Our Five Day Holiday on Kangaroo Island (2008)

Way back in 2008 I first published these five days on Kangaroo Island under separate articles. Last night I decided to put them all together and publish as one. It’s really just a bunch of written journal entries, talking about that weekend my wife and I helped her parents moved their life from a farm at Cygnet River to a stone-home in Kingscote. Enjoy…

The Day Before: (28/09/2008)

After almost missing the SEALINK boat, the wife and I enjoyed a wave-free boat trip across to KI. My newly-found sea legs allowed me stand on the top deck photographing the colorful sunset. Whilst walking upstairs to the deck, I was fortunate to find an amazing silhouette through the captain’s console of the sunset.

Upon arrival at Kingscote, we traveled straight to her parents new home in the early evening of a five-day holiday.

They’ve lived on the island for 50 years upon a 500 hectare farm – and now that’s all been sold for a large stone house up the back of Kingscote. Way too big for two oldies, but they have kids and grand-kids who will love being able to walk down to the ocean, into the town-centre, or even to the salt-water tidal pool!

After dumping a boot load of bread , we all drove to the old farm to work until late of night, packing & filling boxes, cases, old school bags and tubs with trinkets, books, general house paraphernalia and all manner of crap you’d find in a 50 year old home! When sleep was finally allowed, it was instant.

Day 1 of 5 (29/09/2008)

Although an 8am start was the idea, I reckon my body clock just didn’t care! Around 9am I finally arose, showered, and staggered out to find packing already in progress. After eating my holiday-only-peanut-butter-on-toast I slipped straight into my new steel-cap boots to begin a long day of moving house.

Around 10am a massive lorry arrived to transport all the furniture and boxes into Kingscote. With the help of my wife’s parents, my wife & I plus the three people on the truck, we had the truck packed, moved, and emptied into the new house around 3pm.

At 8pm we felt like it was midnight. Everyone was tired, muscles from feet up to shoulders are hurting! An all-meat party-size pizza was consumed within 20 minutes!

It’s now 10pm and we’re discussing bee-hives, 4WD’s and funny stories about sinking in mud up to the diff’! Sleep will come quickly again tonight.

Day 2 of 5 (30/08/2008

8am

Although awoken numerous times by numerous sounds throughout the night (including starlings in the guttering, rain on the roof and car-hoons driving up the hill), I managed to sleep soundly. With rain still pouring down, we’re heading back to the old house to retrieve up to 6 car loads of cra… leftovers.

Yep, it’s pouring down out there, pissing down cats & dogs , yet I’m forced to … Wait a moment. I’m a guest, I’m on holiday, I’m … I’m going to help out now. My wife has promised many nice things based upon my input.

8.16am

Instructions as follows:
(1) Endure FIL on drive to old farm;
(2) Take lots of photographs for my Redbubble, Flickr & LostBunyip galleries;
(3) Be nice when he asks silly questions. I reckon I can handle that much work.

I’m expecting the rewards to have both automatic & manual focusing rings, yet I bet they’ll be made of chocolate. (By which I mean that my 40th Birthday cake will look like a DSLR & lens!)

11am

We all spent the first half of the morning packing many boxes with package-food & condiments, crockery & cupboards, bed sheets & shed-tools.

Then the father-in-law and I drove a van-load to the new house. Somehow I survived and we returned back to his old house to find the ladies still sorting thru 50yrs of Tupperware. What an amazing assortment of translucent & multi-coloured plastic!

Someone mentioned burning excess rubbish and old cupboards. Within moments, the pyromaniac within me reared his ugly head! After tipping an old cupboard end-over-end around to a suitable location, we lit a match to petrol-soaked paper. Yeaaah!

An assortment of burnable products – an old fax machine, a bed-head, old leather shoes, kitchen utensils, bags of unopened junk-mail, petrol-soaked pyjamas, plus anything we found not tied down – all made their to the centre of the flames, producing thick black smoke. Turns out the old man loves burning stuff as much as I do!

When we finally ran out of burnables, I vacuumed all the rooms, washed the outside of every window – including the back of his van!

5.30pm

All over. Finally we transported the last three car loads with the remaining crap to the new house.

As I sit here tapping this diary entry into my Apple Touch, SWMBO and her mother are filling every conceivable drawer & cupboard with the food, plastic-ware and utensils.

I’ve smartly decided that the kitchen is their domain. Yep, I love this new house. More to write after I feel refreshed & revived.

8.45pm

Just finished discussing with my father-in-law the features of my tiny hand-held computer. Despite having seen me tap furiously upon it several times a day, he still hadn’t known nor realised. Now he is both impressed and staggered by the advancements of technology.

This discussion was followed by the virtues of reading ‘The Australian’ for a fuller and non-biased view of the world, rather than only ‘The Advertiser’ which only shows him a 1-sided view of the politics, people and prejudices around Australia. Yes, of course, he didn’t agree nor wanted to know the truth. Sad. He’s gone off to help finish unpacking with the ladies. Sigh. I guess I should also help.

Tomorrow I plan to visit the nearby beach and harbour for land and waterscape photography to display in my galleries.

Day 3 of 5 (31/08/2008)

I didn’t think I’d find time for this – because despite starting as a lazy Sunday, it’s been a very busy day! It’s now 1am (of Day 3 of 5) as we’ve just returned from 6 hours of cleaning, vacuuming and burning. I’ll explain more about that shortly.

This morning I awoke around 9am, dressed to do nothing in particular – yet before I could blink, I had my camera-pack slung over my back and my macro-lens shooting at daisy’s in the backyard.

Then I took a walk down the street to an dilapidated fish-factory where I found many different metallic objects and textures. From there I headed for the Kingscote Jetty but ended up on the rocky beach.

Up the shoreline I saw the remaining poles of an age-old pier. Thinking of photographs by Stephen Chapple and Shannon Mowling, I spent over an hour shooting a myriad of angles, looking for that one special shot. Now that I type this entry, I think of other ways to get THAT shot. Might have to go back before I leave.

On the walk back along the beach I met a man of Chinese descent. We talked for an hour about digital photographs, life, children, retirement, and his life between Mawson Lakes and Kingscote. Despite having my camera slung over, I forgot to get a portrait shot. Dangnabbit. On the way back to the house, mother nature pissed down on me. I need to buy the waterproof 40D!

At 6pm we all drove back to the old farm to perform one last massive clean-up, working as far late into the night as necessary. With the women cleaning floors, skirting and windows, us men did what do best: burn everything not needed. This included all the now-empty boxes, plastic hangars, old shoes, another cupboard, misc kitchen utensils no longer required and bottles from the medicine cabinet. I smartly put a wire sink rack upside-down onto the fire thereby giving us a podium where items could be watched as they burnt into oblivion. Yeah, OK, we were having fun.

This ended around 1am. The fire had finally died from the light rain that had been bothering us all night. A 45min drive to the new house meant sleep came quickly yet again.

Day 4 of 5 (01/09/2008)

10.15am

Another early start, back out to farm to get the remainder of household stuff. It’s a muddy hell down the old road to their farm thanks to two nights of solid rain.

11.30am

Finally 50 years of history at Cygnet River has been moved 50 klms to a new home at Kingscote.

We met the new owners of the old farm today, a lovely older couple with children & grand children who’ll soon appreciate the Australian countryside that I’ve had the good pleasure of trekking around, motor biking upon & photographing everything that grows!

A new chapter begins now. Thankfully the new owner has agreed that we can return to take photographs from time to time.

2.30pm

After disposing of recyclables & other paraphernalia, we’re settled into the new house. My FIL is snoring his head off whilst I tap this entry into my Apple whilst the women negotiate with Telstra for a change of phone number!

10pm

I bought a new 200mm zoom lens last week. The previous lens had about ten years of use before the barrel finally loosened up completely. As they are so costly to repair, I figured it was time for a new lens. Tonight I discovered the benefit of replacing existing lenses. Besides some brand add IS or US to the newer models, the tighter focal rings and stronger glass is important for quality imagery.

Aiming the zoom lens at my father-in-law as he sat under a side-lamp, I was enthused when I discovered the amazing DOF & detail – though very dark. So I modified 1 of the 3 editable modes to heavy saturation, extra sharp & monochrome. I had an inkling he’d look better in B&W: His teenage generation would have known only B&W photographs, so I figured it would be befitting to preserve his craggy features similarly. Half a dozen shots got me enthused. I quickly upped the ISO to 800, then up to 1600. Although the side-lamp was very bright, I had to have the iris speed very fast to compensate for his body movement – so the inbuilt flash was also used. This worked out well, 2 light sources spread all around his faces, yet all the crevasses on his face were highlighted. Formidablé!

The most amusing aspect of family portraiture is gaining the trust of the subject. Initially he covered his face whenever I swung the lens in his direction, but occasionally I would catch him unaware. In one of those moments I caught a great shot which I promptly showed him and said “This is great, I’m going to enter this into a competition!” Suddenly he put his hand down and stopped blinking … SNAP! Another great photograph. Hmmm, this was only meant to be a ruse. Maybe there is a competition online for B&W portrait photography. I’ll have to enter!

So then I had a go at capturing my MIL in B&W. She was found in her new study sorting out bobbins of thread that were messed up in transit, my wife keeping helping out. From across the badly lit room, I hunched down using my elbows to support the lens. Every time she looked up at me or her daughter – SNAP – I’d capture the moment. Two dozen shots later, I was told to go away. No matter, I had what I came for! Upon arrival back in the lounge room I changed back to my 50mm fixed lens. It occurred to me that similar imagery could be obtained. I was right.

Day 5 of 5 (02/09/2008)

Today was just like I wanted: A day of photography around Kingscote. I left the new house around 9am, heading for the remaining piers of an old jetty.

From there I walked along the beach toward Kingscote shooting beach rocks, yachts and boats upon the ocean plus various plants of interest.

Eventually I reached the Jetty where I found things and scenes I’d shot before. But now I had a new 200mm lens to try capturing them again.

There were more boats than I’d seen before, but the same boats still sat in dry dock!

Pelicans, cormorants and other sea-borne birds sat upon the jetty, the boat ramp, upon the slip-ramp and metal sculptures. I enjoyed catching wings on display, mothers feeding and pelicans preening. Though I missed the nightly feeding of the pelicans, I enjoyed being able to find and photograph so many.

From there I traveled down the old jetty to find fisherman who were not camera shy! With my camera in full view, I found the faces of men experienced at threading a hook and sinker.

As cloud cover hid my natural light, I progressed on my journey to the Kingscote tidal pools. As I arrived the sun reappeared, allowing me capture the interesting and abstract details of foam balls along a rope across the salt-water pool.

With the quiet calm surrounding me, I took the opportunity to sit and relax. When all sounds were gone, I closed my eye and listened to the world spinning.
Life was good for fifteen minutes.
When a buzzy-bee broke the silence, I felt so much better. A macro-sleep is always good for the soul.

Resuming my travels, I changed direction. As I’d reached my objective, I decided to head into the main street of Kingscote. Staying in a home with neither television nor radio, I decided it was time to find out what the real world was doing.

Someone had told me the Kingscote library had internet access, so that was my next port-of-call. Discovering usage was free, I spent an hour reviewing both my Redbubble and Flickr activity. Seems the world kept spinning without my help.

A few minutes were spent assisting the elderly lady at the next PC which she highly appreciated. Why do people email 4meg images to each other? Send a compressed image: If they like it, send the full version on CD or send a laminated print or glossy card!

When I left the library, rain was falling. Thankfully my new LowePro camera bag has a built in rain-coat!

Traveling back through town to the new house I got a little lost, but I finally got there.

The remainder of the day was spent culling and editing the 501 photographs. About 40 of them are being uploaded to my Redbubble gallery for easy viewing and purchase.