Last Day on KI

I’ve said it before and I’m about to say it again… geocaching can sometimes take you to some amazing places that otherwise you might not find. This morning this was one of the best examples of this phenomenon that we have encountered in all of our 1300 caches.

A lonely cache was on the map just north of our home at American River called ‘Redbanks’. Nothing else on the map led you to believe there was anything worth seeing. In fact the road into the coast where the cache was hidden was called Flea Castle Rd… if anything that name suggests that you avoid the place at all costs.

Flea Castle Rd was wrong on two accounts but right on one. First, it was wrong in that we encountered no fleas, second it was wrong in that it wasn’t a ‘road’ more a single lane track that felt more like someone’s long driveway. Where it was correct was with the word ‘castle’. The red coloured cliffs rising like castle turrets from the calm bay we found along this stretch of coast were spectacular! Like no other cliffs we’ve seen anywhere.

We admired them from the top before finding a rough track down to the small beach. From here, the turquoise, clear waters took on a red hue as they reflected the cliffs.

While standing on the rocks by the water admiring the views, Zac called out ‘look’. Just a metre or so away in the calm water was a dorsal fin. A lone dolphin looked like it was fossicking in the shallows. It took no notice of us and methodically made its way along the coast before disappearing to deeper waters.

Leaving Red Banks via Flea Castle Rd, we continued around to Hog Bay Rd – the main highway from Penneshaw towards Kingscote. A little further along we turned off to Nepean Bay. A small community of holiday shacks on a sweeping bay. Nothing to dissimilar to other places we’d seen over the past week or so. The difference was – and it was another geocache that got us on to this – was the stretch of land along the beach.

It is known as ‘Ron’s Garden’ as a guy called Ron has planted all manner of banksias and grevilleas and other native plants along the strip of land between the sand and the road.  Being spring we were treated to a smorgasbord of tremendous colour. Thanks Ron, job well done! 

Looking a little sad, up on bricks was this poor old, previously loved kombi:

We followed Hog Bay Rd back towards American River, but decided to do a quick detour to Pennington Bay again – still one of my favourite beaches on the island.

For the first time in the last ten days we went back to the house for lunch.

After lunch the weather turned cooler and a bit rainy. We went for a walk down to ‘down town’ American River where we looked at the variety of vessels at the jetty, had a peak in the little oyster farm shop. Not being oyster eaters we didn’t get as excited as someone who loves to swallow slimy bivalve molluscs whole might do!

In the big boat shed was a small museum with pictures and stories of the original inhabitants of American River – namely the American’s who stayed for 4 months and built the schooner ‘Independence’ to help with their seal cull. The locals are trying to fund raise to build a proper replica of the ship. Some of the frame has been made and is in the boat shed. 

From there we walked back home and with the weather getting wetter it was a good excuse to stay home and pack up / clean up a bit ready tomorrow’s departure.