The relentless electronic buzz of the alarm breaks the early morning silence; it’s 4.00am, even the crows aren’t out of the nest yet. A chilled glass of juice, a bowl of cereal and I’m just starting to feel human. The car’s loaded with camera gear and other essentials, so out the yard I go and head south.

There’s little to no traffic on the main arterial and in next to no time I’m out on the southern side of Adelaide. It’s only 120km to where I’m heading, and despite the inviting scenery that’s starting to appear as the night rolls back and the promise of daylight begins to be felt, the road is unforgiving – twisting, hilly and slow. It’s fully two and a half hours before I pull up in the car park at Cape Jervis.

I’m off to Kangaroo Island and looking out to the south-west I can see it through the mist, barely 20km over the sea.

People are starting to line up at the check-in counter so I tag along. As I wander back to the car, out on the water a speck is looming larger; it’s the SeaLink ferry Spirit of Kangaroo Island.

It slows, spins around in its own length and backs onto the loading ramp, the huge stern gate of the ferry lowers and its cargo of cars and trucks start to roll off. There’s a pretty quick turn-around happening here and in no time I’m on-board, the car is parked in the line up on the vehicle deck and I’m actually heading overseas. A 40-minute trip on the high seas, well a third to a half-metre swell, and even with that some of the passengers are looking a bit green around the gills.

At Penneshaw, the ferry again backs in, the loading ramp drops and I’m on Kangaroo Island.

Join Steve on his adventure in our January issue of Truckin' Life.