Kangaroo Island

Caro preferred Adelaide to Sydney, which she felt was bustling and unsafe, but I felt exactly the opposite way.  I feel there's SAFETY in bustle, and the huge, empty streets of Adelaide after dark felt a bit sinister to me.  Mind you, by this point I had been accosted by a junkie chick who swore at me for not giving her money, so I may have been biased.  The point is that after two days I was more than ready to head off to Kangaroo Island for our close encounter with nature.
 
To get there, we had to make our way to the central bus station where we were fucked about by the bloody rude bus station staff.  I was in an absolutely FOUL mood by the time we finally got on our bus.  Mind you, this is only partly due to the bus people.  I had been dying to go for a poo for most of the morning as well, and had found myself thwarted by closed, or out-of-order, or dodgy toilets.  You know the sort of thing - you can't enjoy a decent poo if you find one or more of the following in a public toilet:
 
1.  Dodgy blokes hanging about in toilet (and there are a LOT of these in Adelaide).
2.  No toilet paper in toilet.  (Mind you, this isn't as bad as forgetting to check; starting your poo and THEN finding no paper. Oh, the horror.)
3.  Big poo already in toilet.  (I suppose there's nothing to STOP you pooing on top; but - ewwwwwwww.  I just couldn't... knowing IT was down there...  looking at me...)
4.  No toilet seat.  (I have done the "hover" manoeuvre in the past, but it spoils the moment, I find.)
5.  Skid marks on seat.
6.  Skid marks on FLOOR.  (How????  No, I don't want to know.)
 
Eventually, I found a toilet in Adelaide that didn't feature one of the above, but it did have the old "no lock on toilet door" thing going.  This is unfortunate because it means you have to poo sort of crouching forward and holding the door closed with your hands, like Carl Lewis on the starting blocks, waiting for the starter pistol.
 
Sorry about that rather disgusting interlude.  Anyway, where was I?  So then we had a 3 hour trip to Cape Jervis and a 45 minute ferry ride before we got to the island itself.  And due to my shitty day (literally) by the time we landed I was snarling to myself and wishing I had never booked us on the Kangaroo Island tour.
 
This was quickly reversed by the appearance of Daniel O'Donnell (I kid you not) of Daniel's Tours.  

"Hi!  You must be Caroline and Symon!" he said.  "Have a cookie!" shoving a big bag under my nose.  He was a tall bloke, enveloped in a huge coat, with a mop of greying-blond hair.  His obvious enthusiasm for his job quickly communicated itself to us, and I found myself quite eager to see the fluffy little penguins he was telling us about.  

The beaches on Kangaroo Island are all sectioned off with nature walkways, where Daniel led us, whispering to look at the little fellers as they made their way up the beach.  Daniel explained to us how easy it is to get eaten when you're a little penguin and how they basically all hang out together in a big group until one of them gets bored and tries to get back to his nest.  If he gets eaten, the rest of the group  decides that going home by that route isn't necessarily the best way to go.  
 
PENGUIN 1:   Well....  time to go home, I reckon.
PENGUIN 2:   Yep.  Yep.  Sure is.  
PENGUIN 3:   Cor!  Is that the time!  We should be off.
PENGUIN 1:   Off you go then.
PENGUIN 3:   Ahhhhhhh... maybe I'll just stay here and have a bit of a scratch.
PENGUIN 2:   Yeahhhh...  Good idea.  No rush, is there?  Ha ha.
PENGUIN 1:   Oh for fuck's sake.  (He rushes up the beach).
PENGUIN 2:   Follow him, lads!
PENGUIN 1:   Aieeeeeee!!!
PENGUIN 3:   Well - like you said - no hurry eh?
 
From the penguin beach, we hopped into Daniel's van, had more cookies and drove out to his hostel/farm on the edge of Flinder's Chase National Park.  It was a long, but fairly exciting ride, encountering more and more wildlife as we approached the park.
 
DANIEL:      (Swerving wildly to avoid a wallaby.)  Welcome to the West of the Island!!  Hold on tight!
 
The group we were in consisted of 3 Japanese kids, another Japanese guy Itoshi, and an Austrian called Matisse.  Daniel hooked straight onto Caro once he learned she was a Kiwi - firstly because he knew she would understand his English, and secondly because he enjoyed taking the piss.
 
DANIEL:      (Observing a squished possum in the road.)  New Zealanders think that possums COME flat!  I'd better not slow down or Caro might scrape him up with a spatula and stick him in a pot.
 
After about an hour and a half of this sort of abuse, we arrived at Daniel's pseudo-hostel, which was looked after by a couple of Dutch backpackers called Radaha and Tim, who Daniel had employed for a couple of weeks.  Tim was a very quiet guy, but Radaha by contrast was quite an excitable person who decided to put us at our ease out in the wild by telling us an exciting story.
 
RADAHA:   I'm going to tell you an EXCITING STORY now?  OKAY??!!!!
 
Okay.
 
RADAHA'S EXCITING STORY
RADAHA: OKAY!  TIM AND ME WERE DRIVING ALONG WHEN WE SEE THIS DEAD SNAKE OKAY?!
TIM:              It was in the road... all flat.
RADAHA:    IT WAS ALL FLAT AND SO WE SAY "IT MUST BE DEAD" OKAY?!!
TIM:              So I said, "take a picture".
RADAHA:    YEAH!!!  SO HE SAYS, "TAKE A PICTURE" SO I GET MY CAMERA AND I GO RIGHT UP TO THE SNAKE...
TIM:              And I'm saying, "Closer, closer".
RADAHA:    YEAH!!  HE KEEPS TELLING ME TO GET CLOSER, SO I GET CLOSER AND I TAKE THE PICTURE AND THEN WHEN WE'RE DRIVING AWAY, I KIND OF THROW A ROCK AT THE SNAKE, TO MAKE SURE, YOU KNOW???
TIM:              So we throw a rock...
RADAHA:    SO WE THROW A ROCK AND THIS SNAKE - IT INFLATES ITSELF AND IT'S NOT DEAD!!!!  AND I WAS THIS CLOSE!!!!
TIM:                Later on, we tell Daniel...
RADAHA:    SO WE TELL DANIEL, AND HE SAYS, "OHHHH - THAT'S A TIGER SNAKE IT'S THE NUMBER FOUR MOST POISONOUS SNAKE IN AUSTRALIA!!!!!"
 
Right after this story we went to bed, with Daniel promising he would wake us at 6am the next day.
 
Like we were really going to sleep well after hearing THAT story.