gardenofwine.com

Western Kangaroo Island Caravan Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.  670km

Click here for pictures

Shabbat Shalom!

We have spent the last 4 days on Kangaroo Island, relaxing and exploring nature and wildlife. The weather has been very hot during the day (hence the relaxation) and cool in the evenings. We saw sea lions, seals, pelicans, koalas and kangaroos galore. Not as many kangaroos as the island’s name implies, but still a great finale to our Australia visit.

Our week started on a sour note when we returned the RV in Adelaide. As I mentioned in previous blog entries, we were not pleased with the motorhome as there were many small problems with it. When we returned it to the depot, the bastards wanted to charge me for the awning that was malfunctioning! After an hour of arguing, while Paola and the kids were waiting in the minivan we rented nearby at the airport, the company finally caved in and we were on our way.

We made our way down the Fleurieu Pennisula to Cape Jervis, a pretty 2 hour drive that culminates in a 45 minute ferry ride to Kangaroo Island. We got there too late for the noon ferry and much to early for the 4pm, so we just sat in the lounge and put a DVD in the laptop for the kids. The ferry ride was uneventful and so was the half hour drive to our cabin in a small town called American River. We got settled into a nice 2 bedroom cabin and wanted to go out to the beach across the street. However it was very windy and cold so some of stayed in. I was expecting to see multitudes of wallabies and kangaroos and was disappointed when we saw none.

On Tuesday we drove down to Seal Bay, where we took a guided beach tour to see a colony of Australian Sea Lions up close. Was nice and not as smelly as we had remembered from the seal colonies we saw in the US or the Galapagos. We returned to the cabin and spent the rest of the day playing around.

On Wednesday we headed to the Kingscote area. Kingscote is the biggest town on the Island with 1600 people. We started the day in Emu Bay, where we found a playground for the kids with a great ocean view. After the children wore down, we drove into town, found a parking spot right in front of the main eatery and had ourselves a fine local lunch.

The girls fell asleep in the stroller and we walked around the city for a while.

We then headed to a Bee Museum/Factory/Shop where we learned of the famous Ligurian Bees of Kangaroo Island. The bees were brought to the island in the late 1800’s from Italy. They are the last pure strain (read – tame) in the world because there are no other bees allowed on the island. Ron asked the tour guide “How did they bring the bees all the way from Italy?”. We got to hold a frame filled with Honey, 2-3kg worth. We saw how the packing facility in the back of the shop handles the honeycombs that come in and learned a few things about the industry. And of course the kids tasted lots of honey!

Later in the afternoon we saw a pelican feeding “show” at the town wharf. Those birds are something else. Always fun to see them open their huge beaks and swallow a whole fish.

Yesterday morning we parted with American River and headed to the west side of the island, famous for its Flinders-Chase National Park. We checked in to our cabin at a nearby campground and headed into the park. We drove to a place called Admiral’s Arch, a short walk over the cliffs and down a boardwalk to see a natural arch created by the waves pounding the rock wall. As an added bonus, a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals lives there, and we got to compare them to the Aussie Sea Lions from the day before. It seems like the kiwi seals are smaller, darker, and much more active. The Aussie sea lions seemed quite relaxed and lazy. Both Shir and Orr walked very nicely the entire 1km roundtrip.

We headed back to the cabin for lunch and siesta, as it was very hot outside. By 4pm it was still relatively hot and we decided to hang around the campground. A prudent choice, because there was plenty of wildlife to see right in our backyard. To start off, a local kangaroo was eating grass right in front of our cabin. I took the kids for a walk to see koalas, but we didn’t need to go too far. Less than 25meters from our cabin, a mother koala with a young offspring were transitioning from one tree to another. It was really cool to see the mom climb down a tree, scurry across the ground, and climb up another, all the while baby is clinging on to her tummy for dear life. Needless to say Ron Shir and Orr were very excited. Shir keeps reminding me that the mommy “kolala” also peed while on the ground.

Today we hit another hotspot in the national park called “Remarkable Rocks”. Perched upon a huge stone cliff top looking over the sea are some interesting rock formations that have been sculpted by the wind and rain over the milenia. To us it looked like a Gaudi rendition of a Dali painting. Take a look at the pictures and judge for yourself. The rocks were great and the children enjoyed walking climbing and hiding in between the various nooks and crannies. We made sure they didn’t get too close to the edge. We didn’t stay as long as I would have liked because it was very hot and also full of flies. So many flies that we actually saw for the first time here people walking with nets around their hats and heads.

The heat was too unbearable and the girls too tires, so we returned to the cabin for a siesta. This afternoon though we returned to the park and did a 2km hike in search of platypus. The hike was nice, the search a failure. Thank goodness we managed to see them last month in Queensland. On the drive back, at 7pm, we saw some more kangaroos and even a koala crossing the road. I know this sounds silly, but Paola and I were a bit disappointed, we were expecting to see tens of animals at a time and not one here and another there. Oh well. C’est la vie.

Tomorrow we head back to Adleaide.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:55 am and is filed under Australia, Big Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.