Having just recovered from our Queensland holiday, on Saturday Bitti and I headed off for a final summer holiday camp with R and her friends. Our destination this time was Second Valley on the Fleurieu Peninsula. I had not visited this spot before, but I have previously camped nearby in Deep Creek, and visited Cape Jervis, where you can catch a ferry to Kangaroo Island.
I did not look at the weather forecast in the lead up, which turned out to be a mistake. Still in my sunny Queensland mind-set, I was prepping for four days of fine, hot weather, packing shorts and t-shirts, copious sun cream and icing the esky fastidiously. Instead, we got 108 mm of rain over a 24-hour period. This meant nothing to the kids, all of whom threw themselves fully clothed into the sandpit almost immediately after arrival. R and I set up camp, hastily pegging out the tent in the rain and devising ways to keep the kids from changing into dry clothes every 60 minutes.
Second Valley caravan park is small and rough. We had a powered site near the entrance, an ill-advised choice. Although it was convenient to the toilet block and camp kitchen, it turned out we were also on the route of the morning bin run, which meant an extremely rattly trailer being repeatedly towed past our heads at 8 am as the cleaner did their job. I am not sure why the bins needed emptying at such an hour? Either way, this was only an annoyance to those who could successfully sleep through the 7 am ‘birdsong’ (more accurately, avian aural assault). So, if you’re after a bit of rest, not the best place for it unless you’re a very deep sleeper.
On the plus side, the kids enjoyed the sand pit and the treasure hunt game. Sunday was a complete washout though and I ended up taking Bitti on a drive to Victor Harbor to break up the monotony. It bucketed so hard on the winding road that I slowed to 40 km/h in places as I could not see the road ahead. When we arrived in Victor I parked the car but she didn’t want to get out. So I locked the doors, put my seat back and had a nap. She was listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while drawing on her Etch-A-Sketch. 90 minutes later she was ready to get out of the car, and I’d had my rest! Based on a desperate text from R we hit the Browse in N Save for plastic ponchos and then the grog shop for medicinal tonic.
We went to bed on Saturday hoping that the forecast for less rain on Sunday would be accurate. Thankfully, it was! Sunday morning was a little drizzly but by about 9 am we were ready to venture out. It was still overcast, but that meant the beach was almost entirely empty. Bitti and I were able to explore the rocky beach-front in peace. It is a truly impressive coastline. I’m no rock expert, but all around the small sandy cove you can see vast rocks jutting up with lines of sediment telling the geological history of the area.
After a pitstop back at camp the whole group decided to head down for swimming. The kids enjoyed mucking around in the water for a while. But then the rest of the group decided to go fishing. This made Bitti really upset as she hates to hear about any animal being hurt or killed. We are working on her ability to tolerate others doing what they do, while she can live according to her own values, but for now she still gets really affected by it. So it took me a while to get her to move on from the thought of fish and crabs being caught.
I eventually got Bitti into the water for some snorkelling while the group was gone to ‘murder animals’. She zoomed around and spotted quite a few (living) fish, including one hiding under the sand. While she was looking for jellyfish I noticed dolphins about 100m offshore. Bitti came to look and saw two of them playing in the water, coming to within 50m of us. Unfortunately some idiots in kayaks decided to paddle out to the dolphins, which caused them to swim further out to sea so most of us couldn’t see them well. I had thought there was a law here against approaching marine life, but maybe that’s just whales?
It was a great way to end our trip, with Bitti excited to do more snorkelling and thrilled at seeing dolphins after our dolphin river kayaking trip yielded zero sightings last year. On Monday morning I packed up the tent in record time, ready to get home and prepare for school to go back. I’d had more than enough sleeping rough over the summer holidays. I still plan to invest in a better mattress, but that could be a while off as other expenses take priority. We will definitely go back to Second Valley for the snorkelling though, it is a beautiful and geologically impressive spot.
Two Little Travellers 