Today, as I mentioned last night, we are going to take a short jaunt to the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse which is on the small easternmost point of Kangaroo Island and then back to Pennshaw to catch the 1:30 pm ferry back to Adelaide. The Cape Willoughby Lighthouse was the first lighthouse to be built in South Australia in 1852 and it is still operational today. It stands 27 metres high with 102 steps to the lookout tower, and offers stunning panoramic view across Backstairs Passage and the Kangaroo Island coastline. You can actually stay at a cottage at the lighthouse, however they were already booked by the time I was booking our vacation 9 months out!
Now, back to Pennshaw, which really is a small town centered around the ferry terminal, we arrived right when the earlier ferry was departing so we were first in line for the ferry we had reservations on! That allowed us to go check in and spend some quality time in the terminal relaxing and having a bit of lunch (and the one gluten free item in the display case) before boarding the ferry, which again, Andrew and I will do separately. The water was an AMAZING colour at the ferry terminal! When we saw the ferry arriving, we finally saw how the ferry operates (the ferry was already at the dock when we arrived on Monday morning) which is that it drives only in one direction and loads from the stern! So each time it comes into dock, it arrives and then pivots around to back in and let down the ramp at the stern!
Now we are off the ferry, we are taking a different route back into Adelaide than when we drove to Victor Harbour. This road will take us mainly along the water and beaches until we hit the M2 and then into Adelaide and to the airport. One thing that I did not realize is that the Adelaide Airport is actually south of the city – it is between the city and the beach! So that was an interesting discovery we made as we drove the surface streets to get gas, return the car and then the shuttle to the airport.
This is our first time flying Virgin Australia – we flew Qantas from Sydney to Adelaide and the rest of our tickets are on Virgin Australia whom Air Canada partners with. Similar to Qantas, they board the first 15 rows by the Jetway and then the last 15-ish rows through the stairs up to the back of the plane. The plane sure gets boarded fast! They were spot on getting me onto the plane in advance so they could take my walker and put into the hold of the plane – it was funny we followed a man, who Andrew called a Sumo wrestler due to his size, along with his sister and brother onto the plane. Of all the seats on the plane, this man was sitting behind me! Lets just say he did not fit into his seat at all. His sister and him took up the 3 seats on that side of the plane. I believe their brother was sitting behind his brother. Anyways, every time the Sumo Wrestler type brother laughed, Andrew and my seats shook! This was our 2nd experience on a flight with passengers behind us that caused issues with our seats – no wonder I prefer business class! However the guy was really good about it – other than he could not stop laughing and even suggested I put my seat back! I declined and said I was fine sitting up for the 50 minute flight…
We arrived in Melbourne after dark and were one of two couples who were the last to show up at the car rental agency before it shut down for the night – they were waiting for us! So we got into our car pretty fast with some personal service and we off to drive to our hotel in Richmond, which is a suburb of Melbourne – sort of like Burnaby is for Vancouver. I had selected this hotel for 3 reasons – 1. It had on site laundry where we could do our own laundry 2. The points price was within reason for a stay and 3. There was rapid transit across the street to downtown Melbourne!
Long travel day! Nice bed again – time for some sleep! Lets see what we get up to tomorrow!