I woke up in the morning and boy, was I happy to check out of the hotel. After three days cooped up in that small room, I was ready for my escape. I found a cheap car for rent and I decided that I was still going on a road trip for a few days.
My original plan was to rent the car in Adelaide and drive east towards either Melbourne or Sydney. But the day before I decided to rent the car, Victoria introduced a new permit pass system to cross into the state.
Because I had been in Brisbane recently it was going to be impossible for me to cross into Victoria. I could have lied but I really didn’t feel like doing that. The last thing I wanted to do was get myself in trouble during my final few weeks in Australia.
My first alternative was to cross the border into New South Wales, driving all the way to Sydney. But I decided that it’d be best to stay in South Australia and see what I could here. I think at this point it would be risky to rent a car in one place and try to return it in another place because of everything that’s going on with COVID.
So I went down to the hospital for my second COVID test and then I bounced quickly to Hertz. My first stop was Deep Creek National Park which is about an hour and a half drive south of Adelaide. My desire was to go to Kangaroo Island but that ended up not working out. The ferry was too expensive and there were no return trips for the dates I was looking at anyway.
I got a Deep Creek a little after lunch time and I did one of the hikes down to a waterfall. But because it hadn’t rained recently the waterfall is not very full. Still a nice little spot though. I decided to meditate for a bit and then I walked back up to car park.
That was it for the day, to be honest. I found my camp spot, which was not great compared to what I’ve been used to. I got spoiled in Queensland because the national parks are free and camping is only $7 at all the parks.
In South Australia, you have to pay an entry fee to get into the park, which is about $11, and then you have to pay $16 for the campsite. Not much flat ground at this campsite. It’s hard to sleep in the tent if you don’t have any flat ground but I made it work.
The next day I woke up early and I did one of the hikes near the campsite. It was down to Deep Cove. The hike itself was pretty nice. I saw a ton of kangaroos on the way down to the beach. It was early in the moring and they like to feed at that time.
The first cove wass really awesome and I sat there for a bit meditated. I had to scale another hill to get to the next cove, which was the cove that the hike was intended to lead you to. But after getting to the top of that hill I saw that the climb down was extremely steep. I’ve done worse but I was on my own and I decided that it wasn’t worth it and I turned back.
I went over to the other side of the park soon after that and had some lunch. There’s a picnic spot on top of the hill that offers some great views of Kangaroo Island. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a hike that goes down to Blowhole Beach. My intention was to go down to check it out and have a swim. But I didn’t realize that to get there you need a 4WD car. There is a hike but it was supposed to be one of the longer ones in the park. There was another hike that I wanted to do that was also pretty long. And I decided that I wanted to walk that one more.
The other hike is called Aaron Creek Trail and it was really chill. Nothing too crazy. Again, I saw a ton of kangaroos. There are different types of kangaroos in different parts of Australia. These kangaroos were bigger than the ones I had seen in Queensland and New South Wales. I also saw this really cool white bird that had a red underbelly and red wings. It looked really rare but now I’m realizing that they are everywhere around here.
I left the park after I finished up with the hike. I beelined for Cape Jervis, which is where the ferry for Kangaroo Island leaves from. But honestly, there’s not much there except for a modern looking lighthouse.
Up the road from there is a place called Second Valley. This spot was actually really cool. There was a nice little beach and I was able to take a swim and kind of wash up a bit. The cliffs along the coast were really spectacular.
That night I camped at Rapid Bay, just south of Second Valley. Both were very similar. The campsite was right on the beach and the cliffs towarded above the area. I took a walk along the beach and down the jetty.
There is this animal called the leafy sea dragon that lives in the coastal waters here. It is extremely rare and can only be seen in this part of the world. It’s kind of like a seahorse but way cooler. Part of me wished I had some snorkeling gear just to try and see one. The water was freezing though.
I don’t know what happened because the first couple of days that I was in Adelaide it was 95° outside. But my first two days on the road have been much cooler. About 65° each day. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be hot or cold in this part of the country. I mean it is summer so I figured that it would be hot. But yeah, it’s been pretty cold.
Anyway, I got up pretty early and went to Onkaparinga National Park and did a short walk to a lookout point. It was a good way to start the day. Stopped off at one of the beach towns just south of Adelaide but didn’t swim. Just too cold out still.
I drove a good deal that evening towards Port Augusta to this place called Melrose. It’s close by to Mount Remarkable National Park. I found this small rest area off the side of the road and it made a decent free camp.