Kangaroo Island

“Margaret should write a book, shouldn’t she?” Cassie said it more as a statement than a question. After all, we were kept glued to our chairs every evening by this amazing woman and her husband, Terry.

We readily helped clear the dinner table every evening and waited eagerly for another installment of Margaret and Terry’s outback stories. It was an education into the harsh realities and raw humour of the outback Australians. This turned out to be a diving holiday where we were immersed in more ways than one.

Our Australian jaunt started with a chance meeting with Jim Thiselton of Kangaroo Island Dive Safaris during DEMA Asia ’97[1] in Kuala Lumpur. “I’ll give you a full refund if you don’t see one (Sea Dragon) the entire trip,” The chance to see the legendary sea dragons of South Australia was tempting but Jim’s announcement decided it for us. A few quick calls to Singapore to round up the group and reservations for a party of eleven were made before the show ended.

Jim Thiselton of Kangaroo Island Dive Safaris is a farmer turned dive operator. A downturn of the agricultural industry forced Jim to look elsewhere for a livelihood. His chosen avenue was his love of the seas off Kangaroo Island.

Our first dive at Castle Rock was a familiarization dive, a chance for us to get used to the suits and adjust our buoyancy. Water temperature here was about 17 degrees Celsius (cold, really cold if you have been a tropical diver for a better part of your life). 7mm wetsuits and hood were the order of the day. Sorting out our gear and struggling to get into our suits on Jim’s farm was hilarious. All the more when, after struggling for the better part of half an hour to get them on, the urge to answer the call of nature was felt.

It was also on this dive that we saw our first sea dragon, a weedy. “Rats! No refund!” The sighting was totally unexpected; it was just there on the sand patch. The weedy’s purplish colouration and potbelly lent it a rather comical air. This was our first and last sighting of the weedy sea dragon for the entire trip. Needless to say, cameras did not stop clicking till films were exhausted.

Jim’s love of the sea and his knowledge of the local underwater terrain and conditions was something he shared generously with us.

“The leafies are very territorial, they spend their whole life living and feeding from an area no larger than a football field, and there are certain conditions the leafies thrive on…”

At the Arch, the whole seabed was in motion, as usual. The kelp covering the rocks swayed with the surge. I saw a swarm of mysid shrimp above the swirling mass. The conditions were right and I was instantly on the alert, fining slowly and scanning the swirling mass for any incongruities. It must be here somewhere, I thought. And then I saw it. What appeared to be a fragment of kelp above the rest. I stared at it a while and realised that the said lump possessed locomotion. Slowly and elegantly, it was feeding off the swarm. I smiled.

“Don’t just go there and stick your camera in their face. They’ll just turn on you. Hang around there and let them get used to you, then slowly move in with the camera.”

I moved in slowly. Its camouflage “leaves” was like trailing pennants, lending it a rather dignified and royal air. The dorsal and pectoral fins constantly moving give it mobility in all directions. Evolutionary quirks or order, I wondered? I resisted the urge to go for the shot. I hovered near the little guy and just observed it. It noticed me and started to turn away slightly. It was eyeing now me from a little way off. This way we stayed for a few minutes till it started feeding off the swarm again. I now knew it was ready and I moved my camera up. It didn’t move and allowed me my shots. I silently thanked Jim again for the lesson.

“Just around the corner, find a ledge not too deep and just stay there. They’ll come to you after a while,”

Jim’s expertise didn’t apply to the sea dragons only. He was equally apt with seals. At Pissy Boy Cove, seal hunting was the objective of the dive, with my camera that is. Around the corner I went and I started looking upwards at the surf that broke against the rocks. I spotted two fur seals playing in the surf. I ascended slowly to a ledge at about 4m and just rested on the kelp bed, looked up and waited. After a while, one of the seals spotted me below. It started to dive, taking a few swoops this way and that from a distance, eyeing me with one eye, then the other. I didn’t move. Feeling I posed no danger, it started getting nearer and nearer with each dive. When I felt it was close enough, I lifted my camera, panned, and started firing away. It was oblivious to my actions by now. Encouraged, I started swimming after it for some action shots. I didn’t realise it but, in my excitement, I started floating up. I quickly duck dived to get back down and the seal dived with me! It was playing with me. I spent my shots in about 15 minutes and prayed for nothing more exciting for the remainder of the dive. I was lucky.

“Never with a curled hand but an open one under the bugger, there’s electrical impulses at the finger tips and they can feel it,”

Jim was teaching us how to get close to fishes and catch lobsters. Jim, occasionally, caught some lobsters, all within the legal limits, as a treat for a few of our dinners. All done with his bare hands. “He’s so fast and he made it look so easy!” exclaimed Seok, who was his “bag lady” – the one carrying the goody bag – on the hunts.

His animal handling techniques went beyond lobsters apparently. Castle Rock was the first time we met an extremely large and friendly blue cod. It was rubbing itself against us and allowing itself to be petted by Jim. We met the same cod at a few other dive sites. Was it following us? It got so friendly with Angela at Pissy Boy Cove that she felt absolutely harassed by it. “Jim personally nursed that blue cod back to health," said one of the local fishermen of Jim. No wonder.

I was curious about the Kangaroo Island phenomenon. One day when I had the chance to sit up front with Jim in the “dive truck”, I pried for more. “Diving is no different from farming,” said Jim. According to him, you learn to read idiosyncrasies and patterns of the weather in pretty much the same way. His understanding of the terrain and its inhabitants was in greater demand than he expected. In fact, photojournalists from various magazines have sought his help in their quest for locating the sea dragon.

“The truck’s definitely worth a story,” said Angela. It definitely revived the adventure in diving for some of us. It was over hill and dale every morning in an old four-wheel drive truck just to get to the dive boat. I had to ask Jim the history behind the mode of transport. The truck was ex-army, thirty-five years old and was being used as a fire engine till Jim bought it. “Things were over built in those days. I couldn’t find anything better that can take this terrain.” The track to the boat was unpaved and pitted with large potholes, long deep ruts and extremely steep gradients at places. The need for a four-wheeler was quite apparent actually. And those prone to vertigo didn’t dare venture a look over the side of the truck as it negotiated the mountain road.

Our last dive for the trip was at Kingscote Jetty. Ill winds did not allow diving elsewhere. The depth was no more than 5m and it was the warmest dive (20 degrees Celsius) of the entire trip. We were enthralled by the colours of the sponges; pastels of red, orange, pink and yellow. What we also found so remarkable was that nearly every sponge moved – there were decorator crabs under most of them. There were also nudibranchs, blennies and scallops ‘flying’ – they really were, they rise up in the water with their shells opening and closing in quick succession and, just as quickly, sink to the seabed again. I think they were feeding. Or could it be because they were trying to flee our ‘bag lady’ harvesting them nearby? The jetty was enough to keep some of us down there for more than two hours and two rolls of film. It was a quick surface for a film change and back down again.

But there was more to Kangaroo Island than its sea. About one third of the island comprise of conservation areas that have been declared National Parks. Our first and last days were the only free days we had from diving and they were spent exploring the parks. On both days, we had the pleasure of Craig Wickham as our personal guide.

On our first day, Craig showed us the sea lions of seal bay. The sea lion’s habitat is protected by a conservation park and aquatic reserve where fishing, swimming and entry into the colony’s breeding and nursing area are prohibited. According to the park ranger, the sea lions are out three days at a time, hunting and looking for a mate. They beach themselves to catch up on much needed rest after the romp.

Little Sahara was quite an unexpected sight, shifting white sand dunes rising high above the greenery. It was a desert in the centre of the island that was actually still growing. The sand was so fine that we sank to our knees trying to climb up a dune.

The only thing I recalled about the bee farm was my first taste of the island’s honey-vanilla ice cream. One mouthful and my entire being focused on that little cup nestled in my hand. In and out of a haze, I remembered something being said about extracting honey from hives…

Craig was one of the most enthusiastic naturalists I’ve seen. While telling us about the eucalyptus trees on the island, he stopped the van suddenly and ran across the road just to pluck a few leaves from a eucalyptus tree. He came back and passed the leaves around and, without missing a beat, continued with the nature lesson. Under, Craig’s patient enthusiasm, the flora and fauna of the island gradually opened up to us. “The Yacca plant is an extremely slow growing plant, it grows at a rate of about 1 cm a year.” He stopped the van and, pointing out a Yacca for us, “that Yacca there took all of 50 years to grow…”

On our last day, it was into the Flinders Chase National Park. At Admiral’s Arch, a spectacular limestone cave frames a surging sea; nowhere can the raw energy that is the sea be felt more dramatically. The seal colony is visible from a cliff top viewing area. Black New Zealand fur seals can be seen pitting their skills against the ocean. I think they actually do derive some masochistic joy in walking up from a snooze, waddling over to the ledge, plunging themselves into the high swirling surf crashing against the jagged rocks just so they can ride the surf back up for a snooze again.

Kelly Hill National Park was named after the horse that discovered the caves in the early part of this century. Poor Kelly fell through the ground one day, his master came back with help for him but they couldn’t find him. More than thirty extensive cave systems have been discovered and explored but the remains of Kelly have yet to be found. We went on a tour of the cave systems just after lunch. I remembered Kelly Hill less for the cave but more for Craig’s idea of a picnic lunch. It was slightly different from what I had in mind. His was a sit down affair in the reserve, complete with tablecloth, wine and cutlery.

We ended the day at Shirley’s place, a refuge for sick and injured animals. What I found so remarkable was that there were different enclosures built for different animals and each had an environment created for that animal. Koalas, emus, kangaroos, wallabies, deers etc each enjoyed a habitat tailored to their needs, created by Shirley and her husband. Their labour of love is funded by themselves, friends and well-wishers. It was here that we had the opportunity to nuzzle baby wallabies and koalas.

Margaret and Terry were whom we returned to every evening after a day of diving. I did not know what was more surprising about Margaret, her ability to whip up something at our slightest whim to satisfy our cravings or the fact that she never repeated herself night after night. It was a case of big hearts and big appetites. She had the heart and we had the appetites. The appetites caused each of us to gain between 2 and 5 kilos at the end of the trip. Daily five course dinners were, I think, above and beyond what was needed for daily sustenance. “It’s amazing,” quipped Seok after her return, “I’m only eating a quarter of what I ate there and I’m still alive!”

Terry the hunter, there were more “Crocodile Dundee” jokes about him than he would care to relate. We talked him into showing us slides and pictures of his hunting days in the outback of Australia and New Zealand. What was all the more touching was that we were shown snippets of the family as they were growing.

“Those were good days mate,” said Terry, “but they’re over.” The demand for hunters has slackened. And Terry has lost the urge for it anyway. Spending an inordinate amount of time in the open made him a naturalist by instinct; he got the lot of us on a flat bed truck one night to look for kangaroos and wallabies. There on a cold, starry night, with the help of a spotlight, a lesson on the characteristics and habits of the animals were taught us.

Margaret and Terry were two free spirits who covered much of Australia in their wanderings, taking with them their children, a pet kangaroo and a dog. With the ‘good days’ over, the children grown and starting families on their own, they decided to settle down and work in the city. But theirs were spirits that needed open spaces. They followed their hearts again when they came to Kangaroo Island to run this retreat. We were their first group of foreign guests. We only hope that the experience was as pleasant for them as it was for us.

The story of Kangaroo Island was a story of people adapting to changes: putting their faith in themselves, the natural beauty of their land and their love for it to see them through. It was ecotourism being practiced by true believers. In an ever-changing world where change seems to be the only constant, they have been able to find something in themselves and their environment that we yearn for...

I still remember what Craig told us about Australia: “We are still a young country, with not a culture of our own. What we have has been borrowed from other cultures…” But what comes from the heart can never be borrowed, can it? Well, whatever you have is more than fine with us mate!

[1] Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) is a US based non-profit association of diving equipment manufacturers, training agencies and dive operators.

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