Kangaroo Island Oct 16 - 17, 2009

Back in June I was checking out cheap flights and found one to Adelaide for only $28 AU (and $44  back).  Obviously I purchased them and this weekend I headed back to South Australia to check out Kangaroo Island.

I was picked up by my tour at 6:30 am and we headed to Cape Jervis via the Fleurieu Peninsula to catch the 9 am Sea Link ferry over to Kangaroo Island.  The drive down was really beautiful as we passed through the Mclaren Vale wine region.  We arrived on the island at about 9:45 am.  Our first stop was the town of Penneshaw.  We picked up a bit of food and drink before heading to our official first stop on the island, Pennington Bay.

Pennington Bay

My crazy as every hair, in the wind, at Pennington Bay

Out next stop was at Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery which is the only commercial eucalyptus distillery in South Australia.  I learnt a bit about eucalyptus but the highlight of the visit was seeing a baby kangaroo (a Joey) and a baby wallaby.

The Joey (baby kangaroo)

Look, I'm a mom!

(My child is a baby wallaby)

One thing I noticed about the island is that while there is a main paved road, most of the roads are just dirt roads like the one in the photo below.

A typical road on Kangaroo Island

From the distillery we met up with the people on the three day tour and had lunch.  

At this point our tours officially joined together.  There were six of them and nine of us.  Well jelled quickly and set on our way with our young tour guide Jordan.  The first place he took us too was Vivonne Bay.  It  won the best beach in Australia award a few years ago.  Obviously the pictures don't do it justice.

Vivonne Bay

Me on the rocks at Vivonne Bay.

From Vivonne we headed to Seal Bay to see the endangered Australian Sea Lions.  It's a breeding colony for the seal lions.  We stayed about 10 m away.  We watched them for a while and it was cool to see how they interact with one another and how they move over the sand. 

Yah, they look pretty lazy here but they really did move quite quickly.

"Where's my baby?"

From Seal Bay we headed to "Little Sahara" for some fun in the sand.  Back when I was in New Zealand I did some sand boarding.  Here on Kangaroo Island I did a bit more.  It was fun but I was a bit of a chicken to stand on the sand board.  Eventually I did give it a go but thankfully my board moved very very slowly.

After the sand boarding we dropped those interested in quad biking to the activity centre and we headed back to Vivonne Bay.  Jordan wanted to catch a squid so that he could make us REAL FRESH calamari.  Within a few minutes he had what he wanted.

Mr. Squid

(later to be known as very tasty calamari)

We then headed back , prepared  and ate dinner.  After dinner we went back to Vivonne Bay to see the penguins come out of the water and into their burrows.  I think we got there a bit too late though because we only saw a few penguins and most were already in their burrows.  We then headed to our accommodation for the night - Kaiwarra Farm.  We had a campfire, roasted marshmellows, and enjoyed Jordan's calamari.  We also saw Kangaroos, and Wallabys sitting around in the dark.

The next day we were up early to head into Flinders Chase National Park.  Jordan pointed out a really old Yaka Tree.  It was pretty cool.  They look like big leafy plant but the grow up like trees.  So in a sense they look like a tree with a green wig on its top.  

We also stopped at Bunker Hill Lookout while driving in the park.  Jordan wanted to give us an idea of the different types of landscape on the island.

View from Bunker Hill

We then headed towards Remarkable Rocks which are these  rocks that have come out of no where.

Remarkable Rocks in the Distance

My group acting like surfers (I think)

(This picture was taken many times and each time we had to act differently)

We drove the "roller coaster" road (putting our hands in the air as we went down each hill) until we finally arrived at Remarkable Rocks.

Jordan tried to tell us that these rocks were the remarkable rocks.

Here are some pictures from Remarkable Rocks including some silly ones of me in or on the rocks. As you can see they are really quite incredible.

From the Remarkable Rocks we headed to Weirs Cove.  The water was just so amazing there.  In the olden days the supplies would arrive on the island at this point and they would haul it up the hill.

Weirs Cove

From Weirs Cove we headed to Admirals Arch.  On the way down to the Arch we saw a New Zealand Fur Seal colony down on the rocks.  At first they were hard to see but once my eyes adjusted they just popped out all over the place.

Can you see the seals?

Admirals Arch

From Admirals Arch Jordan took us to his favourite beach on the island called Snelling Beach.  The scenery around the beach was beautiful (the entire island is quite lovely).  From Snelling we headed to Stokes Bay.  After a quick hike around some rocks we discovered another wonderful beach.  

Stokes Bay was our last before we boarded  a private dolphin charter boat  to head back to the mainland.  Unfortunately we didn't see any dolphins and my camera was running on real real low battery power.

Snelling Beach down in the distance

Stokes Bay

Once back in Adelaide most of the group headed out for drinks.  Unfortunately I didn't go - for a couple of reasons.  The first was that I really had nothing to wear.  Since I came over with just a small carry on backpack all I had was "Kangaroo Island" clothing not going for a drink clothing.  The Kangaroo Island clothing was pretty dirty.  The second reason is that I could have mothered some of the people in the group.  Everyone was super nice though but I did feel a bit OLD around them.

On my final day in Adelaide I headed to the Rundle Street Market.  I managed to pick up something small from the market but overall it wasn't a great market.  There was talk that some of the people in the group were going to go to the market too and I was hoping to meet up with them but in the ended I didn't see anyone.  From checking out people's facebook pages I see that they did meet up.  It's too bad I didn't see them.

Anyhow I'm now back in Melbourne.  My sister Judy arrives on Saturday and we have some fun and adventure planned.  I really need to give my report cards some of my time too because I have visitor after visitor the next few weeks. I'm also heading back to Tasmania, and to Brisbane in that time.  I just can't get into them at all.  Can you blame me?

Until my next blog....