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Published: November 3rd 2008
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Kangaroo Island
November 2, 2008
Using multiple alarms again, we were able to get up at 5 and drive two hours south of Adelaide through lovely country to Cape Jervis (still in South Australia) and put us and the rental car on a ferry to Kangaroo Island. Because this island is isolated from the mainland it has been spared the impact of European settlers bringing in exotic plants and animals. There is a lot of old growth vegetation and animal and bird populations have thrived. (Can you tell I plagiarized the last two sentences from a handout we got at the information center?) We wanted to see this place that is hyped up by all the travel sites and guidebooks.
We met the coolest couple on the ferry and ended up swapping e-mail addresses. They are from South Australia and he is a dentist and she is a scientific researcher. We didn’t watch the ferry videos or even look at the scenery much because we found these people so interesting. They are about our age and he just sold his dental practice and now they are going to go around the world on their sailboat taking 5 years to
do it. (Note to Ed and Diane: Their boat is identical to yours with a few modifications we’ll tell you about later.) We were at the island before we knew it.
We were a little surprised. We expected the island to be a wild and woolly place, but there are several small towns and a lot of agriculture going on. There were wheatfields, vineyards, cattle, and sheep (guess it is woolly). It is pretty, though, and we saw some interesting things. We climbed the 500 steps of Prospect Hill to get a good view of the island. We did a lot of back road driving searching for and finding new birds at lagoons. We stopped at a honey farm that has these special bees and toured a eucalyptus oil distillery (interesting place). We saw animals, but not as many as we thought there would be. There was a nice long boardwalk leading to the South Sea where we saw Australian sea lions. We walked though forests and finally did see four koalas. They are pretty cute (we both said “Aww”) and they were all busy eating those yummy eucalyptus leaves.
We are staying at the Kangaroo Island Wilderness
Retreat and Joe says this is my reward for sleeping on the floor of the train. It’s a classy place with fun people working and staying here. There are so many wallabies on the grounds, we’re sure they get hand fed. A kid from Chicago waited on us in the dining room. I had pumpkin soup and Joe had wonderfully flavored and well-cooked (rare) kangaroo and I gratefully accepted some of his meal.
We watched part of the Australia/England rugby game on TV. That’s some rough sport, makes our football look wussy.
It was cloudy today, but didn’t rain on us.
Supposed to rain tomorrow… hope not, we’re supposed to see the Remarkable Rocks.
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Connie
non-member comment
I know I keep using the word amazing...but everything you have shared is amazing! Do you ever feel you have crammed too much new stuff into your brain and need a break? (Perhaps not, as you both re seasoned travelers-)