the journey to Kangaroo Island

the journey to Kangaroo Island .... well the one that we have planned!

A month or so ago I started organising our next vacation. We are planning on Kangaroo Island seeing as it is about the only place in Australia we have not been to!

Our plan is to leave home on the Saturday and head down towards Mt Gambier staying there overnight to break the journey and allow us more time to see the South Australian Coastline from Mt Gambier, via Robe to Cape Jervis.

Cape Jervis is where we board the SeaLink Ferry to Kangaroo Island.

We are staying in Cape Jervis on the Sunday night as the ferry departs on Monday morning at 9:00am.The Saturday night happens to be the Easter Weekend and it was a total pain to locate any accommodation as I mentioned in a previous blog post titled: neither simple, easy or low cost! Most places I contacted either directly or thru Zuji, Trip Advisor etc all required a minimum of three nights booking due to it being a 'holiday weekend'. Some of them didn't even bother to return my messages! After much frustration I called The Tower Motor Inn at Mt Gambier direct, what a pleasant experience that turned out to be. I had been on booking.com and knew the lowest price that the Superior Room was selling for, so when I asked him how much would he sell the room to me for, he gave me a higher price!  Told him the lowest price I had seen and he offered me the room at the same price and then proceeded to 'sell' me the Superior Deluxe Suite at a greatly reduced price and for the one night! ..... this man knows how to sell a room and he certainly knows about 'customer service'!

Impressive.

Thank you Gary Walters!

The Tower Motor Inn also had good reports on TripAdvisor, so hopefully our stay will live up to our expectations!  Will certainly let you know either way.  I gave him the cc details and the confirmation by email arrived by the time I put the phone down.

Must admit this is the sort of 'customer service' we should all expect and receive, but sadly it rarely happens in Australia.

Superior Deluxe Room at The Tower Motor Inn at Mt Gambier

Our next place for accommodation was to be around the Cape Jervis area as we had booked the SeaLink Ferry for the 9:00am crossing.  Again, we kept hitting brick walls due to the two or three night minimum booking.

Eventually we came across the Cape Jervis Station and Cottages.  Lovely receptionist on the phone, very helpful, especially with me asking many questions and then after the booking realised I had booked the wrong date!  Had to call her back and request the change .... she was very pleasant about it and told me it was a good learning experience for her too as it was her first day on duty. I certainly hope she is still there as she is more than just a good asset to their business.

We found this to be a little expensive at $175.00 with breakfast, but again, we had no choice due to the dates traveling. Will keep you up to date on the value after we have stayed!

though most of the comments on TripAdvisor are good:

We had booked for one night prior to going over on the morning ferry but ended up staying for two nights as the ferry was cancelled due to terrible weather (next time I will get travel insurance!). Accommodation was great B & B style in the homestead. Electric blanket was a blessing as it was freezing. Had dinner both nights and was lovely home cooked style with a lovely bottle of Shiraz from Kangaroo Island. The hosts were very welcoming and nothing was too much trouble.

Stayed here overnight for an early ferry to Kangaroo Island. The owners were very welcoming and showed us to our room with en-suite. The room was in the older homestead. We were the only people in that part of the complex. There are a variety of ways to stay on the property. They have caravan and motor home sites, log cabins and stone cottages. It is a working farm and the breakfast eggs were from the farm. Delicious. Nice and quiet, I did not hear any traffic noise myself.
Good to note the extra travel Insurance needed, am glad we have purchased ours already!

The downside - for Cape Jervis Station - was when I tried to get on to their website for some images and extra information, it kept coming up with the following message:

Now that is a very bad move for their business, either they need a better service provider or they need to extend their coverage!

I still managed to get a few images of the property and surrounds thru google maps and off TripAdvisor as seen below:

The Monday morning will see us up bright and early heading down to the Ferry Terminal at Cape Jervis to get the 9:00am Ferry ....

from Google Maps, view from the highway after leaving Cape Jervis Station

from Google Maps, view from the highway just before entering Cape Jervis.

and hopefully an hour or so later we are on our way to Cape Borda Lightstation !

My next blog post will be on our return journey from Kangaroo Island, Cape Jervis to Middleton and on to Naracoorte before returning home.

Make sure you subscribe to this blog for follow up posts on our journey to and from Kangaroo Island.

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neither simple, easy or low cost!

Planning a vacation is not simple, easy or low cost here in Australia....

planning a vacation?

Whilst living in SE Asia if you wanted to spend a few days away, be it Bangkok, Batam, Bali or Borneo, you called the hotel and booked a room.  Travel is simple in South-East Asia, with an extensive network of flights, buses and trains which usually didn't require much booking in advance and the same applies to hotels or resorts.

But in Australia it is neither simple, easy or low cost!

A couple of weeks ago we wanted to go away for the weekend. We tried five different towns all within 2 hours drive of where we live, every place I called required a 'two nights minimum' booking to start with, that is IF they have any accommodation available.  It was incredibly frustrating.  All we wanted was one night away, preferably somewhere quiet, comfortable & relaxing. I even started to wonder if the stress of spending 4 hours on the phone trying to find such a place was even worth it!

The lack of customer service here is appalling. True customer service where the manager of the hotel / motel has thought or care for the customer. As an example, I sent an email to a Caravan Park in Maryborough asking if they had a deluxe cabin for one night, they replied 27 hours later with just one sentence: "no we do not have any deluxe cabins left".  I replied back "do you have any cabins for the night requested".  23 hours later they replied "yes, we do have cabins available" .....

*face palm*

why didn't they reply in the first instance with something along the lines of "am sorry we do not have any deluxe cabins available, however we do have a basic cabin and we also have the superior cabin available"!

definitely a DUH moment!

We did find somewhere, but it was just a 3 star motel at a place called Newstead, not really what we were hoping for, but it was adequate.  (blog post here)

Now I am in the process of booking a 10 day vacation coming up in April. I should have logged the number of hours it has taken me to locate accommodation, book and pay same.  So far I am guessing I have spent at the very least six hours, probably even more.  We are not flying anywhere, no exotic accommodation, resort or whatever, no, this is just a driving holiday with a destination in mind.  But the hassle of locating a place to stay on the way to and fro has been more than stressful. 

But we are talking about Easter / Anzac Day break and here in Australia it seems that everyone and his dog - and cat - are out there traveling somewhere!  Yesterday I was looking for one nights accommodation around Penola / Naracoorte in South Australia .... I came across one where they required a minimum of FOUR nights! 

One I looked at called itself a RESORT ....hah, they don't even know what the word means .... it was no more a resort than the local boarding kennel, I asked why the 'resort' and was told they had a pool and a spa.

Whoopie doo!

Another was a B & B at Mt Gambier, I left a message on their FB page, I phoned five times and each time it went to an answering machine and no I didn't leave a message as I was in and out all day and didn't want to be taking calls while out ... five days later and I still have not rec'd an answer to the query I left on their FB page!

NOTE:  it is now 3 mths later and still have not heard from them!

But it is done. I have managed to book accommodation for seven nights at various locations, but it was not simple, easy or low cost!

I will document the process, so stay tuned for the next blog postings!

To start with, I had two screens running, one with Google maps / accommodation listings for the area and the other with Trip Advisor (my travel bible) and I systematically worked my way through every area we were traveling.

The destination being Kangaroo Island.

stay tuned for where, when and how booked!




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