Taking Care of Number One

Looking back through my photos, I can see that we on Papillon are animal junkies.  Sealions, birds, dolphins, fish - all of these things get far more play than the landscapes we visit.  Only pictures of the girls on the beach outrank the animal world.  So it is no surprise that we went to visit to Kangaroo Island last weekend.  We have a mere handful of days left in Australia, and, although we have seen a lot of birds, we are running a major marsupial deficiency.

So, that means I saw all sorts of adorable animals, right?  Yes.  And.

And I saw every restroom on Kangaroo Island.  Because Indy is four.

It is a well-known fact that a child "needs to go" in direct proportion to the ickiness of the toilet facilities.  No kid will deign to do their business in a pristine, just-cleaned facility.  But if the only thing going is a murky bucket in an abandoned warehouse?  It is clear-out-the-pipes time.

At the ferry terminal.  The visitor centre.  Every national park.  While Erik enjoyed a coffee in a cafe on Sunday, I waited for Indy in their Silence of the Lambs basement.  I had a cozy spot leaning against the cinder blocks, enjoying a view of the piled-up recycling and the rusty chest freezer.

And then I had it again fifteen minutes later.

I did, however, get to hear Indy sing a song she wrote herself.  There weren't any other lyrics - just "wonky, wonky donkey" over and over again.

But mostly, we saw cool stuff.  Petting koalas was awesome.  Their fur feels like moss.  We saw penguins beside the beach at night using a red light.  Wedge-tailed eagles are enormous and beautiful and scary as heck when they fly.  And we got to feed kangaroos!

We went through four bags of kangaroo food that day.  By the time we left, the kangaroos could hardly hop.

We saw sealions and neat rocks and sealions on neat rocks:

 

We went to Cape Willoughby, not realizing the lighthouse was already closed.  But the awesome lighthouse keeper saw us, let us in anyway, and toured us around.

You're going to let me out of here again, right?  Right?

At one point, I almost got to eat a hot sandwich.  We were eating a late lunch, and I was starving.  My yiro finally arrived, and it smelled heavenly.  I unwrapped it, lifted it to my lips and...

"Alert!  Alert!  All hands on deck!"  Indy hopped from one foot to the other.
I looked to the takeout guy behind the counter.  He shook his head.  "Nearest toilet is in the park down the street."  He pointed off into the distance.

And it was everything I dreamed it would be.