Maria Island, the forgetting of brakes and success with squid!

Stopover at Triabunna for a couple of nights in order to take the ferry to beautiful and car-less Maria Island (ex-convict settlement and home to various unsuccessful business ventures for a passionate but somewhat Italian entrepeneur). Stayed at the Triabunna Caravan Park where Kate was tormented by ladies in the laundry who were all curious to know what her husband did for work in Melbourne. Sash made firm friends with a lone elderly French cyclist who couldn't speak a word of English and who didn't speak with any other travellers but was happy to engage in exchanges with Sash when they pointed at things and the French dude said the word in French and Sash looked at him in slight confusion and said the word in English, and so on. We piled our bikes and us onto the ferry to Maria Island. The Captain gave us an informal and odd commentary which included an excited announcement that the bay was chock full of enormous schools of squid which could be caught with virtually no effort. He showed us his depth monitor screen and told us that the regular dark shapes were actually gazillions of squid. He gave an excited Bill precise instructions about where and how to catch them. He also advised us to grab some super-fresh fish n chips for dinner from the van near the ferry terminal when we returned.

Maria Island was pretty cool with lots of cycling tracks on which we were determined to transform into action family. Unfortunately Sash, who has only just learned to ride his 2-wheeler, forgot the concept of brakes on the first steep hill. After gathering a lot of speed and with Bill cycling madly behind him trying to grab his arm, he veered into a fallen tree and came an almighty crash. Could have been much worse. Kate took him up to the rangers house where a kindly and possibly over-concerned ranger spent an incredible amount of time and effort patching him up (risk management, or boredom?). By the end of it he looked like he had just been released from intensive care after a major car crash. Of course Sash was thrilled with his patches and bandages and immediately jumped back on his bike to burn after Bill and Zara to show them. The rest of the day was more peaceful. We explored painted rocks, ate boiled eggs and bananas, checked out the museum, rode to the reservoir and saw a wombat! 

We wished we had bought sleeping bags and food for dinner, because you can stay overnight in the old convict cells on the Island. But we hadn't, so we took the ferry back to Triabunna looking forward to fresh fish n chips and then the catching of more squid than we could ever eat. But the fish n chips van was closed on Tuesdays and not a single squid was around to be caught. Not sure whether the captain was just trying to entertain his passengers or whether he just mad.