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Published: November 11th 2017
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Koala
Koalas spend most of their time sleeping (80%??). Besties. Beasties. Beaches. That sums up this past week. Besties are our family and friends that have shown us so much hospitality. Beasties are the wildlife we have seen, mostly on Kangaroo Island. Beaches are the many special places we have seen along Australia’s south coast. As of Sunday evening we shall be on our own heading into The Outback and we shall miss trusted guides that know where they’re going.
Our first stop Friday on Kangaroo Island is the Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery. Fine oils and creams are produced here. At the Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary we begin with some Italian style pumpkin and spinach Foccasias before we go searching for koalas that roam free in the sugar gum tree forest, and we were not disappointed. We also saw a roughly 20 cm goanna, a fairly large lizard.
On to Flinders Chase National Park. Many New Zealand fur seals reside at Admiral’s Arch, an impressive rock arch at a wild shoreline. Look south and the next destination would be the Antarctic! The Remarkable Rock rose as a volcanic deposit to the earth’s surface many thousands of years ago and ever since then, the heavy surf has continued to
shape this phenomenon into some very impressive formations. Walking around it near the top could be treacherous when the rock gets slippery, or when rogue waves sweep all beings off the rock into the churning tide below. That could include wallabies, of which we saw two drinking spilled water from the hand washing station at the outdoor toilets.
After taking a quick look at Vivonne Bay beach, one of Australia’s best, we make our way to the Kangaroo Island Cabins near Kingscote, where we dine on some very nice takeaway King George whiting, a fish that tastes much like Atlantic cod. The White Wine we picked up at Coriole Winery went very well with this!
By the time a whole gang of wallabies showed up at around 10 pm, as reported by our neighbours next morning, we had already packed it in for the night. Damn!
Kingscote is a historic town, as it was settled by whalers, sealers and fishermen before South Australia was, but it looks a bit boring today. We did meet some pretty cool pelicans though and they look larger than their Florida cousins.
Since we got to Seal Bay National Park before
it opened at 9 am, we had a quick look at nearby Bales Beach, another gorgeous beach that looked very misty this morning because of the thundering surf. We found a complete cuttlefish skeleton, something we both remember being used for canaries to peck away at, supposedly to make them sing better.
Seal Bay is a permanent year-round habitat for sea lions, that's right, not seals. Females stay around for life with their cubs, while males wander off to diversify the gene pool. Ferdy noted that one female was missing her rear left flipper and had several other bite marks on her side, and reported it to the rangers, substantiated by photos. They had not yet noticed this and went out to investigate. Hope she makes it!
A bird show at the Raptor Domain was awesome. All birds are rescues and have actually been trained to perform. We saw many impressive birds, and have included many photos below.
Last but not least on this Kangaroo Island trip was a hike up the sand dunes of Little Sahara. Cathy and Mark told us the 35C temperature in a vast expanse of hot sand would acclimatize us nicely for
the real heat in The Outback. Thanks guys! We made it to the top (no small feat) and watched several younger people sandboard or tobaggan downhill.
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Louise Smith
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Good on you for making the climb!!
It is a little warmer since the mini cold snap but nothing like what you are experiencing. You are lucky to be going to Ayer's Rock on this trip. As of next year no one will be allowed to climb it. Who we saw in the play last night was Sandra Urquart who graduated in 1969. It was a spoof on Agatha Christie's life. It took me nearly 45 minutes to get from Verdun to Helen's apartment in NDG - construction and detours everywhere!!! Louise