Yep, we were up pretty early this morning for our trip to Kangaroo Island. We left the hotel to find a very wet and rainy Melbourne. Luckily, we didn’t have to walk to the airport. :) We took a cab and hopped on our flight in no time at all. They gave us breakfast on the flight to Adelaide. Then, in Adelaide, we faced the luggage problem that we knew we’d run into. We could only check one bag a piece and that bag had to weigh a max of 15 kg (or 33 lbs) and we could only carryon a total of 7 kg (about 15 lbs) between the two of us. We have 2 very heavy pieces of luggage since we had to pack for a month: one medium and one large. Somehow, we managed to get the medium size luggage down to 15 kg and stuff everything else in the large luggage. If we had wanted to check both bags, it would have been $3 for each kg over 15kg. Ya, so we made it happen. The large luggage was put in storage at the airport and we successfully checked one back under 15 kg between us both. Ha! :) And the reason behind having to shift all our clothes around: we’re flying on a prop plane!
The plane only holds 34 people so they really have to keep the weight down. We took a shuttle out to our little plane (we flew on REX) and boarded for our very short flight over to Kangaroo Island. They served us water and a mint on the plane. :D
After touching down in Kingscote and collecting our luggage, we met up with our guide for the day: Brenda of Exceptional Kangaroo Island. She would be giving us our first of 2 tours around the island in a 4x4.
click here for gallery
We met our other 4 fellow tour mates and were off on the tour. Brenda has lived on KI for all of her life so she had quite a few fun stories to tell us about the island. Our first stop was for morning tea in Parndana at a woodmaker’s shop. He wasn’t at home, but we had a friendly greeting from his Jack Russell named Casey.
Brenda laid out some lammingtons, carrot bread and some tea/coffee/hot chocolate for us to have. After a nice break, we headed out to Flinders Chase National Park. Along the way, we started to notice a lot of road kill. Now, I’m not a stranger to road kill as I see dead deer and raccoons on the side of the road all the time, but the road kill on KI isn’t deer and raccoons. It’s kangaroos. Ya, sad, I know. But, in a way, they are like deer. There are so many of them and they don’t stay away from the road and they come to a very sad end. But, hey, they feed the ravens and magpies on the roadside. That being said, we did see many live creatures along our tour. Our first sighting was a koala crossing the road in front of us. We managed to spot him again in a tree and was able to take some pictures.
And, throughout the day, we saw wallabies, kangaroos and echidnas.
We had a quick stop for a toilet break at the visitor center at Flinders Chase National Park and then on to Cape du Couedic to see Remarkable Rocks.
These rocks were really quite neat. The weather and sea had eroded them into interesting shapes, some of them with large holes in the side of them.
One was in the shape of a comfy chair.
The sun came out at this point in the day making it much warm which I loved. :) Next we headed to Admiral’s Arch. At the entrance to it, there is an old lighthouse with 3 cottages.
Here, we took a long walkway and stairs down to a naturally formed arch under the cliff. Here, there were a ton of fur seals sleeping on the rocks. Everywhere you looked, you could see one.
After getting some exercise walking back up the hill, we drove to our lunch spot at the visitor center of Flinders Chase National Park. They have little barbecue areas with picnic tables in among the trees. A lovely lunch spot! Brenda prepared for us a cold Greek salad, a cold chicken salad, a cheese platter with different goat cheeses from the island and local Australian wines. It was delicious!
Our last part of the tour for the day took us to Grassdale in Kelly Hill Conservation Park. After driving down a rather rough dirt road for a bit, we came upon a huge grass pasture full of kangaroos grazing. We got out of the car and walked slowly in a tight group out into the middle of the field and quietly watched the kangaroos. It was so peaceful and serine. The sun was a bit low in the sky, partially hidden behind the clouds and the pasture was still and quiet. You could almost hear your ears ringing. What a lovely way to end a great day on Kangaroo Island.
Brenda took us to our B&B, Correa Corner, and introduced us to the owners Ian and Sandy. Ian is Australian and Sandy is Scottish. They have a lovely home. I was pleasantly surprised to see how warm and inviting it felt when we walked in. Ian took our luggage in for us and showed us around our room. We had the Willow Room which has a green theme to it. How’d they know that my favorite color is green?! :) Ian told us that dinner would be ready shortly and head to the dining room after we had settled in. For dinner, we enjoyed an Australian Sauvignon Blanc with our fish which was the local King George Whiting. I actually liked it and ate quite a bit for once. :) We had a lovely dessert as well. We talked with a young Italian newlywed couple for quite a bit and then came back to our room to relax.
That was a lot for one day. Tomorrow is a day of leisure for us and it will be truly enjoyed. Night!
9 September 2009, Wednesday
Ahh, a day of leisure. We woke up rather early, still adjusting to the time change, and had a lovely breakfast. Sandy really out does herself with her cooking. We had shots of yogurt topped with passion fruit juice and seeds, toasted English muffins with an assortment of jam and locally made honey, bacon and eggs upon request, fresh fruit and cereal. And, a small pot of tea or coffee too. :) We gorged. To walk off all of the lovely calories we had just ingested, we on a stroll along the beach. The B&B sits right next to it. What a lovely spot for a B&B. I know, I’m geeking out a bit but it truly is a great place to stay.
Anyway, the beach started to end and we found a path that led back up to the road. We knew that the B&B was to the left and we thought maybe the town of Kingscote would be left as well. Nope, we were wrong. We ended back up at the B&B without finding town. We did see the local trailer park and market (not really a place you want to visit!). After telling Sandy about our story of not finding town, she told us that we had made it halfway there once we had gotten on the road. Oh well. We’ll try again for town after lunch. Sandy prepared us a lunch of finger foods and sandwiches. Again, we had more local cheeses to try (I just can’t get enough of the cheese here! It’s great!!) and some fruit and crackers. Again, we ate way too much food so needed to walk it off. Once we let our lunch settle, we tried for town again.
Walking into Kingscote, we noticed many newly built houses but all empty. It was strange how many there actually were. I wouldn’t mind moving to KI. :) Just kidding. We continued walking and walking and walking and before we knew it we had walked up this steep hill and arrived at a bay but the wrong bay. We had missed town yet again. David asked for directions (yes, I have a guy who will do that) and we found out that we had overshot town by a bit and he told us the best route. It involved walking along the coast and into town.
But, there really isn’t too much of town. It’s pretty tiny and only consists of a few main streets. We had a snack (and got stocked by gulls attracted to my paper bag) while we were there and after exploring what little there was of town (which took all of about a couple of minutes), we walked back to the B&B. We reported to Sandy that we had successfully found town but on a third attempt and, after looking at a map on the internet, we determined that we had walked about 12 km for the entire day. At least we are getting our exercise! We relaxed for the remainder of the day in some comfy chairs next to a warm wood stove reading books and David worked on editing his pictures.
At dinner, we were joined by a new newlywed Italian couple and a couple from Colorado. A lively conversation commenced over chicken and veggies. We were up pretty late chatting. It will be nice to get some more good sleep tonight. It’s so quiet and dark at the B&B. It makes for some wonderful sleep and I have a heating pad on my side of the bed which is independent from the one on David’s side of the bed. I’m using that tonight! But first, a nice hot bath. Goodnight!
10 September 2009, Thursday
Our next and last tour of KI began early today. We got up bright and early, had breakfast, and Brian, our new tour guide (Brenda had the day off), picked us up from the B&B. We started the tour by driving into Kingscote and Brian gave us a little bit of history about the original settlers there.
We took a drive into the middle of the island to Emu Ridge, a Eucalyptus distillery. We watched a historic video about the distillery and then had a quick tour to see how the actual distilling process takes place. In the gift shop area, in a little basket in the corner were a baby wallaby and a baby joey (kangaroo): the female owner fosters wildlife. They were both so cute! Each had there own cloth pouch which they were both quite comfortable in.
Next, we drove out to the southern part of the island to our morning cup of tea spot: Cape Gantheaume Conservation Park. We stopped in a camping spot next to the beach with a great view of D’Estrees Bay.
Upon climbing back up the steps from the beach, I stumbled and fell. Yep, I’m a cluts. That left some nasty looking bruises on both my knees. Oh well. I can make up a good story to tell people. :) So, we had a nice cuppa with some bread and cake. Next, we drove to Seal Bay and saw, you guessed it, seals. Our guide took us down onto the beach and we were able to get within about 10 feet from a sleeping seal.
On the way to Seal Bay, we passed by a sand dune so we asked the guide if he’d take us back to that to check it out. Of course he obliged us. The sand dunes are called Little Sahara and were pretty cool. People were out there sandboarding and David was able to take some video of a girl surfing down one.
click here for gallery and video
Next, it was time for lunch, so Brian took us to a secluded spot under the trees. The spot was on a farmer’s property where he had set up 2 tents with a barbecue and picnic tables underneath it. Brian cooked us more of that wonderful King George Whiting fish but he barbecued it and it was great. Also, he had more Greek salad, cheeses and wine for us.
After lunch, Brian took us to one last spot: Lathami Conservation Park. Here, we would see wildlife in their natural habitat. Before we entered the park, we had to clean off our shoes to prevent us from bring in a dangerous fungi to the area. The three of us crept quietly around the bushes and trees looking for wallabies, kangaroos and possibly koalas. We saw a ton of wallabies and kangaroos and some birds
We emerged from the brush to look upon a huge open green space on a distant hill covered with kangaroos. We were able to get within about 20 feet of a group of kangaroos and juvenile joeys. Too cool!
Brian took us back to the B&B after that. We rested for a bit and then headed to dinner. Sandy made a caramelized salmon with a cheese quiche. I don’t really like salmon even when it is prepared properly so David and I ate off each others plates tonight. We had another lovely dessert as well that we took with tea and coffee. I love eating overseas. :) We stayed up pretty late chatting with the Italian couple about Italy and other places around the world. We’ve decided to pack in the morning. We have our flight out pretty early to Sydney so it’s time for some much needed rest. G’Night! :)
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