Apr 27: And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program of Wildlife Sightings

Before I get to today, a little update from last night...I met my neighbor, Dave, when I commented on his nice tent (it was also an MSR like mine, different model though). Dave is from New Zealand, but currently living in Melbourne. He is doing a couple of weeks of car touring from Melbourne to Adelaide. He is also a cycle tourist, which meant we had lots to talk about. We ended up walking in to town for some pizza. It was a great way to spend the evening. This morning, I was fixing my breakfast while he was fixing his coffee. Before we parted, I took this photo.

Nice guy. He later passed me on the road.

I hit the road at an all-time earliest start of 7:30. My destination for the day was a rest stop called Tilley Swamp. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? According to WikiCamps, it was 82kms away (but...was that as the crow flies???). Because I suspected there would be no water, I wrote myself a note to get water in Kingston, the only town I would go through today. The weather, while chilly to start with (10 Celsius), was sunny without a cloud in the sky.

I was riding along in much the same scenery as yesterday. Ahead, I could see some black birds flying to the trees across the road. At first I thought they were currawongs, but they didn’t sound like them. In fact, they sounded just like the flocks of white cockatoos that I have seen so many of. I thought, “Wait! Could it be?”. Yes, I have finally seen BLACK Cockatoos! 

Zoom in and you can see a couple in the top of the tree. These are Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoos (there is a Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo, but they are more inland, and not as common).

Here’s some in flight.

Needless to say, I was very excited! I have been hoping to see the black cockatoos in the wild (I saw them at the wildlife park when I was in Sydney). There were several flocks of them. It was so cool!

Later on, I was pedaling along and happened to look to my left. Well, look at that! Three kangaroos!

Here’s two of them.

And there goes the three of them!

In all, I saw 6 kangaroos today! First Black Cockatoos, then Kangaroos! What a difference from yesterday! 

I rolled into Kingston at about 10:30. I followed the sign to the town center where I finally got a good view of the Southern Ocean (I’ve been on the Southern Ocean Touring Route, but haven’t seen much of the ocean).

Oh, there’s the water!

And here’s a lighthouse!

There was a nice bike path along the coast. I didn’t ride the whole thing because I wanted to get some water (remember my note to myself?), and a few other things. I found an IGA grocery store and bought two 1.5 liter bottles of water. I don’t generally buy water, but it was just easier to strap the two bottles on top of the rear panniers. After the grocery store, I stopped at a coffee shop and had a scone with jam and cream. It was delicious!

Heading out of town I saw this.

Big lobster.

Look! It’s For Sale! Come on! You know you’ve always wanted a giant lobster!

Once out of town, I was back to the flat, mostly straight highway. I turned on my music to keep me entertained. I was keeping a lookout for this “Tilley Swamp” rest area, while continuing to look for more kangaroos. I didn’t see any more, but I did see two emus! I stopped to get a photo, but by the time I got my camera out, they had run off. I’m sure I will see more.

82km came and went, and still no sign of a swamp. At 90km there was a sign saying, “Take a break. It could save your life.” with the symbols for the rest stop and 1km away. Could this be the swamp? Well, I don’t know because there is no sign that says it is, but it is where I’m staying tonight. As I pulled into the rest stop, I could see some dirt tracks leading into the bush. I rode in to where I found a decent place, and called it a day. Clearly, people have stayed here before. There are several tracks, and sadly, some trash. There was even this.

Too bad, no cable.

I set up my tent and all. About an hour later, I looked up from what I was doing just as a woman walked by! She looked at me, but just kept walking. I thought, maybe she had to pee or something, so I didn’t chase after her. Pretty soon, she came back. She had been looking to see if she could get to the beach (it’s too far). This is Coorong National Park. I told her I had seen a turn-off awhile back. She said she had seen it, but too late. She has driven from Canberra after retiring from her job. She continued on to Meningie (I will go there tomorrow).

As the sun set, I was hoping to see some roos, but apparently they don’t hang out here.

Looks roo-friendly to me!

I retired to my tent to write this post, and because it was getting chilly. Goodnight from the Australian bush!