It was ten years ago, almost to the week, that I first went to Kangaroo Island. Overnight on the sleeper train from Melbourne, with the car on a flatbed somewhere behind us. We had real beds, with crisp white linen. There was a dining car with metal cutlery, real glass glasses and a wine list. There was an old lady in the cabin next to us wearing a tweed twin set, and a short, but elegant, string of pearls. She may have been waiting for a murder to solve. Or she may have just been going to Adelaide.
There were three of us in our cabin. Me on the top bunk and my wife on the lower one. She had an onboard passenger at the time – but only we really knew this. Not so much a bump and as slight hillock. If we were to repeat the journey today there would be four of us in the cabin. The onboard passenger left his accommodation as planned (more or less!) and now stands as tall as my shoulder. He was joined a few years later by his sister, my daughter. So, H has been to Kangaroo Island before, although he was blissfully unaware of the adventure, and it’s the first time for P. It’s been an interesting ten years, a turbulent decade. A time when things seemed to dull into darkness and the way forward was hidden from me. The trip to the island feels like it happened in the evening half light of the last day of summer, before the storms of winter came early and I had to wait and wait and wait for the new spring. I remember a house on a headland, a long drive from anywhere, with wallabies in the garden and the sound of the waves in the morning. Koalas by the road, lizards on the road, fishing from the pier in the evening. I wonder what else I will remember.
The holiday dates are controlled by the tyranny of school terms. My first trip to Kangaroo Island was during the school holidays because I was a teacher, and now this trip is at the same time because I am the parent of schools aged kids. I’ve switched sides of the fence, and for once the grass is greener on the new side. The flight is at a reasonable hour, the house is booked – all we have to do is get there.
The flight has none of the normal hassles, we glide through check in at Melbourne and our bags emerge delightfully early at Adelaide. I notice that the baggage carousel is labelled “Baggage Reclaim” – as if we need reminding that its function is to allow us to get our own luggage back, rather than claim a suit case simply because it looks attractive. I wonder if it marks a decline in trust. We walk past a wall display celebrating a cricketer, collect the car, and drive away on a road named after the same player. There are probably churches dedicated to him along the way, but I miss them. Sainthood lingers around the corner. The road changes name and we head south on Main South Road. We drive through industrial feeling suburbs that encourage forgetfulness rather than memory.
A decade earlier we had stayed a short, but otherwise lost, distance from the ferry. Our combined memory said it was on a hill, round a corner. It had a high and thinning Cyprus pine hedge, in which pale, washed out looking, rosellas fed. When we rounded the last corner and rolled down the hill, there it was. Hedge still looking raggle-taggled by age and drought, the bend in the road just so. We both recognised it even though we could hardly remember it. There were bright patches of light on the sea and a comically light wind. The ferry was waiting, with buses, trucks and family cars parked in neat rows. As I wait to drive on – thankful that I don’t have to reverse – I can’t help but think. Is it a memory of landscape that helps me remember, or are the things I recall controlled by the landscape of memory? It’s a question that I will return to again and again over the next week.
We come ashore at Penneshaw, shop and head for the house. A hard left at the apex of a long sweeping left-hander, marked by two old fishing buoys hanging by the side of the road, takes us off the main road and out into the coastal dunes. Grass grows through the pale dust, scratchy bushes push in from the side, the wild seems to be closing in on the car. The best part of a kilometre later we arrive at the house, and are greeted by a sublime openness. No mains electricity. No mains water. No mains sewage. No mobile. No net. Wonderfully off the grid. A place to sit, look and wait. Solid stone floors, with rust stained timbers over the doors and holding up the roof. Huge windows, looking south to the sea. That evening we walk down to the beach, the low sun lights up the cliffs to the west of us, the muffled crumpled rush of waves fills the air, and as the light fades a huge sky out over the southern ocean point sparkles into the life. The air moves, the sea moves the sky and stars move. To our south is the pole, one of the two fixed points around which the Earth and sky move and move and move. That night sleep comes easy to all of us.
The roadside vegetation is typically mixed, but the carnage is not, it’s uniformly heavy. A kind of gothic, post apocalypse feel holds over the roadsides, with skulls and piles of bones common. Kangaroo Island has avoided the plague fox, dog and rabbit problems of the mainland, so small marsupials are still common. It’s strange that the marker of ecosystem health here is the number of dead animals by the side of the road. Not that this is an entirely natural system either; a number of species have been introduced, using the island as an ark to protect against the privations of the mainland. But whatever the case, the possums, wallabies and roos that make up the road kill speak of a greater (and possibly wiser) population hidden in the bushes and long grass.
15 comments:
sounds like you had a wonderful trip
both times :-)
Hi Stewart! Wow, even better than the photos is your writing! You are a really good writer, you know...
I liked the bit about baggage reclaim - LOL!
Do you do any of the writing memes on that writing bloggers do?
This was such a good read Stewart. You need to compile these into a book and I will buy a copy...Thank you for linking up to Nature Notes..this was lovely..Michelle
Kangaroo Island - what a great name for somewhere. It is always interesting revisiting somewhere after so long. It sounds as if you enjoyed yourself.
You described it so well - I enjoyed reading about it.
Thanks for your visit this morning.
I enjoyed reading about kangaroo island and the memories it did and did not evoke.
Photos?? There were photos????? I was enjoying the writing..... didn't look at the photos. :)
Me again! Here is my favorite writing meme. Trifectawritingchallenge.com
Fabulous story -- (and pictures, I have to admit, I look at them too)....I loved this from the beginning with your throwaway line about sharing the coach with someone who may have been Miss Marple ;>)!
For a place I'd never heard of until your other blog post, I now feel that I know quite a bit and I thank you -- you live in some amazing country!
What a great post Stewart! I enjoyed the photos so much! I was on Kangaroo Island 10 years ago. You have brought back some wonderful memories!
What a great write! I truly enjoyed the vivid descriptions (other than the stench of the wallaby meal)! Great photos too.
Photos and travelogue of your trip to Kangaroo Island are fascinating ~ Wonderful post ~ It looks like such a wonderful and magical place ~ 'far from the maddening crowd ~ What a gift ! Plus not to have to travel too far ~ thanks for sharing and linking up with Magical Monday Meme ~ Delightful ~ namaste, ^_^
I've never been to Kangaroo Island but your images make it look very interesting & inviting.
It sounds like a great holiday... sometimes we need to get away from the rat arce & slow down (and be uncontactable)
Great pics. Thanks for sharing with Walkabout.
Hi Stewart, I visited your blog on the day you kindly left a comment on mine and got so enthralled with posts from your archives that I didn't have time to leave a comment! However I thoroughly enjoyed what I read. You write beautifully and very entertainingly. If you teach with as much energy as you write I'm sure you are a very good and inspiring teacher!
I love the photos of the Sea Lions. ' The public are corralled here, and the animals wild'...I sometimes (often!) think it should always be so! ;-)
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