Kangaroo Island

Due to lockdown last year, many fun activities were canceled, one of which was a trip to kangaroo island. It was rescheduled for this trip and I eagerly anticipated the adventure.

Starting at the train station, we boarded a regional train to Adelaide. The premium class car was complete with breakfast, lunch, drinks, and snacks. We sat back and enjoyed the 11 hour trip trough golden flat lands and a rain storm that flooded the tracks, slowing us down by an hour. I saw more kangaroos out out my window on this train ride than I did the entire 5 months last year.

Our night in Adelaide was casual, with a night in a 150 year old hotel. It had Communal bathrooms, no Wi-Fi, a fan for cooling, and was located above a pub. We enjoyed a beer on the communal balcony while listening to mariachi music from the bar across the street and ate roti/curry from the pubic market.

The next morning, we boarded a 6:30am bus to catch the ferry to kangaroo island. The ferry was uneventful and the sky was gray. The car rental agency was across the street from the ferry landing so it was an easy start.

Kangaroo Island is the size of Bali but only has 4600 people which means most of it is empty and wild. In the biggest town of Kingscote, there as a tiny Main Street with a couple restaurants, shops, and the obligatory Women’s beauty center. After a fish and chips lunch, we headed off to the north coast in search of wildlife.

Disappointingly, the island was not littered with kangaroos as I’d fantasized. We visited a couple pristine, white sand beaches and marveled at the natural beauty all the while scanning for kangaroo and koalas. The tip for finding koala was to look at the V part of the tree branches. Success! I spotted a koala and stood beneath it for 20 minutes watching it stretch, yawn, and sleep.

At our caravan park, we walked the property to find another 7 koalas. They were all one to a tree except for a mama and her offspring although they were on different branches. We startled a large male kangaroo that was resting in a patch of low growing eucalyptus.

At dusk, the wallabies and galahs were out and about. We sat for an hour watching the wallabies eating grass with great concentration. We chatted with fellow travelers who owned a restaurant in Coober Pedy. A 7 year old ginger girl loved to chase the birds and make them fly in great exodus.

BF has a goal to see a platypus in the wild and it was his birthday so we headed out early to Flinders National Park to hike to potential viewing spots. The 2019-2020 bush fires burned 98% of the park so the trail signage was melted and all of the foliage had 2 years of growth recovery. It’s unclear whether any of the playpus survived the fires but we went to 5 different spots that they used to be seen. Sadly, we saw none. We were the only people in the national park for the hours we spent there.

Next up was Admiral’s Arch, the lighthouse, and remarkable rock. We pretty much had these attractions to ourselves and we’re shocked when anyone else would arrive.

At Seal Bay, we had a tour so we could be on the beach with the seals. It was the first sun we had on the trip so we enjoyed the turquoise ocean and sunning seals. At Little Sahara, we scrambled up and down white sand dunes, marveling at the flat landscape as far as the eye could see from the top of a sand dune.

We took a night penguin tour. All but one had molted and had gone out to sea for several weeks. Sigh. We did get to see a large pack of wallabies dining on the city grass. They reminded me a little of giant rats. I’m not saying this in a bad way.