Almost literally a hop, skip and a jump away from the mainland, the flora and fauna-rich Kangaroo Island is South Australia’s best kept little secret… well, not anymore!
By Raul Dias
The incessant droning sound that was being emitted from the tiny plane’s twin engines and the confusion in my mind were beginning to irritate me. Not that I could do much about the high-pitched hum that reminded me of a pesky mosquito with an unquenchable thirst for a tipple of human blood. But the confusion, I could deal with. On second thoughts, make that; I HAD to deal with! Why was it so tough to pinpoint the exact shade of the blue water down below that reminded me of a surrealist’s colour palette? Was it cerulean? Aquamarine maybe? Or perhaps it was azure. Coming to the conclusion that it was a shade that had yet to be classified by man, I gave up and got ready for my tryst with that enchanting little emerald jewel strewn along Australia’s southern coast -- Kangaroo Island.
With 540 km of coastline and 155 km long by 55 km wide, Kangaroo Island is Australia’s third largest island, but the minuscule size of it’s one and only airport at Kingscote, the island’s capital town, belies this distinction. Already a half hour late thanks to a delay at the Adelaide airport which was from where I had boarded the short half hour flight, I rushed out to meet my hyperventilating friend Nikki for whom punctuality is a religion and her meticulously planned schedule, her Bible. But I couldn’t blame her impatience to hit the road ASAP. I did, after all, have only seven hours here, before my Kangaroo Island day trip ended and urban Adelaide beckoned.
My first stop on the island -- that was named after the abundance of a particular type of Kangaroo only found here -- was Seal Bay. Nestled along the island’s southern coast, Seal Bay is a playground for over 600 Australian sea-lions (Neophoca cinerea) that seem to spend all day in the pursuit of their beauty sleep. Taking the weathered wooden pathway from the astonishingly well-equipped visitor’s centre down the white sanded beach, we made our way past clusters of plump mum and baby pairs of sea-lions in various stages of their seasonal moulting, some with soft tufts of new white fur, while others, like fashion-conscious ladies, still shedding their brownish-black ‘last season togs’. But the benign giants aren’t the only residents that call this fecund paradise home, we were lucky to get a glimpse of a group of elusive Hooded Plovers as well as some white-bellied Sea-Eagles taking flight. All I truly wanted to do there right then and there was to plonk myself on the beach and commune with nature at its purest, undiluted best. But that was sadly not to be.
Lured away with the threat of abandonment, I reluctantly agreed to “haul ass” back to Nikki’s 4-wheel drive SUV, so that I could savour more of Kangaroo Island’s bounty. Looming in the horizon like an erect beacon of hope, the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse is like a sentinel guarding the eerie, almost sub-terranial grotto of Admirals Arch. A truly fascinating wild sculpture of nature, formed by an old coastal dune being cemented together, then eroded, Admirals Arch is a place where time comes to a grinding halt. A place where one’s reverie is punctured time and again by the bellowing of the New Zealand seals that bask on the jagged rocks that jut out angrily into the sea as though proving a point. Taking the boardwalk that runs around the cliff face down into the bowels of the spectacular natural grotto, we got to the viewing platform that made for a perfect photo-op with the brutal waves doing their very own number down below. The howling wind caressed us into submission as the pungent odour of seal excrement hit our nostrils, signalling that our time was up in the cave that was beginning to look like the devil’s living room of my nightmares.
Leaving my nightmares where they belonged, at the bottom of Admirals Arch, something (or rather someone) more soothing and docile beckoned. One of the things on my ‘To Do’ list when I first decided to take a trip to the land down under was just about to be struck off – a cuddle with a Koala. And the ambrosial setting of the Flinders Chase National Park was the place for my rendezvous with Leura, an adorable 5-month old Koala with a rather roving eye, or so I was told by her caretaker. As she swung her arms languorously around my neck, I could feel her tiny heart beating through her furry chest. Love at first sight? Try love at first bite as she lazily nibbled off the eucalyptus leaves I presented her as a love offering. But besides housing adorable critters like Leura, the Flinders Chase National Park is home to a variety of fauna, including Kangaroo Island kangaroos, Tammar wallabies and the endangered Cape Barren geese. Located at the western end of the island, the park is one of Australia’s largest parks covering 74,000 hectares of untouched bushland.
Sitting under the shade of a magnificent mallee scrub tree in a designated picnic area we paid heed to the rumbling of our tummies, chowing down on a scrumptious feast of Thai-style crab cakes, lemon couscous, salad, apple crumble and lubricating our throats with a bottle of a full-bodied Barossa shiraz that left me a tad fuzzy, but not as intoxicated as I was by the jaw-dropping beauty of this luscious haven.
And buzzing I was once again as the otherworldly Remarkable Rocks began to play a game of hide and go seek with my eyes, darting in and out of focus as we drove through a thicket of Tate’s grass tress towards the rock formation. A huge cluster of weather-beaten granite boulders perched on a large granite dome that drops 75 metres to the sea, these numinous icons of Kangaroo Island appear to be the creation of an extra territorial being… or perhaps it was just Mother Nature playing abstractionist sculptor for the day.
Unbelievable, but true, my seven hours were nearly up as Nikki (hyperventilating again!!) transformed into Australia’s answer to Schumi and drove a reluctant me back in time for my flight, that I secretly wished would be cancelled due to bad weather or some other ‘ heavenly boon’. But sadly that was not to be, as I said my goodbyes not just to Nikki, but to a place that will perhaps be the closest thing to the real McCoy – paradise or to use my favourite Urdu two-syllable word, jannat.
As the plane drifted away, inching closer and closer to the setting sun, I looked down and saw that the sea was now turning a deep cobalt blue. Another hue to add to the spectrum that Kangaroo Island affords one the privilege of seeing. Happy to be privy to its vivid magic, I let a smile materialise on my face… never mind that omnipresent high-pitched hum!
(First published in Sunday Mid-Day)
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