Plate i. The coast below the lodge.
The day book of Cape Hollow.
Suites, walks and the island’s table · South coast, Kangaroo Island
Cape Hollow
Every hour here has its own light. When this page’s script runs, this sentence tells you what the light is doing over the lodge right now.
A handful of suites low in the scrub, a guide to walk you down to the sea, and the island’s food at a long table. Come for the light.
Contents
Today at the lodge
- The last of the roadFirst light
- Out before the windSunrise
- The long tableSolar noon
- A room in the scrubThe afternoon
- An interludeGolden hour
- The wind dropsSunset
- The southern skyFull dark
- An almanac for your stayYour days
- How this page is litColophon
Times are worked out on this page for today at the lodge. What the sun has already done today stands upright; what it hasn’t done yet is in italic. The small sun on each chapter’s line is where it stands at that moment, looking south from the verandah.
First light
The last of the road
The sky goes pale over the sea on your left before the sun is up.
After the ferry the road runs south across the island, and then it stops being a road and becomes gravel. The scrub closes in at shoulder height, grey-green and silver, and the car fills with the smell of it. You don’t see the lodge until you’re nearly at the door: its walls are the colour of the ground, and its roofs sit below the scrub, so you see the heath first and the building second.
Someone meets you there. Nobody hands you a schedule. The engine ticks as it cools, a wren works along the fence line, and somewhere past the hollow the sea is going about its business.
Take your time. The light comes up grey, then pearl, then something warmer along the edge of the sea, and the path of crushed limestone to your room shows white underfoot the whole way. The air is cool, and damp enough to taste of salt.
- Underfoot
- Limestone gravel, then crushed limestone to your door
- Heard
- The engine ticking as it cools, then a wren
- Bring
- A layer for the morning
Sunrise
Out before the wind
The sun comes up out of the sea on your left.
Go out before the wind does. The track is cold sand under your boots, the scrub is wet to the knee, and somewhere ahead of you the sea is working at the limestone. You’ll hear it before you see it.
Your guide walks in front, at the pace of the slowest of you, and stops when there’s something to see: a honeyeater in the banksia, the prints a wallaby left in the night, a line of sea lions asleep on the rocks a long way along the shore. You’ll be lent binoculars. Nothing is approached or fed. It’s all watched from where you stand, and it goes on with its morning as if you weren’t there.
By the time the sun is well up, the mist has gone out of the hollows and the wind has found the coast again. You walk back the way you came, past saltbush dried silver and the white tufts of coast beard-heath, towards the smell of bread. The walk ends at breakfast.
- Underfoot
- Cold sand, then limestone
- Heard
- Honeyeaters in the banksia
- Bring
- Boots you’ve walked in
Four ways to the sea
| Walk | How long | The going | What you’ll hear | Leaves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The scrub to the sea | How longabout two hours | The goingsand track and limestone, a few steps | What you’ll hearhoneyeaters in the banksia | Leaveshalf an hour after sunrise |
| The long beach | How longmost of a morning | The goingfirm sand at low tide | What you’ll hearthe surf, and not much else | Leaveswhen the sun is 20° up |
| The limestone shelf | How longabout three hours | The goinguneven rock, the guide leads | What you’ll hearthe swell under the shelf | Leavestwo hours before sunset |
| After dark | How longabout an hour | The goingslow, with a red torch | What you’ll hearthe scrub at night | Leavesat full dark |
Solar noon
The long table
At midday the sun is behind you, over the scrub.
By noon the wind has usually swung round and the scrub goes quiet. You come in off the track with salt on your skin, and the table is already set in the shade of the verandah.
There’s bread still warm, a saucer of olive oil so green it’s nearly gold, and honey from the island’s bees, cut straight from the comb. There’s lamb that went into the oven when you left for the walk, a salad of grains and saltbush leaves with small red native berries, and sea salt in a stone dish. There’s water in a jug, and tea whenever you want it.
Nobody is in a hurry. The afternoon is long, and it starts at this table.
- Underfoot
- Verandah boards, warm by now
- Heard
- The wind in the she-oaks
- Bring
- An appetite from the walk
The afternoon
A room in the scrub
In the afternoon the sun comes round onto your right.
Each suite is set apart from the next in the scrub, with walls of rammed earth that hold the cool of the morning well into the afternoon. A long, low window runs at the height of the bed, filled with silver-green scrub and a thin strip of sea. It looks south, the way this page does. There’s a deep bath, and a reading chair that gets the last of the light.
The ceiling is plain timber, the linen is heavy and plain, and a grey-green wool blanket waits at the foot of the bed for when the evening comes in cool. When the wind drops you can hear the scrub moving, and not much else.
In each suite
- A long low window onto the scrub and a strip of sea
- A deep bath, and linen dried in the wind
- A chart of the southern sky, a red torch, and binoculars to borrow
- Underfoot
- A timber floor, cool
- Heard
- The scrub moving
- Bring
- A book, or nothing
Golden hour
The low sun finds every stem of grass, the slope goes to bronze, and for a while nobody says much.
For the last half hour or so before sunset, the light goes gold.
Sunset
The wind drops
The sun goes down into the sea on your right.
Towards evening the wind lets go. The sea goes from grey to pewter, the scrub gives up its smell as it cools, and out at the edge of the clearing the kangaroos come to graze, a long way off, taking no notice of you. Watch them from the verandah. Leave them be; they’ll decide about you in their own time.
The light goes out of the sky from the top down. For a while the sea holds more of it than the land does, and then it doesn’t.
- Underfoot
- Grass going damp
- Heard
- The wind going quiet
- Bring
- The other layer
Full dark
The southern sky
Full dark comes an hour or more after the sun goes down.
The lodge keeps its outside lights low, warm and pointed at the ground. On a clear night that’s enough for the Milky Way to come right down to the sea. There’s a chart of the southern sky in every suite, a red torch by the door, and a slow walk after dark if you’d like one. If the cloud allows.
- Underfoot
- The path, by red torch
- Heard
- The surf, further off than it sounds
- Bring
- Nothing; the torch is by the door
Your days
An almanac for your stay
Each day shows when the sun comes up and goes down at the lodge. Choose the days you’d like and write to us about them.
The coming year, a day to a thread
Choose your dates below.
night twilight golden hour day. Each thread is a day from today, midnight at the top and the foot, noon across the middle.
This month
Sunrise above the line, sunset below, both at the lodge.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|
Write to us about your days
Nothing is booked from this page. Choose your days and write to us, and we’ll write back about them.
Colophon
How this page is lit
The sun’s position is worked out in your browser from your clock and a point near the lodge, rounded and never shown. Nothing about you is asked for or sent.
The verbs on this page change tense with the sun. What it has done today stands upright; what it hasn’t done yet is in italic.
The colours move in small steps with the sun, and every step is checked so the words stay easy to read.
The type is Piazzolla, a serif whose letters change shape with their size and gain a little weight as the light goes.
This sky is always clear; the island’s often isn’t.
Ink on paper now: .
The sun is real. Cape Hollow is a made-up lodge: an example site designed and built by Ozwebnet.