Sailing Around Australia; The adventures of Hire a Bubble

Marina Adelaide, Largs North Adelaide, South Australia

11/7/2014 The amazing adventures of Hire a bubble.

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! Cabin fever had set in courtesy of foul weather.  Wind at 50 knots plus, rain and freezing cold temperature had us locked in Easy Tiger’s cabin for a couple of days.

When the weather got a little better (and I emphasize the little) we dashed to Cut Price Hire cars and managed to hire a metal bubble with four wheels. Leanne negotiated as only Leanne can and we paid the princely sum of $20 per day with 200klms per day available to us.

Have wheels will travel. First up we headed up into the spectacular Adelaide Hills to the town of Hahndorf. Here was the place where I was happy to go and browse the souvenir shops, not something I like doing normally. But, if they had a heater going strong, I was happy to stand and stare at their offerings.

Hahndorf, a lovely German influenced village in Australia full of the same Chinese made souvenirs one would find at any tourist destination.

Hahndorf is however, home to Otto’s bakery where the world’s biggest donuts are made. It would be a huge challenge for any man woman or child to eat one of these monoliths in one sitting. Leanne and I ordered one cut in half, with the chocolate icing and cream in the middle. We both struggled to finish our portions and did not eat anything for the rest of the day!!! We also had a sausage roll each, but these were not even near the top 50 on B2’ s Sausage roll league ladder.

Giant Donuts at Ottos in Hahndorf.

The Sausage Rolls weren't in the top 50 on B2's League Ladder

Hire a Bubble then took us to the next town over the hills, the town of Birdwood. Here (much to Leanne’s delight) was the Australian Motor Museum.  I did feel a little awkward in there, as the they had on show replica’s of my first motor bike and my first car. In a museum?  Surely they wouldn’t be worth exhibiting, they’re only… 30 … something years old?

On display the museum has a customized panel van called midnight express, that has expertly airbrushed murals and is fitted out inside with blue velvet. Ahhh, the memories.  My first car was a customized panel van, that I lovingly re customized. You know one of those never ending projects. I was gunna enter it into a show one day, if I could just finish it.

Midnight Blue, Top customised van in Australia (in 1979)

The good old Holden Sandman....memories

Also they had the Morris major. A friend of mine had a collection of these, except he used to keep tipping them over on his way home from the nightclub.

After the motor museum there was a chocolate factory. Still suffering the after effects of the giant donut though, we managed to go in and out of the chocolate factory quickly and only spent $4.00.

Then the hire a bubble took on the form of a rally car. The road we took back down to Adelaide during the drizzling rain at dusk in the evening was steep, winding and quite busy. We managed to do our bit for road safety in South Australia, with our hire a bubble acting as a pace car up the hills and then flying wildly down the other side. Believe me, rolling down a steep hill on a wet winding road at dusk with half the towns population behind you in their four wheel drives feels like you are flying wildly. Needn’t have worried too much though, we never once managed to hit the speed limit! Much to the delight of the locals who were behind us, I am sure. Just to add to the effect I had my hat on!

Next day, with the weather gods still trying to either blow or freeze us out of existence we decided to strap ourselves back into the hire a bubble and ventured down to Victor Harbour. One reason for this intrepid journey was that we had been told it was really pretty, second reason was that we could check out potential anchoring or mooring spots and thirdly it was Leanne’s Birthday.

Just as well Adelaide is set out in a grid pattern of roads. While I was driving Leanne was navigating. Well, supposed to be navigating. She spent most of the journey to Victor Harbour texting and facebooking well wishes for her birthday and then negotiating with car hire companies for our up coming trip to Cairns.

Somehow we managed to head south and found the delightful town of Victor Harbour. There is a long causeway from the town foreshore that has horse drawn tram cars to take you over to Granite Island.

They also have a few moorings tucked in behind the jetty and the island, which seemed quite well protected.

On Granite Island they have penguin colonies. We got talking to the man that was manning the penguin feeding ticket counter, who was explaining that feeding is on again at 2.30pm. We looked at each other realizing that it was now 1.45pm. We weren’t so worried about feeding the penguins, but feeding ourselves.

The all you can eat roast carvery was about to close! We would have to sprint to make it, but the guy wanted to ask us where we were from. He wanted to tell us about the moorings and give us the contact to ring. The guy wanted to tell us about the aboriginal dreamtime rocks representing women and children of the prince along the shoreline of the Island. He wanted to tell us about the famous artist who had been here to carve rocks. He wanted to tell us about the view from the boardwalk etc.. etc…. The only carving I wanted to see was the chef working on roast lamb.

After a huge roast lamb and beef lunch at the pub (no need to eat for two more days) we drove around to the caravan park and saw 2 yachts anchored off the beach. Looked quite protected and relatively calm considered it was blowing about 40 knots with drizzling misty rain. We added Victor harbour to our list of potential stop overs after leaving Kangaroo Island.

The navigator was back on her game after her phone went flat and the hire a bubble followed the coast road to Cape Jervis. Spectacular countryside through rolling green hills dotted with cows or sheep and steep cliffs along the shore. From the Cape Jervis lighthouse we could see our next sailing destination, Kangaroo Island.

 

The Kangaroo Island Ferry, busy loading trucks and cars.

Cape Jervis Light house, we'll be looking of that when we sail around the corner.

We then rolled around to the St Vincents marina (Wirrina cove).  We were going to stay there instead of Adelaide, but on visiting we became very glad with the choice we made. It is just marina, that doesn’t seem quite finished. Judging by all the for sale and mortgagee sales it ha been a good idea that hadn’t really worked. There are no services, no transport just an isolated marina with about fifty boats jostling in the wind.

St Vincents Marina, good idea, just didn't quite work, judging by the for sale signs everywhere.

We arrived back at Easy Tiger by about 7.00pm. As I unfolded my body out of the hire a bubble I thanked it for not breaking down, for making it up the hills and for having just enough breaks to stop at each set of lights. Then I thanked it for the adventure and thanked god I don’t have to drive it any more.

Happy Birthday Leanne.