Change In Plans

ZOLA SHREDDING ON KANGAROO ISLAND

Greetings from Kangaroo Island.  Unfortunately, today was our last full day here.  Tomorrow we will fly up to a sheep station called Angora China, somewhere in the Outback.  We did our best to see and do as much as we could on our last day.

In the end, we did see and do a lot today, and we even had a bit of a parenting breakthrough with our older child.

After breakfast, we drove about 60 kilometers down to the extreme southwest corner of Kangaroo Island, to the huge Flinders Chase National Park.  The park takes up about 20% of the island’s land mass, and was largely burned down three years ago in a bush fire. 

In the park, we went to look at a big rock landbridge called Admirals Arch.  It is a haven for New Zealand fur seals, which we saw everywhere as we walked down a long, twisting boardwalk to the sea.  The kids really liked watching the seals swim and play on the rocks.  We saw one seal climbing a 5-meter cliff, like a roly-poly rock climber, using his flippers (of course) to haul himself upward.  Very impressive.

From Admirals Arch we went to the nearby “Remarkable Rocks,” which is a heavily eroded granite formation on the top of a hillock overlooking the ocean.  The rocks are remarkable: they have been carved out and shaped in strange curved patterns over the course of the last 200 million years.  Zola and I had fun climbing the insides of  one of the rocks, and I was glad that neither of us ended up in the emergency room.

We made a quick stop at a conservation area called “Koala Walk,” which is a dirt track with big eucalyptus trees planted densely on both sides.  Aside from a big, old male that we saw sleeping in a tree in the car park, we only saw one other koala on Koala Walk.  I pointed out to India that they had been careful not to call it “Koalas Walk,” so we should not have been disappointed.

Nick had packed us a great picnic lunch, which we ate on the beach at Hanson’s Bay.  This is one of the famous south-coast beaches, and it was absolutely beautiful.  The white sand bottom makes the water look pale blue.  A reef keeps the waves out of the bay, so Lu and I swam and played in the warm water for a long time.  Like pretty much everything else on Kangaroo Island, the beach was deserted except for us.

On our way to Vivonne Bay, we stopped at Rustic Blue, an art gallery where we had been told they keep a baby kangaroo.  The gallery’s owner adopted the kangaroo, Misty, as a 2-month-old joey, after its mother had been killed by a car.  The adoptive Mom carried the joey around in a baby sling for 8 months, feeding her from a bottle.  For a while she had two adopted joeys, but she found that the sling was too crowded.  In a fit of parental sentimentality, and out of admiration for the gallery owner, we bought Tallulah a starfish necklace that she coveted.

Near Vivonne Bay I rented a surfboard, which we strapped to the roof of our rental car.  I was a little nervous, surfing on an otherwise deserted beach, with all of the shark and rip-tide warnings of our rental-car lady echoing in my ears.  It ended up being absolutely safe, and fun.  The waves were not huge (even though we were on the open ocean side of the island - next stop Antarctica!), but big enough to ride and have fun.  Zola went bodyboarding, and eventually surfed as well.  Lu played happily on the beach,  but India was tormented by vicious, biting sandflies, so she ran around swatting insects and taking pictures.

After we drove back to our house, all the way on the north coast of the island, we went off into the one of the nearby pastures for sunset drinks.  It was spectacular to watch the sun set over the golden hills, with the pink clouds reflected off the water.  As we walked through the pastures, we saw five or six big kangaroos, who watched us warily for a while, then hopped away.

SUNSET ON KI

The breakthrough with Zola came early in the day.  He had been very difficult and emotional from the time we woke up: refusing to eat, being disrespectful, sneaking onto the computer to play games, etc.  We have seen some of this before, but this morning was a new low. 

Once we got into the car, his behavior got more dramatic: refusing to wear a seat belt, and complaining a lot about pain in the ankle that he twisted yesterday.

When we had gone about 10 kilometers from the house, he announced that he was not going with us, and that he wanted to get out and walk home.  I stopped the car and unlocked his door, and he said, “Fine!” and got out onto the derted dirt road.  I drove off, watching him in the rearview mirror. 

After I had gone about 100 meters, his expression changed from defiance to shock, and he started running after us, yelling “Stop! Stop!”.  He caught up to us (so much for hurt ankle), and got into the car.  I was expecting a complete temper tantrum drama.  Instead, he smiled at us and said, “Thanks for waiting,” and fastened his seatbelt.

For the next 4-5 hours, he was as sweet, and polite, and attentive as I have ever seen him.  Only once, much later, did he ask, “Were you really going to leave me?”  I assured him that we love him, but that we would have.   It was a long, but completely safe, walk back to the house, and we would have been happy to accommodate his wish to be alone.  He looked surprised but didn’t say anything.

We are all learning a lot on this trip.  Every day, I realize that I have a lot more to learn about being a parent.  Today was another great day in this great place.