Today marks the first anniversary of us having taken over the KI Dragonfly Guesthouse. Just over a year ago, we four (Susi, Bruno & the fur babies) arrived on the island to start the next chapter of our lives.
In the past twelve months, we have enjoyed the company of many beautiful people from all over the world. This brings us the greatest joy (cleaning the toilets being a close second :-|) We have loved hearing stories of where our guests come from, what they do in their every day lives, and all about their travels.
Thanks to social media, we are able to keep track of many of our guests, able to follow their onward journey from here. Some of them return home, but many continue their adventures to different parts of the globe. Either way, we are always happy to see them arrive home safely!
We have welcomed honeymooners, couples, families, friends and lone travellers, ranging in age from 6 months to 90 years. People who have been involved in car accidents, or broken down; people on work placement, doctors, lawyers, tradies, teachers, uni students (vet students get to check our dogs!), environmental engineers, and field workers, to name a few. They come from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, China, India, Fiji, Canada, USA, South Africa, Argentina, The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the UK, Japan, and all over Australia!
The most memorable guests for us are: our very first guest from the USA; the French family from New Caledonia who danced with us around the kitchen, excited to find that we share the same taste in music; the family of 8 Chinese people who were taught to play backyard cricket on Christmas Day; and the Swede who loves KI so much, she visited the island three times in a space of six months, and is coming back again soon. Of course, many more have made their way into our hearts and will always be special to us.
Another special memory includes when our mate, Martin, came over to take care of our business when we needed to attend a wedding in the Adelaide Hills. We only needed him for approximately one week, but he stayed three. Our family and friends joined us at Easter time. We love it when our family & friends come to visit us – they have arrived by ferry, plane and sailing boat.
The wine has flowed (perhaps a little too much on occasion), food and stories have been shared at the long table in our kitchen, and friendships have been made.
It has been quite a year, with lots of adventures packed in. While we have managed to see a lot of this stunningly beautiful island during the past 365 days, we haven’t quite finished exploring it yet (there’s a big hint for anyone planning to come here for a holiday … you definitely need more than 1 or 2 days! A week is ideal).
We arrived just in time for the peak season, managed to survive that, then turned around and temporarily closed our doors for a few weeks, in order to give 19 Murray Street a bit of a facelift. Living on site gives us valuable insight into the needs of our guests. We continue to tweak and adjust as we go along …
An added bonus of taking up residence here on Kangaroo Island is getting to meet and make friends with a number of the “locals”, some of them relative newbies like us, others who have been here for many years, and those who were born & bred, and will never leave, because they know they are living in paradise. I love it when I hear the occasional story about people who came here for a two week holiday 20 years ago!
So, one year down, and we are staring down the barrel at another summer. We are looking forward to seeing what it, and the remainder of the next year, brings.
Naturally, we hope it will be YOU.
