an autodidact meets a dilettante…

Little corellas, viewed from hotel window, Kingscote. © Sarah Courtney

Canto: So we’re here in the not-so-thriving metropolis of Kingscote, largest town of Kangaroo Island, third largest island off the Australian mainland, behind Tasmania and Melville Island (just north of Darwin). After a harrowing sea voyage and a long overland trek from Penneshaw, we’re relaxing briefly at the salubrious Seaview Wonderland Hotel-Motel-Boatel (or something) before setting out to explore the isle.

Jacinta: And our initial explorations, our prexplorations perhaps, have been online. It hasn’t been an island for long, geologically speaking – perhaps 10,000 years, having been separated from the mainland as a result of the Last Ice Age, which ended the Pleistocene Epoch. There’s much evidence of early Aboriginal presence, but they appear to have left the island some 2000 years ago. Rather surprising since the distance to the island is hardly forbidding.

Canto: As to the most interesting things to see or visit here – a lot of interesting and almost unique bird life. We’ve already seen a flock of pelicans and lots of black swans here on Nepean Bay, and this morning, a noisy flock of little corellas (I think) wheeled around the town, resting briefly on some pine trees and electric wires outside our window.

Jacinta: Yes, and within that noisy flock, each adult corella has a mate – they mate for life – which it clearly recognises though they all look perfectly alike to us.

Canto: yes, like the ‘savages’ all looked alike to Captain Cook and his merry men.

Jacinta: At first. Other things the island is known for are shipwrecks, fossils, seals, lighthouses, spectacular shorelines, ligurian bees and their honey, lavender, walking tracks, and more recently, a range of home-grown wines.

Canto: And fresh fish – which I remember very fondly from a childhood trip here. Probably my first taste of freshly-caught fish, the biggest turn-on of my pre-pubescent years.

Jacinta: Yes, well we’ve had our first dining experience, at the Ozone Hotel here in Kingscote, but neither of us chose fish, it was lamb shanks and lamb cutlets, and a delicious experience for nous deux. Together with a bottle of lubbly Dudley Bubbly, from Dudley Peninsula at the eastern end of the island.

Canto: I am looking forward to some fish though – our charming servitor recommended the baked whiting on the lunch-time menu, when we’ll get to take advantage of the speccy seafront view from our window seats, which we were deprived of last night, our first daylight-saving dark night of the year.

Jacinta: And friends have recommended ye olde fish-and-chips on the beach, wherever we can get it.

Canto: One of the minor problems here, though, is the large distances we have to travel to get anywhere, with many unsealed roads for reaching important but off-the-beaten-track sites, which I don’t like to risk in a hire car.

Jacinta: Yes the road from Penneshaw to Kingscote was long, if straight enough. And many other trips will be longer. And we do want to get to everything worth getting to.

Canto: I find my accelerator foot starts to ache. Bring on the self-driving electric vehicle.

Jacinta: Okay, our next report will be about Emu Bay. Trilobites! Among other things.

Australian pelicans, Kingscote © Sarah Coutney