Kangaroo Island

  (Homage to Virgina Woolf)

                                                        

Chapman River Wines Cellar Door features one single item on its one-item menu.  We shared two platters between the four of us ~ delicious cheeses, sausages, breads and salads.

I have sand in my shoes from Kangaroo Island.

You can't know how happy that makes me unless you've been to Kangaroo Island, walked on the pristine beaches and seen sights so impossible to describe that they actually have one spot here called Remarkable Rocks. 

We were invited by our business colleague Rob to stay with him and the beautiful and graceful Sue at his family "shack" (as all vacation homes are called here). We left Adelaide on the 4:00 p.m. ferry and rocked our way across the Backstairs Passage (I'm not making it up, it's not a euphemism, it's truly the name of the water between the mainland and the island. Does it help if I tell you the water to the north of the island is called Investigator Island??) to the tiny harbor town of Penneshaw. 

From there it was just a few minutes to their red cedar shack - a perfect retreat, built in the '80's by his parents, with a long expansive deck all along the front, overlooking the spectacular water. It is just one of a handful of homes dotting the beach.  Picture pure white crunchy sand, shallow emerald-colored baby waves oozing into a brilliant sapphire blanket of sea. There's nothing between that spot and Antarctica so we did not swim out farther than our ankles. 

On Saturday Rob did a yeoman's job of showing us the treasures on the island. We spent all day being chauffeured from one spot to the next -  a red-topped lighthouse (see photos above), the Remarkable Rocks perched on top of a kind of mesa over the ocean, sea lions (ok, California has 'em too) lolling on their own rocky beach, another beach with caves and rock formations that must be seen to be believed. 

But, besides the wonderful company (lots of stories and lots of laughter) and delicious food prepared by our host and mounds of chocolates from my new favorite chocolatier, Haigh's in Adelaide, really ~ the beach right in front of the house is what I would come back for. It was sort of mesmerizing and rhapsodic. We strolled it three times and even then, at the beginning of summer, only once did we see anyone else. Way down at the other end. Children squealing in the chilly water. Heavenly.