Don’t wonder about better photos sometimes (mainly landscape and animals), they are from Doron 🙂
It had been raining sometimes during the night and I waited for a pause in the morning to get out of the tent. I made a short round and saw the start of the sunrise on the seaside and many kangaroos and regretted to have no camera with me. But maybe many sunrises are more beautiful when you see them live than on a photo?
We had luck with the rain, we could pack the tent and have breakfast without getting too wet and left for our first visit, a light tower in Cape Willoughby Conservation Park, built in 1852 and by that the first in South Australia.
By the way, we had some fun by comparing our different “rules” and do’s & don’ts regarding all the small things you can do in this or that way, like washing the dishes with the least possible amount of water for a maximum result in cleanliness. And of course it is a good occasion to compare childhood memories and talk about things and experiences of times long ago, because also Doron and I have enough stuff to talk about since he was my child and I was his father (of course in a way we still are and I don’t have a better definition for our relationship then father-son but these words include something “hierarchic” that I cannot feel)
At the light-station, we had a guided tour and got some historical and technical information packed in a funny story.
The sea in this area can be rough, the wind strong and near to the surface are some sandbanks and riffs, so that many ships got shipwrecked.
The story of building and improving the tower was interesting but also that the old equipment nearly had been destroyed in the 70ies, a time when people seemingly thought that only new is good. But in this case just at the right time someone decided to make a museum.
they were so trustful that they early settlers easily could kill them for meat … thus eponymously for the Island
After the guided tour, we made a short walk to the coast including the “devil’s kitchen” where the builders of the light tower had taken the stones for building and transported by themselves as they had no horses or other pack animals.
Then we went on to the seal-bay and took another guided tour among the seals. Most interesting information maybe for most of the visitors was the hard life of the females, because all you can see is how they “lazily” lie on the beach. But their life is dominated by being pregnant, giving birth and being pregnant again only one week later, breast-feeding 3 days on the beach, alternating with 3 days hunting in an area 15km stretched to the south. The males mainly must gain weight to be the strongest one and to have sex, but these competitions are so exhausting that they lose weight and another one becomes fatter for a while until again he is exhausted and so on.
We drove to our second campsite in Cape Gantheaume Cons Park and again were alone. This time we thought this also could be because it was nothing but some designated places for camping and no water, toilet or anything people would like to have.
We, especially Doron and I, were getting faster and better coordinated with the different tasks you have when doing camping: Setting up the tent, arranging a place to sit for dinner, preparing dinner, etc.
This night, I took more clothes because I had been freezing the night before, but this time it nearly was too much, or the night was warmer or I had got more accommodated. The only problem was that my mat lost the air even fast than before and combined with the much harder surface, this night was not that comfortable.