Thursday in K.I.: Big Trip Day

We geared up on Thursday for Big Trip Day! We started referring to it as this when it became clear that we could not handle anymore all day trips for days in a row once we got to Kangaroo Island. So as we started planning, we put all the things that were pretty far away all into one day and spent the earlier part of the week resting and priming ourselves for another big outing with NO NAP! Our plan was to check out the west coast of Kangaroo Island, which included Flinders Chase National Park and all the gloriousness it has to offer.

Our first stops were Vivonne Bay, which Patrick and I like to say with a hardy French accent because it’s just more fun that way, and Hanson Bay. The thing that is most striking about all these beaches is that there are so many of them, and they are all beautiful in their own right. I realize our pictures make them all seem slightly the same but they are not. There is individuality in each of them, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. God just didn’t churn out a bunch of beaches on every coast. They are all different and all magnificent. Each ring out His glory, which I believe is what Jesus meant when he said that if we don’t cry out for His glory, the rocks will. God is the most famous artist.

Vivonne Bay

Here is Uncle Patrick and his little helper exploring Hanson Bay. Notice the pink Little House on the Prairie bonnet that Grandma Herndon made for her granddaughter. She wore it EVERYWHERE!

After the bays, we stopped at the Koala Walk in hopes of spotting a koala!

These wallabies were pretending to be rocks! I can’t believe how close they let us get to them. They were everywhere!

We did see a kaola! Munching away on the eucalyptus tree. They are actually pretty pesky because they eat all the leaves off the trees, which eventually kills the tree. Tricky because the little boogers are pretty cute.

We made it to Flinders Chase late morning and our first stop was Admirals Arch. The seals were snoozing and playing all over the rocks.

Really. ALL OVER. They blended in with the rocks so well it was hard to believe how many there were when you really started looking.

And the Arch.
Amazing and powerful with the waves crashing furiously on the rocks and echoing through the cave.

Patrick could not get over the height of the waves. He must have taken over a hundred pictures of just the waves. They were incredible.

And finally, the Remarkable Rocks

They are HUGE! Perhaps we need some better perspective on their size:

We just kept saying, “They are…. remarkable!” There’s just no other word.

We were about to make our way home, when on a whim we took a right turn to see this square lighthouse. It’s square because it’s so high up anyway, they didn’t need the roundness for the height when it was actually in use.

I looked over towards the side of the lighthouse, and Patrick had found 2 kangaroos. He was quietly approaching them to see how close they would let him get. Pretty close!

We ended the day at Scott’s Cove which has the highest cliffs in South Australia. When we got to the parking lot, the paths were all overgrown and we couldn’t find the way out to the cliffs. We made our way through the brush, which was full of thorns and prickly things, not really knowing if this was such a great idea.
Then the brush sort of cleared out and all of the sudden, we saw this:

It was perfect. The sun was setting, the waves were crashing, the cliffs unbelievably high. 273 meters to be exact. We were again in awe. We all just stopped and stared. It was hard to leave because we wanted to stay and watch the sunset from right there.

Then we remembered we would have to crawl back through the thorns in the dark and we started towards home.

Carolyn had a stew in the crockpot. It was warm and delicious after a chilly day of walking and driving.

After dinner, Andrew took us out into the yard to show us the Southern Cross constellation in the sky. The sky at night is completely different here. A whole different set of stars than what we see. You never really think about these things until you’re actually seeing it. We could see a very bright light that Andrew identified as Venus. Seriously, we could see Venus.

Their friends Gary and Barb came over for an evening of fellowship and coffee later in the evening. We sat around the kitchen table until bedtime talking.

It was satisfying end to another fantastic day.