. Had to drop down to 10-15km/h or risk destroying the car. On the whole island whenever I encountered this red ironstone as a road surface, the corrugations were awful. Pics don't do it justice.


The lighthouse keepers of old must have been a tough bunch of people. They got resupplied every 3 months from a tiny little cove down a vertical crevasse which was more than an hour away from the station by horse and cart. If the weather was too bad to get the dinghy into the cove, then it was 6 months for new supplies!



I climbed to the bottom of the little cove (Harveys return) to see the Zebra schist (stripy rocks) Nearly got stuck down there because I couldn't find the track out again! And climbing over boulders is exhausting work.



After this I went to the Rocky River campground in Flinders chase N.P. All recently rebuilt to a very high level after the fires 4-5 years ago. The stuff they put down in the camp site areas was awful. Basically solid chalk/limestone mortar which you need a jackhammer to get through. Guess they assume everyone has a $100k caravan these days. It was after 5pm when I got there and took me over an hour to get the tent up because of this shit, was very not happy at all thinking I was going to spend 3 nights sleeping in the car. Bent almost all of my pegs, some of which are close to 8mm diameter. Not the first time I've encountered this. I plan to make my own pegs out of sharpened rebar and take a bigger sledge hammer next time. Or get the biggest concrete anchors I can find and take the cordless rattle gun. This is beyond a joke.




Next day headed for remarkable rocks before 9AM, had the place to myself for 30 minutes before the first coachload of tourists arrived. It was windy! nearly got knocked over.
The famous road shot




Amazing to think this solid granite was shaped by wind and salt



Went to Admirals arch, saw the seals, nearly got bowled over by the wind again


Mother and baby seal


Next went to Kelly hill caves and took the guided tour. This was fantastic, very much worth the price of admission. Photos never do justice to cave interiors but it was stunning in there.


Took this photo because one door is cleaner than the other, the one that got ceramic wax treatment! Didn't expect that.


Ended this day at Hanson bay. Tried my luck with the fishing rod again, lost my lure on the 5th cast, gave up and went back to camp


My last day there I did a 11-12km bush walk from the camp site. There are allegedly a population of Platypus living in the rocky river system. Well I hope they are deep underground in torpor/hibernation because the river is in a very sorry state. The plants and other wildlife though were amazing. I've never seen so many different native shrubs in one place. Lots of birds to ovserve too.



That was my last full day on the island. The following Saturday morning I was up at 6, packed up and gone just after 7 for the 10:30 ferry. Had a bit of spare time so I checked out the Prospect hill lookout on the way past (missed it the first time) Very many stairs, a big leg workout but an amazing view from the top. This one looking over Pelican lagoon in the direction of Penneshaw.


And that's all folks! The ferry home was through the whitecaps and I nearly got sick despite the kwells. The rolling action was pretty severe, was really worried the cars would move and do damage but they did not, phew! Got home at lunch time yesterday to unpack the car. Today is washing, shopping, then wash the car ready to do back to work again

I think the way to beat the post-holiday blues is to start planning the next one

The colour of your Suby looks almost the same as my 2023 Honda ZRV.

Mint trip Sam! I could finally appreciate your trip properly since my dodgy internet decided to load the images.

Interesting place it seems. Cool that your wagon was there almost four decades ago!

I like your theory on the post trip blues! When I got back from the boy’s weekend in the high country (took the Pajero that I just retrofitted a factory rear locker into) I was hooked and already have our game plan for the next trip

Looking forward to the next one!

Cheers

Bennie

What type of Internet connection do you have El Freddo, NBN - Dial-Up - Satellite?

Mobile data. We don’t have too many options for internet in our little town. The data connection works ok-ish, some times it’s sketchy, sometimes it’s strong. The worst is when trucks drive past and our connection decides to drop out or become inactive. The nearest tower for our service is about 7kms away according to the app! We have a set of metal grain silos between us and the tower and our house is clad in corrugated iron. So everything is working against us there!

Don’t want to support the links in the sky run by a prominent drop kick - never liked that aspect or the thought of tens of thousands of satellites going up to make it happen.

We haven’t done much about it to keep our bills down - sadly we work around it as a result of that choice for now.

It was good to finally see the pics though!

Sorry for the hijacker Sam!

Cheers

Bennie

My apologies to Sam, I never meant to hijack your thread.

All good, the more the merrier The colour is indeed very close, some things never go out of fashion

The next trip depends very much on a purchase I'm making, I should have had it for KI but the only shop in town that sells them is wasting my time so it seems and there appears to be a national shortage. Haven't paid any money yet, going to look at getting one from an online store. A couple of nights at the nearby river murray dark-sky reserve will be in order when it comes.

Ooh that looks exciting! I can highly recommend a trip to the Nullarbor or practically anywhere in Central Australia for THE BEST star gazing you’ll ever come across. You’ll want to time your visit with a no moon phase for maximum enjoyment.

It’s nearly ten years since I was out there passing through; going back out there to camp out and explore for a week or so is something I’m still keen to do.

Having something like that telescope to enjoy the stars would make it more of a priority I reckon!

Cheers

Bennie

Don't need to go that far Bennie, apparently the dark sky reserve measures something like 22.9 on the darkness scale, with 23 being the darkest possible Nullarboor will still be on the to-do list though, one day.

Expecting to get my scope tomorrow or the next day. Anzac day weekend might be my only chance to sneak in a weekender for this months camping trip. I'm thinking Swan reach which is in the dark sky reserve.