Saturday, February 25, 2012

A Kind of Holiday! - Mr P goes to Kangaroo Island

Have you heard of Kangaroo island? Before you jump up from your seats and say “I know…. it’s Australia”, let me tell you it is Not. Agreed Australia is a large island continent and agreed there are plenty of Kangaroos there. But just because of that it does not become Kangaroo island. And No, it is not a place of Kangaroo courts that some of us know well of.

Kangaroo Island is an island that belongs to Australia and separate from the mainland. The easiest way to get there is by ferry or flight from South Australia. Mr P had chosen to go there for holidays and he had chosen the ferry operated by SeaLink that also transported his car to the other side for him. The ferry operated between Cape Jervis on the mainland and Penneshaw in Kangaroo island. There were two things that made Mr P nervous about this ferry trip. 1) He did not like the name Cape Jervis. It gave him the creeps. For some reason Mr P was convinced that Cape Jervis was in fact the location for the movie ‘Cape Fear.’ He felt there was an eerie atmosphere there and he kept looking over his shoulder for a psycho to pounce on him any time. 2) Mr P hated driving his car to and from the boat. This had to be done over a bridgeway and Mr P’s heart was in his mouth while he drove from the land into the boat and back. He kept looking at the sea fearfully while doing this and it can only be SeaLink’s good luck that he did not drive straight into the waters.  


Mr P liked the boat trip but for the occasional butterflies he felt in his stomach when thinking of driving his car out from the boat when they reached land. Once Mr P and his car were on solid ground at Penneshaw, he felt better.

He had decided to spend that day and night in Kangaroo island and had reserved accommodation at a motel in Kingscote. He drove to the motel, got checked into his room, took a nice shower. He had had to wake up early in the morning to drive down to Cape Jervis from Adelaide to catch the ferry and was very tired. He turned on the TV and fell asleep on the bed. He dreamt of kangaroos and koalas.

It was late in the afternoon that he woke up from sleep. He ate a hasty lunch and then embarked on the journey around the island. It was just mile after mile of grey tarred road with bushes and trees on either side and there was not a soul in sight. He kept his eyes peeled for any sort of animal life but did not see any drowsy koalas up on the gum trees or any kangaroos. As to "animal life-lessness", he saw plenty on the road in the form of carcasses of small dead animals that had met their fate under the wheels of some speeding vehicle. Finally he came across a junction where he found a shop and Mr P bought some toasted cheese sandwiches. He sat in his car and ate them and then he saw his first wallaby.

The cute creature had come looking for tidbits of food. Mr P did not share his sandwiches with the creature, not because it was considered bad ecological practice to feed the native creatures, but because he was terribly hungry himself.The wallaby even held its front legs together and prayed and begged for some crumbs, but Mr P could not be moved. After some time the disappointed creature gave him a very disgusted look and disappeared back into the bushes.

Dusk was settling in by then and the lady at the wayside shop had told him it was dangerous to drive in the dark as animals, especially big kangaroos, could jump across his path and cause accidents. So now Mr P decided to cut his drive short and return back to the motel. Back at the motel, Mr P collected his fishing reel and went to the Kingscote pier. He threw the line into the sea and waited anxiously for a catch. The wise fish in the seas of Kingscote gave a wide berth to Mr P’s hook, line and sinker. Of course, Mr P had forgotten to bait his hook! By evening it had become very windy and cold and after getting chilled to his bones for a couple of hours Mr P came back to his room, ate a TV dinner and fell asleep.


The next morning Mr P drove to Seal Bay and saw the seals. Oh! The Poor seals! All the downturns in the world economy couldn't make them more depressed.

They all looked bored and despondent and were lying straggled on the beach! Mr P felt he could agree with them wholly. He would be terribly depressed as well if doomed to a whole life time on that island. It was with this thought that he suddenly remembered that his return ferry would be leaving from Penneshaw within the next hour. He could not have driven faster to the ferry even if all the animals of Kangaroo island chased him.

On returning back to Adelaide Mr P talked to his friends about the lovely time he had ….. He waxed loquacious on the romanticism of Cape Jervis! (He tended to pull down his shirt sleeves as he mentioned Cape Jervis. His hair still stood up eerily). He boasted about the different animals he had seen (he kept it to himself that they were mostly dead on the road sides), such a good time he had fishing (not that he was chilled and nearly caught pneumonia without a single bite on his line) and how jolly the seals were. Truthfully of course, he mentioned the wallaby he had seen the first day at Kangaroo island,...... and the kangaroos and the koalas. Remember? Hadn't he seen them in his dream?

      


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