Kangaroo Island 24 - 26th April

During mid-semester break I went on a three day topur with Groovy Grape (same company as with the Outback trip) to Kangaroo Island. This island is about a 90 min drive south from Adelaide, and then a 45 min ferry ride. Kangaroo island has its place in South Australian history for many reasons. Here's some interesting facts about the island:


1. It was the site of the first settlement in South Australia. Kingscote, the largest town on the island, is older than Adelaide by a few months. That's a pretty good superlative to have!


2. Humans are the minority on the island. Only 4500 people live there (and over half of them in Kingscote) whereas there's about 30,000 koalas and kangaroos and around 1 MILLION wallabies. These large numbers are due to the minimal human presence on the island (at least 1/3 is national park or reserve) and because there's no introduced pests like rabbits or foxes on the island.


3. It's named Kangaroo Island by Flinders, who discovered the island in 1802, and due to the abundance of kangaroos, he named the island after them.

4. There were no recorded Aborigines living on the island when Flinders discovered it. Local Aborigines on the mainland refer to KI as the land of the dead, as they believe it's where spirits go to rest.


5. While exploring the coast, Finders's crew encountered a French expedition led by Baudin (at a place now called Encounter Bay). Both teams were unknowingly exploring the island at the same time. This is why the North coast has English names (like Stokes Bay) and the South coast has French names (like Cape du Coedic).


So it's certainly a worthwhile place to visit. On the first day after arriving on the island, one of the first places we visited was Clifford's Honey Farm. Kangaroo Island is the ONLY (another superlative!) in the world where pure Ligurian Honey Bees live. They were brought over bybeekeepers from Liguria in Italy, and since then the native bees have interbred with others, and a disease wiped many of them out. So as a result of this, KI is the only place where you can get them, and the penalties for bringing foreign bees and bee products over to the island are severe (penalties can reach $10000, just under 5000!) The hoeny was fantastic.

We also visited the Eucalytus Distillery, where oils, creams, etc are made using traditional methods.

The weather wasn't great for most of the trip, it was very windy and rained on and off during the day, but that didn't stop us seeing a lot of great stuff. On the first day we also visited the beautfiul Stokes Bay and Vivonne Bay, before heading West to our stop for the night. We stayed at a small, rustic farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Surrounding the house on all sides was native bushland and farmland. We all got to know everyone on the bus and were pestered constantly by the very tame possum, which our guide, Ben, called Pete.

We started Day 2 with sandboarding. KI has plenty of inland sandunes, and Little Sahara is one of the biggest. It's the same as snowboarding, with one obvious difference...I wasn't that good at it, but it was still fun! That day we also went to Seal Bay; a protected beach area for seals and sea lions. We saw plenty of sealions roaming the beaches and swimming in the sea, and it was a great experience, despite the cold winds and rain! We also went on a tour of the Kelly Caves, and went on a windy, windy walk down the Rocky River Gorge to a stunning bit of unspoiled coastline. That evening we stayed at a holiday campsite just outside the Flinders Chase National Park.

We started day 3 at the Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, where we saw a few koalas, wallabees and kangaroos. KI actually has its own species of kangaroo (fantastically called the Kangaroo Island Kangaroo...). We then headed into the Flinders Chase National Park, and visited the Remarkable Rocks. These are a group of volcanic rocks on a headland. Over the centuries, the wind and see have carved out some remarkable (:P) shapes on the rocks, which made for an interesting sight. Further South at Cape du Coedic, we saw Admiral's Arch; another amazing rock formation. The best thing about this area were the New Zealand Fur Seals which were sleeping all around us. It was another great encounter with some local wildlife.

We then headed to the eastern side of the island in time to get the ferry back to the mainland. KI was definitely worth the visit. A big thank you goes to Ben our tour guide, and the other people on the tour for making it a great weekend!