After a hop and a hop I made it to
KANGAROO ISLAND
This sealink bus took me from Adelaide, south about 2 hours, to the ferry boat at Cape Jervis. Then I jumped on the ferry and rode 45 minutes to Kangaroo Island, specifically to the town called Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo Island on the distant horizon of these 3 images
Kangaroo Island is Australia's 3rd largest island at 150 km long by 55 km wide
This is my new home at Bob's house near American River on Kangaroo Island. Bob has a 147 hectare merino sheep farm.
Bob's house overlooks the Salt Lake in the distance. This lake, at one time, was a mine, mining salt first and then gypsum when it was discovered underneath the salt. The Salt Lake is 4 times saltier than the ocean, the Southern Ocean, which is seen far in the distance from Bob's house.
Bob's sheep shearing shed - and his friend Jim makes biodiesel in the left side of the shed. Bob is retired but still has 300 sheep that are sheared in October/November and Bob also owns a motel in American River.
The hole on the right is the chute that the newly sheared sheep gets pushed toward by the shearer. The sheep slips down this chute so it is also called "the slippery dip".
Bob and Neti and a HEAVY bag of wool - one bag contains the wool of about 40 to 50 sheep
beautiful merino wool
This is the sheep shearing shed with all the vegetable oil containers outside waiting to be made into biodiesel by Bob's friend, Jim. Inside this shed we found a possum and her baby happily tucked into a corner...as they would say here, "cute as"
this photo shows how very dry it is here...
this is a hole that Bob dug in order to get water for his sheep - there were a few other holes like this and they all were dry
Bob took us to a neighbor's house - home of a new baby calf - Neti was fascinated as she had never seen a baby like this, let alone bottle feed one.
Neti and I worked at Bob's motel making paper-folded Easter Boxes for all of the guests. We spent about 4 hours with a table full of fancy paper, stickers, glitter glue and stickers. It was a little too much fun to be considered a WWWOOFing job.
I think these are Banksia flowers growing on the lane to Bob's house - he cut some to take to a friend. While we cut these flowers I kept hearing an odd bird sound, a sound I continued to hear each time we came up the lane. The bird sounds were a lot like the cluck and clack sound that a chicken would make, very loud and at times I heard what sounded like a beak clapping open and closed. I got a good look at the bird, a large bird with a little red fleshy patch on its chin, and this bird is a WATTLE BIRD. I am pretty sure that these guys had a nest in the area, but I did not see it.
The lake next to Bob's house is a lake at the site of an old gypsum/salt mine. I rode a bicycle down this road to the lake and went exploring one day and had a great time! It was a crystallized, quiet wonderland with evidence of kangaroos from their footprints and paths through the red plants and low scrubby bushes.
kangaroo/wallaby highway next to the people highway
from this spot I could see the closest neighbor's house, Dennis's house up on the far hill in a little bit of clearing - Dennis is a sweet man and a WWOOF host as well - we went to his house to see all the kangaroos that he feeds - they hop up right close to his house and take food out of his hand - I have photos of this and will post them a bit further down the page
kangaroo and wallaby paths - I was fascinated by this hint of activity, activity that was asleep right now, but would come alive at dusk, a whole new world belonging to the pouched animals
Mom, hey there Mom, I took this photo for you, it is...
KANGAROO POO
the sand was covered by thick layers of salt crystals
kangaroo and wallaby tracks
back feet
front feet
kangaroo and wallaby runway through these beautiful red plants
We take a drive to the northern coast of Kangaroo Island, to Western River Cove, to jump on a boat that is taking a group out scuba diving. The guy that captains the boat is Jim, Bob's biodiesel making friend. On the early morning walk to the beach to catch the boat we saw this beautiful kangaroo.
Western River Cove - north coast of Kangaroo Island
Neti and Bob and my first glimpse of our boat
first sighting from the boat was a pair of WHITE-BELLIED SEA EAGLES on this cliff
this is Phillip, the deckhand getting the scuba gear ready, and this is the little red rubber boat that we rode in from the shore and the one that we will ride in through the rocks and the waves raising us up and down too damn close to those sharp rocks just to see the beautiful and curious seals and oh it was worth it, but oh it was scary
boat captain Jim in the wide brimmed hat talking to the divers - these 2 divers were from Canada - professional photographers using underwater cameras to try to catch photos of the leafy sea dragon
while they went scuba diving, we went out on this little tiny red boat in the distance and buzzed through these rocks looking at the seals sunning themselves on the rocks and playing in the water - we also saw dolphins jumping right beside us - I have never seen them so close - I did not get any photos though as I was too frightened to let go of the ropes on the sides of the boat for too long - see that tiny boat and those big rocks and those big waves - and crazy young Phillip was the driver of this little red boat and told us not to worry about the water that was in the bottom of the boat - uggh
photos that I courageously took while bobbing around in the red boat - see the big white boat through the rocks
Phillip is pointing at a dolphin that jumped just here - too fast for the click of my camera, but oh was he beautiful
rock lobster that Jim brought up after scuba diving
a beautiful creature - I wanted to get a good look at him before he was made into dinner
Captain Jim teasing me with the scary looking rock lobster - just goofing around after a good dive
Bob shows us these cool spiders in this tree - they make homes out of the surrounding tree leaves - large balls of leaves stuck together with web - and I could see the spider tucked into one of the leaves too - this spider nest was one of the drawings that I saw in the Australian children's books by May Gibbs
MUNTRIES
These are really yummy bush tucker fruits found here wild along the sandy beach. They are MUNTRIES, Kunzea pomifera, family Myrtaceae. They are also called crab apple emu apple, muntari, muntaberry, munterberry, creeping tea tree, and native cranberry. They are found in temperate coastal and inland sand dunes and mallee from SA to Victoria.
They taste like apples with a hint of juniper.
Muntries growing wild along the dunes of Little Sahara on Kangaroo Island near Vivonne Bay
Visiting the little town of Penneshaw - where the ferry boat docks on Kangaroo Island - all along this coastline is the home of the little tiny penguin, the LITTLE PENGUIN or FAIRY PENGUIN. This species is the smallest of the 18 species that live around the southern oceans. This is the only penguin that nests and burrows in the rock crevices around the southern coast of Australia. This little penguin comes ashore at night to feed its young in the spring and spends several weeks ashore while molting in the summer.
The little town of Penneshaw - this photo pretty much shows it all, except the ferry boat down the road. When I took this photo I saw a huge semi-truck with 4 levels full of sheep - I talked to the driver and he said he was headed to the ferry and the mainland to sell the sheep for meat - I also saw the sheep dogs kept in metal cubicles under the semi - riding along with the herd.
WWOOF job cleaning vegetable oil out of these containers - I just thought that I got away from sticky vegetable oil when I left the veggie-oil bus at my brother's house in the USA!
Working with the sisal leaf that I got from The Food Forest in Gawler - removing the fibers so I can make cordage
Visiting Bob's neighbor Dennis at dusk to see him feed his entire crew of kangaroos. This was absolutely amazing! The kangaroos were everywhere and all eager to eat carrots. I got to feed one, a young one, up really close and watch him eat - he noisily ate the carrot and stayed right by me - his nose was so delicate looking and boy was he fun to watch. The photos don't really do it justice as it sure was an intimate, magical thing to experience - not like a touristy zoo experience, but real wild kangaroos and a retired guy having fun feeding them vegetable scraps he gets from a local restaurant. I got a twinge as I saw him stoop to feed one of the kangaroos as I instantly thought of my grandpa, a hard farming man, yet soft in the middle for his dog and all animals.
These are WESTERN GREY KANGAROOS - their noses are more delicate looking - and the wallabies that are on Kangaroo Island are TAMMAR WALLABIES or also known as the DAMA WALLABY
Kangaroos and Wallabies belong to the MACROPOD family. They are native only to Australia and parts of New Guinea. There are 45 species of Kangaroo and Wallaby (200 years ago there were 49 species).
I love all the pods that I am seeing here - tree pods from the zillions of kinds of gums and eucalyptus and I don't know what all kind of trees - there are so many new trees here for me - all different, but all with cool looking pods
AMERICAN RIVER near the dock - exploring in the mudflats
black swans
I am pretty sure these are the shells of sea urchin bodies
My first good and close look at a wild goanna on Kangaroo Island
Bob took SEVEN female WWOOFers on a tour of the southern coast of Kangaroo Island - and I post this image because we got a flat tire just a few miles down the road - and I thought it was funny to see all these women standing around this vehicle on the side of the road watching Bob change a tire
Our first stop was at the EUCALYPTUS DISTILLERY
Nanda, WWOOFer from Holland and the baby roo inside the distillery shop
The distilling process was very interesting to me and I took tons of photos on how they do it - this place is also really interesting because they are entirely off the grid - using wind and steam power to do everything - I want to try to distill some of this eucalyptus oil myself - I could have stayed here a very, very long time, but I was with a group so away we went to our next stop...
I finally got to see a BLUE WREN - just in the parking lot of this national park - I am not sure if they are called Fairy Wrens or not, but that is what they act like - flipping their tails and flitting around
7 WWOOFers from 7 countries - from 3 different farms in the area close to Bob's place
This is a place called Remarkable Rocks on the southern coast of Kangaroo Island
This is the little road that we drove into the park on - I love the way it looks in this photo
The dunes at Little Sahara on the southern coast of Kangaroo Island. Later at my next WWOOF place I sandboarded down these dunes for Brenton's photographer - the photos be used in an advertisement for Brenton's outdoor action business, sandboard renting and such. It is a high dune and a little unnerving, but I did it and I actually managed to stay upright some of the time. I think that I squealed pretty loudly especially when I was in the process of falling. I had sand stuck to one of my ears for a few days. It was a good exercise and a good time.
Ulla a WWOOFer from Holland
This is Bob's Hotel in American River, American River Motel. The photo below is the view from the motel driveway.
On many nights we would go into the motel to help in the kitchen, a pretty quiet kitchen, making salads and doing dishes - in trade we got good food from the restaurant
Another WWOOFer job was painting these steel supports and helping to put together the beginnings of this shed out at Bob's house
All of us WWOOFers at Bob's house, along with Ginger the dog, Bob's best buddy - Ginger, or as Bob would say it, "Gingah"
KANGAROO ISLAND
This sealink bus took me from Adelaide, south about 2 hours, to the ferry boat at Cape Jervis. Then I jumped on the ferry and rode 45 minutes to Kangaroo Island, specifically to the town called Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo Island on the distant horizon of these 3 images
Kangaroo Island is Australia's 3rd largest island at 150 km long by 55 km wideThis is my new home at Bob's house near American River on Kangaroo Island. Bob has a 147 hectare merino sheep farm.
Bob's house overlooks the Salt Lake in the distance. This lake, at one time, was a mine, mining salt first and then gypsum when it was discovered underneath the salt. The Salt Lake is 4 times saltier than the ocean, the Southern Ocean, which is seen far in the distance from Bob's house.
Bob's sheep shearing shed - and his friend Jim makes biodiesel in the left side of the shed. Bob is retired but still has 300 sheep that are sheared in October/November and Bob also owns a motel in American River.
Bob and Rie feeding the sheep. Rie is a WWOOFer from Japan.
Bob and the wool from one of his sheep
Bob and the wool from one of his sheep
The hole on the right is the chute that the newly sheared sheep gets pushed toward by the shearer. The sheep slips down this chute so it is also called "the slippery dip".
Bob and Neti and a HEAVY bag of wool - one bag contains the wool of about 40 to 50 sheep
beautiful merino wool
This is the sheep shearing shed with all the vegetable oil containers outside waiting to be made into biodiesel by Bob's friend, Jim. Inside this shed we found a possum and her baby happily tucked into a corner...as they would say here, "cute as"
this photo shows how very dry it is here...
this is a hole that Bob dug in order to get water for his sheep - there were a few other holes like this and they all were dryBob took us to a neighbor's house - home of a new baby calf - Neti was fascinated as she had never seen a baby like this, let alone bottle feed one.
Neti and I worked at Bob's motel making paper-folded Easter Boxes for all of the guests. We spent about 4 hours with a table full of fancy paper, stickers, glitter glue and stickers. It was a little too much fun to be considered a WWWOOFing job.
I think these are Banksia flowers growing on the lane to Bob's house - he cut some to take to a friend. While we cut these flowers I kept hearing an odd bird sound, a sound I continued to hear each time we came up the lane. The bird sounds were a lot like the cluck and clack sound that a chicken would make, very loud and at times I heard what sounded like a beak clapping open and closed. I got a good look at the bird, a large bird with a little red fleshy patch on its chin, and this bird is a WATTLE BIRD. I am pretty sure that these guys had a nest in the area, but I did not see it.
The lake next to Bob's house is a lake at the site of an old gypsum/salt mine. I rode a bicycle down this road to the lake and went exploring one day and had a great time! It was a crystallized, quiet wonderland with evidence of kangaroos from their footprints and paths through the red plants and low scrubby bushes.
kangaroo/wallaby highway next to the people highway
from this spot I could see the closest neighbor's house, Dennis's house up on the far hill in a little bit of clearing - Dennis is a sweet man and a WWOOF host as well - we went to his house to see all the kangaroos that he feeds - they hop up right close to his house and take food out of his hand - I have photos of this and will post them a bit further down the page
kangaroo and wallaby paths - I was fascinated by this hint of activity, activity that was asleep right now, but would come alive at dusk, a whole new world belonging to the pouched animals
Mom, hey there Mom, I took this photo for you, it is...
KANGAROO POO
the sand was covered by thick layers of salt crystals
kangaroo and wallaby tracks
back feet
front feet
kangaroo and wallaby runway through these beautiful red plants
We take a drive to the northern coast of Kangaroo Island, to Western River Cove, to jump on a boat that is taking a group out scuba diving. The guy that captains the boat is Jim, Bob's biodiesel making friend. On the early morning walk to the beach to catch the boat we saw this beautiful kangaroo.
Western River Cove - north coast of Kangaroo Island
Neti and Bob and my first glimpse of our boat
first sighting from the boat was a pair of WHITE-BELLIED SEA EAGLES on this cliff
this is Phillip, the deckhand getting the scuba gear ready, and this is the little red rubber boat that we rode in from the shore and the one that we will ride in through the rocks and the waves raising us up and down too damn close to those sharp rocks just to see the beautiful and curious seals and oh it was worth it, but oh it was scary
boat captain Jim in the wide brimmed hat talking to the divers - these 2 divers were from Canada - professional photographers using underwater cameras to try to catch photos of the leafy sea dragon
while they went scuba diving, we went out on this little tiny red boat in the distance and buzzed through these rocks looking at the seals sunning themselves on the rocks and playing in the water - we also saw dolphins jumping right beside us - I have never seen them so close - I did not get any photos though as I was too frightened to let go of the ropes on the sides of the boat for too long - see that tiny boat and those big rocks and those big waves - and crazy young Phillip was the driver of this little red boat and told us not to worry about the water that was in the bottom of the boat - uggh
photos that I courageously took while bobbing around in the red boat - see the big white boat through the rocks
Phillip is pointing at a dolphin that jumped just here - too fast for the click of my camera, but oh was he beautiful
rock lobster that Jim brought up after scuba diving
a beautiful creature - I wanted to get a good look at him before he was made into dinner
Captain Jim teasing me with the scary looking rock lobster - just goofing around after a good dive
Bob shows us these cool spiders in this tree - they make homes out of the surrounding tree leaves - large balls of leaves stuck together with web - and I could see the spider tucked into one of the leaves too - this spider nest was one of the drawings that I saw in the Australian children's books by May Gibbs
MUNTRIES
These are really yummy bush tucker fruits found here wild along the sandy beach. They are MUNTRIES, Kunzea pomifera, family Myrtaceae. They are also called crab apple emu apple, muntari, muntaberry, munterberry, creeping tea tree, and native cranberry. They are found in temperate coastal and inland sand dunes and mallee from SA to Victoria.They taste like apples with a hint of juniper.
Muntries growing wild along the dunes of Little Sahara on Kangaroo Island near Vivonne BayVisiting the little town of Penneshaw - where the ferry boat docks on Kangaroo Island - all along this coastline is the home of the little tiny penguin, the LITTLE PENGUIN or FAIRY PENGUIN. This species is the smallest of the 18 species that live around the southern oceans. This is the only penguin that nests and burrows in the rock crevices around the southern coast of Australia. This little penguin comes ashore at night to feed its young in the spring and spends several weeks ashore while molting in the summer.
The little town of Penneshaw - this photo pretty much shows it all, except the ferry boat down the road. When I took this photo I saw a huge semi-truck with 4 levels full of sheep - I talked to the driver and he said he was headed to the ferry and the mainland to sell the sheep for meat - I also saw the sheep dogs kept in metal cubicles under the semi - riding along with the herd.
WWOOF job cleaning vegetable oil out of these containers - I just thought that I got away from sticky vegetable oil when I left the veggie-oil bus at my brother's house in the USA!
Working with the sisal leaf that I got from The Food Forest in Gawler - removing the fibers so I can make cordage
Visiting Bob's neighbor Dennis at dusk to see him feed his entire crew of kangaroos. This was absolutely amazing! The kangaroos were everywhere and all eager to eat carrots. I got to feed one, a young one, up really close and watch him eat - he noisily ate the carrot and stayed right by me - his nose was so delicate looking and boy was he fun to watch. The photos don't really do it justice as it sure was an intimate, magical thing to experience - not like a touristy zoo experience, but real wild kangaroos and a retired guy having fun feeding them vegetable scraps he gets from a local restaurant. I got a twinge as I saw him stoop to feed one of the kangaroos as I instantly thought of my grandpa, a hard farming man, yet soft in the middle for his dog and all animals.
These are WESTERN GREY KANGAROOS - their noses are more delicate looking - and the wallabies that are on Kangaroo Island are TAMMAR WALLABIES or also known as the DAMA WALLABY
Kangaroos and Wallabies belong to the MACROPOD family. They are native only to Australia and parts of New Guinea. There are 45 species of Kangaroo and Wallaby (200 years ago there were 49 species).
I love all the pods that I am seeing here - tree pods from the zillions of kinds of gums and eucalyptus and I don't know what all kind of trees - there are so many new trees here for me - all different, but all with cool looking pods
AMERICAN RIVER near the dock - exploring in the mudflats
black swans
I am pretty sure these are the shells of sea urchin bodies
My first good and close look at a wild goanna on Kangaroo Island
Bob took SEVEN female WWOOFers on a tour of the southern coast of Kangaroo Island - and I post this image because we got a flat tire just a few miles down the road - and I thought it was funny to see all these women standing around this vehicle on the side of the road watching Bob change a tire
Our first stop was at the EUCALYPTUS DISTILLERY
Nanda, WWOOFer from Holland and the baby roo inside the distillery shop
The distilling process was very interesting to me and I took tons of photos on how they do it - this place is also really interesting because they are entirely off the grid - using wind and steam power to do everything - I want to try to distill some of this eucalyptus oil myself - I could have stayed here a very, very long time, but I was with a group so away we went to our next stop...
I finally got to see a BLUE WREN - just in the parking lot of this national park - I am not sure if they are called Fairy Wrens or not, but that is what they act like - flipping their tails and flitting around
7 WWOOFers from 7 countries - from 3 different farms in the area close to Bob's place
This is a place called Remarkable Rocks on the southern coast of Kangaroo Island
This is the little road that we drove into the park on - I love the way it looks in this photo
The dunes at Little Sahara on the southern coast of Kangaroo Island. Later at my next WWOOF place I sandboarded down these dunes for Brenton's photographer - the photos be used in an advertisement for Brenton's outdoor action business, sandboard renting and such. It is a high dune and a little unnerving, but I did it and I actually managed to stay upright some of the time. I think that I squealed pretty loudly especially when I was in the process of falling. I had sand stuck to one of my ears for a few days. It was a good exercise and a good time.
Ulla a WWOOFer from Holland
This is Bob's Hotel in American River, American River Motel. The photo below is the view from the motel driveway.
On many nights we would go into the motel to help in the kitchen, a pretty quiet kitchen, making salads and doing dishes - in trade we got good food from the restaurantAnother WWOOFer job was painting these steel supports and helping to put together the beginnings of this shed out at Bob's house
All of us WWOOFers at Bob's house, along with Ginger the dog, Bob's best buddy - Ginger, or as Bob would say it, "Gingah"
