Well we had another visitor last night – a mouse (we only saw his calling card) and it had chewed through my crisp packet that I was going to have for my lunch- not happy.
So what better way to cheer yourself up than to go for a very refreshing morning swim, it was bliss.
We actually did 3 lots of washing whilst here and we re-packed the suitcases last night so luckily we didn’t have much to do this morning. So after showering and fried egg and beans for breakfast we were on our way at 10.00.
Our flight wasn’t until 5.35 and the car rental had said drop it back an hour before take-off so we had quite a few hours still to explore this wonderful island.
After saying bye to Kirsty the lovely owner of this house, we headed to Stoke Beach. As we parked in the car park, we were a little disappointed with the beach in front of us but we got out the car for a walk anyway. There were some huge rocks off to the side and they had a sign ‘beach’ on them so we approached and found ourselves on a track actually cutting through the rocks, a few of which looked most precarious. After a few minutes we came out onto the most amazing sandy beach and walked the whole length of it and back.
Next onto Emu Bay. We got there at 12 and agreed it was ‘Tim Tam’ time. A Tim Tam is an iconic Australian biscuit, sort of like a Penguin, but you have to eat more than 1 as they are not individually wrapped. I’ve just googled it and it says they are also sold in Tesco’s!
We had a walk along the little jetty whilst watching the pelicans. We then drove round to the beach and had our ham sarnies – minus the crisps.
Before heading to American River, Dave decided we needed to drive along the beach in the hire car, so we did – he enjoyed it anyway!
A last minute addition to the itinerary, we detoured to Prospect Hill, where you have a 360 degree view of the island. The catch, 400 steps up to get to it but so totally worth it.
Next we moved on to American River. Well there wasn’t a lot going on here, but we went for a little walk and chatted to a man who was helping to hand build a replica of The Independence, (a 35 ton schooner built on KI in 1803 and lost only 2 years later). He reckoned it will be finished in 4-5 years, the original only took 4 months!
We then headed back into the main town of Kingscote to fill up with petrol (diesel price now $3.16 btw).
At 4.00 we got to the airport, returned the car (having done just under 300 miles) and checked in our luggage. Lo and behold Kirsty was there dropping someone off so we had a little chat about our dilemma in trying to get home to the UK but also got some tips for dinner.
After Dave had a couple of beers and I worked out the itinerary for Adelaide tomorrow we boarded the Dash-8 plane for our 25 min flight back to the mainland.
Feeling like pros we boarded the Jet Express bus back to the city alighting where we got on 2 days ago and this time walked to The Franklin Boutique Hotel.
By 8 we were sitting outside with a beer, having googled a taphouse to find there was one just round the corner we then headed there for a pint and a burger.
Dave missing some live music, had found another venue to move onto – The Grace Emily Hotel, basically a live music venue. It was only a short walk away, on entering we immediately increased the average age of the clientele but still ordered a drink. It wasn’t long before a band started playing and we found it was an open mic jazz night. We stayed until the end and then spoke to a couple of women (also oldies) who actually lived on the cruise ship that was docked here.
We finally made it back to our hotel just before midnight.
