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Abundant wildlife on Kangaroo Island

I finally found some other people who were interested in renting a car and going to Kangaroo Island. One Dutch, whom I met at the Darwin-Alice tour, one German, whom the Dutch girl met in the train from Alice to Adelaide, and one French we picked up at the YHA noticeboard.

We decided to spend two whole days and three nights on the island. It is only around 150 km long, but many roads are unsealed and pot-holed, so we needed a lot of time. We got a cheap rental from a private company and off we went! The car owner had been a tour guide for years and was very helpful to us during the planning of our trip. We were all excited about all the wildlife on the island and wanted to see as much as possible without having to rush. It turned out to be a very good mixture of people, and everywhere we went people were amazed at our mixed backgrounds.

We drove down to the ferry in the afternoon and booked a room at the YHA in Penneshaw. The manager was extremely friendly and gave us loads of tips on where to see the fairy penguins who emerge from the water at dusk to sleep in their holes and caves. They are very timid, but we managed to spot a few of them wagging over the road. The YHA room was comfy and we were the only ones in the room, so we cooked some dinner together and enjoyed some local beer and wine.

The next morning the first stop was an eucaluptys destillery and a lavender farm. Very interesting local enterprises. We went for a stroll in Little Sahara, a sand dune along the south coast, before having lunch at Point Ellen with some superb rock cave formations and waves washing up on the rocks several meters high.

In the evening we visited the southwestern Cape Du Couedic with the impressive Admiral's Arch and houndreds of New Zealand fur seals resting on the rocks. The Remarkable Rocks a few kms away were also worth a visit. We were alone there again, and even saw a mini snake!

Around dusk the kangaroos were everywhere, so we had to take great care driving to our accomodation for the night at Flinder's Chase Farm, a lovely hostel / farm with ponies, llamas, sheep and so on. Like the rest of Kangaroo Island it was very cold and windy, so we actually had to make a fire!

The last day started with a visit to the Cape Borda Lighthouse at the northwestern tip of the island with a lightkeeper's cemetary and plenty of roadkill from the night. After a pretty long drive on the way to one of the northern beaches for some lunch we ran across this little guy making his way up a tree by the roadside!

Stokes Bay beach was a rocky one, but a quick path between the boulders takes you to a lovely secluded sandy beach. Birdlife is plentiful here, I even found a bird's nest right at the beach.

Next stop was a sheep dairy with live milking and samples of delicious sheep milk youghurts and cheese before we arrived in Kingscote just in time for the daily pelican feeding. The feeder was cheerful and told us interesting facts about the pelicans; they always know when it's feeding time and would fight over the food. Fascinating, huge birds! Their wing span is around 2 meters, they weigh up to 9 kg and easily eat 25% of their body weight every day (more if they get the chance!). They even eat the odd seagull if it gets in their way and he claimed to have seen one devouring a chihuaha (not too sure if I believe that though).

A quick lookout at Prospect Hill (close to where explorers Flinders and Boudin met, a friendly exchange of scientific studies during the Britain/France wars) was a perfect end of the day. All the fresh air left us drowsy and content, and we were all very happy with the road trip and how everything worked out! On the ferry back to the mainland we even spotted some dolphins playing around in the water. Perfect!! The total price for each person including most food, accomodation and car costs was a little more than 300 Australian dollars for 4 days and three nights. A one-day tour is 240!