A Taste of South Australia
Today is day one (and two technically as we flew into Adelaide last night on ‘day one’) of our Tasmanian adventure! This trip is all about the food (and the wine)!
Oh wait! That’s not right? We never made it to Tasmania! Roughly 12 hours prior to our flight departing Brisbane, we learned that the southern half of Tasmania were being hit with a snap lockdown. Now, I hear you, why didn’t we just stick to the plan and fly into another part of the state? Unfortunately, Queensland, the state Sophie and I call home, has a tendency to throw tantrums and lock its own citizens out when things like this happen, and within 12 hours of the announcement, the QLD Government did exactly that. Neither of us were willing to risk getting stuck, or having to pay for a fortnight of hotel quarantine upon return. It is something of a frustration considering we are both fully vaccinated, but nevertheless, I digress.
We spent the afternoon prior to our intended departure cancelling our plans, much to our sadness and regret. We understand fully that it means that those tourism providers will miss out on our spending in their local government areas, but we fully intend to use our flight credits and make our way back down there in the near future.
This brings me to our current situation! We decided that we would not let COVID get the better of us, and we ‘pivoted’. I write from Adelaide, South Australia! I’ve been to Adelaide several times myself and love the beautiful city of churches. Sadly the friends I normally visit when here are currently residing in Melbourne, but we do have the delightful opportunity to meet new people and see new sights.
Today we are on the bus to the ferry across to Kangaroo Island, one for the bucket list! We’ve joked that it feels a little like being on the amazing race, minus the backpacks and terrifying challenges. Just before boarding our flight, we booked our hotel for the night in Adelaide last night. We landed at 9pm local time and were in bed about an hour later! From bed we made a rather concerning discovery.
Our plans were to travel to Kangaroo island this morning and pick up a hire car, before driving to a stunning accommodation on the beachfront. We realised that in the time since we’d looked at hire cars and hotels, that most options on the island had sold out. We also accidentally booked in reverse order, we booked the ferry tickets across first and then double checked cars and accommodations. Who would have thought it would be so busy, in the short time we’d taken between checking?
We eventually found a hire car available which we are a tad sceptical about. It isn’t a typical company we’ve hired through before so we are unsure what the chances are that we’ll get there and find a real car at a real business to collect and drive around the island for the next 2.5 days.
So, here we are, driving to Kangaroo island to jump on a prepaid ferry where we may or may not find a real hire car to pick up at the other end. From there we need to book accommodation (so far as at 0700 local time, the insanely beautiful house we want tonight is still available). The house we want is a few hours drive across the island, so if the car isn’t real we will be unable to book it. We assume that we can beg the ferry operators to change our return date from Tuesday to this afternoon and let us back off the island. If that doesn’t happen, we’re in a spot of bother because we’ll be short a place to stay and a way to get there. There are no UBERs on the island and it looks like taxis and other transport options are limited. We walked to the bus terminal and there were no cafes open at 6am, neither was there anywhere to pick up supplies at 10pm when we arrived last night, so we are a little hungry, and hoping that once we board the ferry there will be breakfast foods available. Fingers Crossed!!
Update - we made it to the ferry and managed to find ham and cheese croissants onboard. The food selection was limited but it was food nonetheless. The ferry ride across to the island was smooth and seamless, our luggage was transferred via a ‘luggage van’ and arrived successfully on the other side.
The car hire was real and the pickup location was just metres from the ferry. The entire process was relatively painless and by 11.30 we were ready to take our car and find some real brunch.
Millie Mae’s Pantry was everything we needed it to be. Conveniently located, cute and delicious.
We stopped in at the IGA in Penneshaw to collect a few road snacks, before heading out toward Kingscote.
The drive included a brief stop at the lookout, where we climbed a number of stairs to the top. The scenery was beautiful and promised stunning weather for the remainder of the afternoon.
By 1.30pm we had contacted the owner of the AirBNB we’d booked to check if they’d received our booking. Confirmation came through with instructions on how to access the house upon our arrival. We released a collecitve sigh of relief when we knew we’d have somewhere to stay for the night.
The Sky House
What can I say? The sky house was utter perfection. The Moroccan inspired property sits atop a hill, surrounded by grasses swaying in the breeze, the sound of the ocean lapping against the distant shore, the only sound echoing through the teracotta archways.
We were sure to make use of the golden hour sunlight and took a couple of happy snaps, some of which you may have seen floating around Instagram!
Our small supply of cheese and antipasto came together for a delightful plate for dinner and we hosted ourselves a gin and tonic party at home.
Notes:
There is not much by way of grocery shopping on Kangaroo Island, once you leave Penneshaw and Kingscote. Be sure (if you don’t have bookings for dining reservations further west on the island) to pack an esky bag and pick up groceries before you head west.
Reference List:
Kangaroo Island Connect Ferry and Car Hire
Note: All reference links in this post are unsponsored