Days off and disasters

We generally get 2 days off a week and on our first day, James had arranged for us to go swimming with the dolphins for a very special price of just $60!!!We set off quite early as we are at least an hour's drive from pretty much anywhere east of the sanctuary.At EmuBay, we jumped on a power boat which had saddle type seats and we took a very high speed ride to the next bay, Dashwood Bay, where a pod of dolphins live.It was a bit too cold and the sea a bit too deep and rough for me to go in but 5 of our group were brave (or stupid!!) enough to do it.The dolphins put on some great displays for us and we got really close to them.After another high speed ride back to Emu Bay, we continued on to Kingscote where we had fish and chips and stocked up on booze again (we never know when we are next going to be able to get into town so we don't take any chances).

As we only had ½ a day off the previous day, we had another half day the following day!!!Most people decided to go to Flinders Chase but as there wasn't enough room for all of us and Ant and I are here for 4 weeks, we decided to give it a miss this time.Instead we had a very lazy morning catching up on our sleep and washing.We get very tired here as the work is physically demanding and we walk for miles and miles!!!Thursday was another day off!!! Once again Ant and I gave it a miss as there wasn't enough room in the car to Kingscote and there was no one else around to take us anywhere else.This time we decided to work and transfer our day to the following week when James (the manager) had kindly booked out one of the cabins down at the beach for us!!

On Sunday evening, after dinner, Mark dropped us down at the cabins (about 7km away) just in time for sunset.Unfortunately, it was a cloudy night so we didn't see much. After a quick walk before I got too dark, we retired for the night where we were kept awake all night by the possums scurrying about and screeching.

The next morning we got up late and had a lazy breakfast in bed before Mark and some of the girls arrived to clean the cabins.Mark then very kindly dropped us down at Kelly Hill Caverns about 8km away where we took the cave tour.

In 1880 a local stockman called Kelsey, riding on his horse Kelly, was chasing sheep that had strayed from his property. Unfortunately both of them fell into one of the big sink holes in the area. Kelsey managed to climb out, but he had to leave Kelly at the bottom of the sink hole. He returned soon with help to rescue the horse, but it was gone. There are at least threeversions to the end of this story, which makes the whole story a bit weird. The realistic version has it that the farmer may have gone back to the wrong hole. The optimistic version tells, the horse was later pulled to safety, and the mysterious end talks about Kelly the horse wandering off into the labyrinth of caves never to be seen again. So its skeleton may still be somewhere in the caves waiting to be discovered. The cave contains numerous speleothems, straws, stalactites and stalagmites, but most impressive are the various helictites

After the cave tour and an ice cream, we set off for the 9 km hike back to HansonBay cabins through a variety of habitats such as a freshwater lagoon, mallee woodlands and coastal dunes.The final stretch along the river to the beach was absolutely gorgeous.After a late lunch and a shower, we both fell asleep!!!! Mark picked us up again in time for dinner.All in all a very successful day off.

Life is not all plain sailing on the island - we had one or two not so good days too.After a particularly hot day, we decided to have a barbecue.Everybody mucked in and cooked jacket potatoes and made salads.This was one of Ed's rare days off so Rosie was winding James up about leading the nocturnal tour that night (something he doesn't do very often).After dinner, everyone rushed to complete the evening duties so we could join the tour and take the p**** out of James.Ant, Nick and I were left to clear up and wash up so we were a little late and decided to take a short cut through the trees rather than following the walking trails.Not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point Nick managed to get bitten by a Black Tiger Snake!!! There are only 2 types of snake on the island, the Black Tiger Snake and the Pygmy Copperhead and both are venomous.Amazingly he didn't feel it and it was only when he started to feel a bit hot and dizzy that he realised something was wrong - by this time Ant and I had left the tour and gone to bed so we missed all the excitement.He walked to the office (a distance of about 300m) which was the one thing we had been told not to do!!We had all been told what to do in the event of a snake bit - lie down, stay still and keep calm.At the office, Natalie administered first aid and called the emergency services.It took 2 hours for the helicopter to arrive to whisk Nick off to hospital in Adelaide. Thanks to Natalie's first aid and Nick staying calm he was OK and was back with us by dinner time the next day.

A week later we had an unexpected afternoon off when we had 70mm of rain in one day.It was too wet to do anything other than try to prevent the whole sanctuary flooding.We tried desperately to divert and dam the water to prevent the new visitor centre and other sensitive areas of the sanctuary from getting too damaged.Just after lunch, James told us all to go back to the accommodation and light a fire to get warm and dry so we spent the afternoon watching DVDs.

The highlight of the KangarooIsland social calendar is the Kangaroo Island Cup - a major horse race which is preceded by cocktail parties and a street party on Saturday night before the race on Sunday.James gave us the whole weekend off and on Saturday lunchtime we all set off in various vehicles for the carnival in Kingscote.We had a great night of eating, drinking, singing and dancing.Unfortunately, due to the rain on Friday, the racing on Sunday was cancelled but the meeting still went ahead!!!!The girls had all bought or made hats and we all put on our best clothes and headed back into Kingscote.It was a lovely sunny day and we had great fun watching hobby horse racing, drinking again (of course), eating strawberries and betting on other races that were taking place elsewhere in Australia.

It was back to work the next day but on Tuesday we had another day off!!!! (yes we did work hard in between our days off).Part of the package we paid for at KangarooIsland included a day trip to FlindersChaseNational Park whose major attractions include the naturally sculpted Remarkable Rocks, a colony of fur seals at Admirals Arch and Cape du Couediac lighthouse.Flinders Chase lies at the western end of KangarooIsland and is just starting to recover from a bushfire in December 2007 which destroyed 80% of the park.The bizarrely shaped granite boulders of Remarkable Rocks have been sculpted by the wind and sea over 500 million years.

After lunch at Flinders Chase Visitor Centre, we did the Snake Lagoon Hike (there are no snakes!!), a 3km hike through Sugar Gums and mallee into the Rocky River valley and eventually the Southern Ocean.The beach was completely deserted as the hike is the only way to reach it. The return journey can be done as the Rocky River race which involves leaping from rock to rock in the river and never touching the banks - unfortunately due to the rain we had the previous week, the river was too high for this.

On our last week on the island, harsh reality came back to bite us (no not another snake).James had to put down one of the kangaroos.It was late one afternoon just after the Sealink bus had gone and we were all laughing and joking at Matty learning to fight (young kangaroos have to learn how to defend themselves and fight for the females during mating season).He had just attacked Rebel who we thought had called over his Mom, when one of the big boys bounded over and James noticed a big gash on his neck.We had spotted him 3 weeks previously with a big lump on his face and it had obviously become infected. We watched as he struggled to eat and swallow and it was clear from his emaciated condition that he hadn't been able to eat for some time.James fetched his shot gun at which point I left but did hear 2 of the 4 shots some time later.