Leaving hot and sunny Adelaide we headed first to Kangaroo Island, an island known for its wildlife. Before arriving there, the ferry prices made us looking forward to Asia. For the 45 minutes ride they charge 188 Dollar each way… if you book an accommodation with the ticket, even just a campground for one night, the price drops to 128. It was the first of many things we just stopped trying to understand in Australia.
With our little, blue car we explored the big, dry island. Unfortunately the rental company only allowed us to drive on sealed roads. Accordingly we just saw the main attractions, like the Admiral Arches and the seals. A great surprise was our second campground right next to the Flinders Chase national park. Due to the hot weather we did not saw any land animals in the park itself. Luckily we shared our campsite with dozens of cute wallabies, parrots and gooses. And on the koala walk we actually found a koala! During the night the temperatures dropped nearly 20C and from one day to another the hot summer was gone and we were in the middle of the South Australian fall. Still in the low and mid twenties, but way different than before especially thanks to the daily rain showers.
After a little stopover in Adelaide we traveled east along the coast. Originally we wanted to do some diving and surfing, but the weather had a different idea. Well, we still could have done some surfing and diving but my dislike of cold looking water was bigger than my like of the sports. Since the weather was bad we decided to head faster to Melbourne and do more stuff in the second half at hopefully better conditions. Bad luck, that we choose the weekend of the Melbourne Grand Prix and all decently priced hotels/motels/campgrounds were already full. We had to stay outside and spent our time in camp kitchen and looking unsuccessfully for free wifi.
Finally we arrived in Melbourne and decided to take a cabin. Sometimes you just get sick of hearing raindrops pounding on your tent. It was just the coziest thing to have our own bed and bathroom after sharing facilities for a long while. We did not realize how much we missed having a place of our own until we settled down in that cabin. We liked our cabin so much that we cut the city center discovery short and spent just one day in Melbourne CBD itself, the rest we just enjoyed the cabin. We did our usual free walking tour, which was great to get an overview, and visited the old jail. Part of the jail visit is a watchtower tour were officers treat you like a criminal and put you in an arrest cell for a while; irritating and funny at the same time. Melbourne is buzzing and there are billions things to visit, but the clock was ticking and the distances to drive huge. Accordingly we continued our journey towards Sydney.
To our surprise there are tons of rules in Australia. I feel kind of sorry for all those free spirits that migrated here because of its space and promise of freedom. Now, at least in South Australia and Victoria, there is a web of rules, conditions and guidelines. Also they do like surveillance cameras and hints. Some of those hints are really redundant and you feel treated like an idiot. Sometimes it feels as if they want you to stop thinking and just follow whatever is written; For example that the milk is gluten free and ok for vegetarians. Despite all those rules the people seem to be fine with the amount and do not to expect you to follow them strictly and are surprised if you do so.
During the many hours in the car we recognized that we underestimated the distances and misjudged the attractions. Unlike the US or NZ, traveling the leg we did is more like harvesting asparagus than apples. The attractions are far apart, harder to find and time consuming to enjoy. Often they are not really obvious, like a cheese factory, and the main sights are national parks and reserves. Many of those sites can only be visited by booking ahead and with tours. To fully benefit from the nice beaches, campgrounds and parks it seems to be better to travel slower and stay a while at several selected places rather than just drive and look out for sights.
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