Today was our only full day on Kangeroo Island (KÌ to the locals) which meant we had to drive an almost complete 200km loop of the island to get in all of the attractions. It also means you are in for a long blog (you have been warned!)
It all began with an early start and a drive to Seal Bay, home of the Australian fur seal. A guided tour took us up close and personal to the seals on the beach (close enough to smell their fishy breath!) Their breeding season has just finished which meant it was a pretty safe time to be so close, the bulls were past their aggressive stage and were not likely to mistake us for female seals! It also meant there were lots of cute little pups frolicking around. Some of the younger ones were still breastfeeding while the slightly older little boy seals were playing at being big boy seals with their pretend fights and chasing of the girls for kisses. The girls, of course, were playing it cool, lounging around on the beach. Si’s favourite photo of the day is this young seal surfing the waves with his fin sticking out like an upside-down surf board. It was a pretty hot 45 degrees on the beach (before 11am!) so it was time to move on.
Next stop: Little Sahara, a plethora of huge sand dunes, supposedly perfect for sandboarding. But at 45 degrees that kind of energetic pursuit was not going to happen so we pootled along to Vivonne bay for a bit of a cool down in the southern ocean. This bay was voted the best beach in Australia by a professor at Sydney University. Can’t have been an easy decision as we have seen a lot of impressive beaches in our time here! We got the boogie board out and had some fun cooling off when some dolphins swam along to join in the fun. So Si can now say he surfed with dolphins. I did capture this moment on film but unfortunately my photography skills were not up to scratch (I’ll blame it on the new camera) and the picture is a little out of focus 🙁
After that excitement we headed off to Flinders Chase National park where our first port of call was Admirals Arch, an arch in the rock complete with an impressive array of stalagmites and New Zealand fur seals lounging around and enjoying a bit of shade (they have thicker fur than their Aussie counterparts from this morning, hence the reason they are found here on the shady rocks as opposed to the 45 degree heat of the beach). When Si had got the required number of seal photos (i.e. a lot) we were ready to move on to the piece de la resistance of the day; Remarkable Rocks. A group of wind sculptured granite boulders that do indeed look quite remarkable but once again I am left feeling that the Aussies lacked a little imagination when they were naming the delights of this country.
Almost finished. The original plan was to stay at Remarkable Rocks to watch the sunset but with our campsite being about 100 km away we decided to head off and instead just keep stopping the car for sunset pics. In our prior reading about KI we had been promised ‘abundant’ wildlife, all with slightly different island adaptations. Since we usually do quite well with our wildlife we were a little disappointed with the elusiveness of the land based wildlife here thus far (not counting the roadkill at the side of the road – that was quite abundant!). But after the beautiful deep orange sun had set and darkness had desended we began to learn why there was an alarming amount of road kill. Suddenly the wallabies and the possums became abundant, and they had no road sense what so ever. Si has to be commended for his careful driving and the fact that he managed to avoiding hitting any of these guys who seem to think it is fun to play on the road and then do the startled rabbit pose when you approach! Still no sign of a kangeroo though 🙁
After that long day and the long blog I bid you good night.