I didn't expect much from this tour really but it was quite interesting . This was also the first time I have been discriminated for being a man.
Yes, not only women get discriminated, men can also get discriminated!
If you happen to be a man and go on a tour with our new guide Simon you will be discriminated upon. I thought I could just swallow my pride and let it slide...but as I found out later I just couldn't O:-)
The guy really got into my skin!
Although I must admit, he was with a difference the best guide we've had so far. Organised, punctual, it also provided us with a lot of info before visiting any place. Very professional, but on a personal level, he was so cheesy that sometimes some of us (some of the girls also found him quite irritating at times) would have to bite our tongues although he could be very funny too. Yin and Yan all in one! :-)
Don't take me wrong, I did have a great experience and I'm glad I came to this tour and I'm also glad that Simon was our guide.
A big coach picked us all at the bus station and drove us to the ferry, there we boarded the ferry that took us to Kangaroo island. The trip on the ferry wasn't very long, perhaps an hour or so. Once we got there, Simon was waiting for us with the minibus that would be our transport for the next 2 days.
First stop was a sheep farm where Rob, the sheppard, showed us how to extract the wool from a sheep, how they classify it, how the dogs sheppard the sheeps and many other interesting things about the sheeps world.
The sheppard dog jumps onto the sheeps sometimes and walks over them to get to the front and lead them in a different way. Really amazing!
Freeing the sheep from all the wool in less than 3 minutes at the same time he explained the whole process to us. It was really impressive!
Then we went to have lunch and just before starting the guide Simon said out loud, so that everyone could hear it, that in his tours men eat after women. When all the women finish serving themselves then the men can go and help themselves. We were only 3 men and the other two didn't speak much english and as he was joking all the time at first I thought it was a joke, but it wasn't!
I normally prefer to be one of the last ones to serve myself so I avoid the queue so in theory that shouldn't have affected me very much but the fact that I couldn't for being a man was something I didn't appreciate much. Imagine someone had said the opposite. The women will eat after the men have finished...I'm sure the girls in the tour would have burnt down the minibus and the riot police would have had to intervine in order to rescue the guide from the mob, unfortunatelly for me I was alone on this one.
We had been in this tour for less than a couple of hours and I didn't want to create trobble so quickly so I let that one slide...for the moment and I went for a long walk instead. :-)
After lunch we went to see the sea lions. That cheered me up!
These were sea lions in the wild, there were there on a local beach which is part of a national park so you can only get to that beach in the company of a qualified guide but there is no guaratee you are gonna see any, sometimes they go somewhere else.
Then it was our choice. The weather wasn't great, it had rained in the morning but it had stopped so we decided to take the risk and go to the mini Sahara and do some Sand Boarding!!
That was the highlight of the day without any doubt! We had a blast!
The dunes were quite steep
A really long and steep dune
Free sandboarding for everyone!
Then Jackeline, Nataly and myself went for a race where I must admit was the last one, twice! Defenitely I won't be compiting on sandboarding in any olympic games any time soon!
Then we went for a walk in the bush...The island is plagued with Koalas, Kangaroos and Wallabies. 2 minutes into the walk and this is what we found.
Koala
At dinner time, Simon requested some help on the BBQ, not without explaining before that the last 14 women that used that BBQ got pregnant... so that's how I ended up with the apron again!
I'm getting really good at BBQs now...that was my third! and not because I cooked it but the chicken and the sausages were fantastic. The beef not too shaby either. Medium rare for everyone and then I left mine a little bit longer...the same discriminating rule that was applied at lunch was also applied at dinner. This time I was cooking so wheather I wanted it or not I would be the last to serve myself...it made me wonder if this was his strategy to keep me quiet...but the glass was getting full and it was about to flood and my patience was running thin...very thin...
We had a great dinner and most of the girls in the tour were really nice and friendly so most of us ended up chatting until midnight.
The kitchen (Ivana in pink and Natasha in grey)
The dinning room
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