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A TRIP TO KANGAROO ISLAND
By
Blossom
We were
seven … prosaic individuals assembled at the
end of
the Glenelg jetty one fine Saturday morning during the month of March.
We went
on board the steamer Dolphin and had a most comfortable trip down the gulf,
for the vessel
is kept very clean, and can boast of an obliging captain, a civil
steward, and
a well furnished table … about six hours' steaming brought us to anchor under the
Bluff, known
now as Penneshaw, and opposite the settlement of Hog Bay…
Without
prejudice I can say that this little cove is the prettiest seaside
place I have
visited in South Australia…
At present, however, the settlement is primitive in the extreme, and I
really
believe the people are even more primitive than the place. There is a
blacksmith's
shop, a sort of half-fledged store, a school with a daily attendance of
about
eighteen, a few fishermen's cottages, and the usual scattered
farmhouses in the
vicinity… Excitement
of course there is none, the chief interest of
the week being the arrival of the steamers…
Two
hours' steaming takes one from Hog Bay
to
Queenscliffe or Kingscote... Queenscliffe
is a private venture. A piece of land that has been cut up into
allotments as a
speculation, and a few cottages, most of them of a very rough and
temporary
nature, mark the site of the future city… Neither Kingscote nor
Queenscliffe as
yet possess a jetty…
As
it was late at night when we reached Qneenscliffe we remained on board
till the
morning, when we landed and found a disappointment in the non-arrival
of a team
of horses that it was arranged should meet us. However, part of the
team
arrived in the afternoon, and we made a late start for Brownlow, where
we were to get the rest of our horses…
The
present adult population I believe reaches 18…
We camped in Brownlow the first night… A very few hours were sufficient
to convince us that if the island lacked
population it
was not deficient in insect life. We had not been long coiled up before
we had
visits from beetles and various specimens of the moth tribe, and sundry
bites…
The island has a
great reputation for snakes, but we only saw two during the trip, one of
which, about 5
feet long, our botanist secured and deposited in a can of spirits which
had
been brought with us especially for the purpose of conserving
reptiles...
Early
the next morning we got our team of
four horses
together and commenced our travels in real earnest. After travelling
through a
short distance of thick scrub of similar character to that around
Brownlow,
except that the kangaroo acacia was more prevalent, we reached some long
low flats of
harder soil, which looked as if it would grow produce, but bore evident
signs
of winter floods, and indeed our driver, an old resident of the island, informed
us that one
could have travelled all over them last winter in a boat.
The
end of these flats brought us to the Cygnet
River, in
the
neighborhood of which there is some grass growing. There was also grass
near Brownlow,
but at Queenscliffe, and indeed over all that portion of the Island that I visited, it is conspicuous by its absence.
No wonder
that sheepfarming has hitherto been so unsuccessful on all parts of the
island…
Leaving
Cygnet
River
we
struck out along the telegraph
line to see some
portions of the hundred of Haines, which we had heard were good, but of which none of the party knew
anything. It
seemed almost incredible that some of the sandy, desert-looking land we
passed
was capable of producing large crops, but we were assured that such was
the
case, and that 25 and 30 bushels had been obtained from it. We
gradually worked
our way round to Western Cove at the head of the
bight,
where we found the ruins of a hut and a well of fresh water. Here
we
camped…
This
part again, like that at Brownlow, seemed to be splendid
wattle country, but the suitable land appeared to be confined to the coastline,
for when we
struck out again across the hundred we passed through some of the most
miserable looking land that I ever set eyes on. It was no wonder that
it
remained unselected … the most God-forsaken bit of country... Our
botanist
declared that he would not take 1,000 acres of the land as a gift…
(26 April, 1884)
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