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Published: August 6th 2007
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Flinders Chase National Park: Seals and Seascapes
A Long Drive that was Well Worth It After a quick stop by Kingscote for breakfast, we took the long drive to the exact opposite side of the island from where we were staying in Penneshaw. On the far end of the island is Flinders Chase National Park which is one of the must see sights on Kangaroo Island. The only unfortunate part of this story is that Flinders Chase is more than 2 hours from our origin point in Penneshaw. I know this is a sob story…poor Mikey had to drive two hours in Australia on a Tuesday morning. No more griping, I promise.
With food in our stomachs, we arrived at Flinders Chase at about 11:30am which is a couple of hours before the tour buses tend to show up. Good timing on our part! We paid for our admission and started at the Admiral’s Arch which is a rock formation caused by sea erosion.
The really cool thing about the Admiral’s Arch area is the huge colony of fur seals that hang out right on the ocean front. While I was busy taking a
ton of pictures of the beautiful seascape, rock formations, and seals, Kel was mesmerized by the seal’s antics. Kel absolutely loves animals that are playful and fun. She watched two young seals playing tug of war over some seaweed as well as tons basking in the sunlight on rocks while I ran around pretending to be a photographer. We both had fun and that’s all that counts.
After about an hour of ogling we set off for the next of the highlights of Flinders Chase, Weir Cove. This site was originally settled in the 1800’s with a stone house built on a cliff overlooking the sea. While an absolutely beautiful view is had from the heights, the challenge of pulling goods from sea ships up the cliffs (they only got provisions once every three months so they loaded in a lot at once) proved too much for the settlers who gave up and moved on to greener pastures.
The water here is amazingly blue, unlike anything I’ve ever seen close to home. While in the tropics we’ve seen water that is clear and green but never a deep royal blue. I assume that it has to do with
being so close to Antarctica. No matter what the reason for the color, I can’t get enough of looking at the coast and huge expanses of ocean.
Our final stop of the three major destinations was the Remarkable Rocks. Kel and I both giggle a little bit at the number of funny names the Aussies have used for their natural resources. In their defense, the rocks are pretty remarkable. This formation of rocks has been eaten away over time and made into unusual shapes that are reminiscent of modern art. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.
While near the rocks, Kel’s childlike qualities came to the forefront and she decided that some of the rocks looked like the perfect objects to climb. When I was finished taking pictures while dodging German tourists who kept jumping into my attempts at great shots, I found Kel in a couch shaped niche up on one of the rocks. I climbed up and joined her and we both sat for a few moments and enjoyed nature around us. Kel reminds me from time to time that it’s important to take a moment to truly enjoy what’s around you.
Lunch Friends and Afternoon Hiking
When we had finished with the last of the three easy/must see sights we decided to grab a little lunch. While in Kingscote we had thought ahead and grabbed some food for a picnic lunch so we were prepared to eat in the park instead of drive more than an hour to get food.
The picnic area was only a few minutes away which was very convenient. As we approached our picnic bench we were greeted by one of the area’s friendly, if annoying, wallabies. While the park very clearly states that you are not supposed to feed the animals, obviously people don’t follow this rule. Our friendly wallaby decided to join us while we ate our lunches and at times he was quite persistent.
As I sat on the bench eating he came up behind me and clawed my back for attention and hopefully food. While he was very gentle, I was more concerned that he would get more persistent. Wallaby claws are incredibly sharp, not something to mess around with. Later, he hopped up under the table and stuck his nose in Kel’s purse. Very cute…but very annoying. Another family drove
up while we were leaving and he headed for greener (aka tastier) pastures - we wished him the best.
With lunch behind us, we set out for a 6km moderate hike called Snake Lagoon. The trail is named for a dry lagoon which is very close to the start of the path. We chose this particular hike because the lady at the information center said it was the best of the hikes in the park. We took her word for it, but had little idea what was in store for us.
Half way through the hike we crossed a dry riverbed and started the interesting part of the hike. The path became more of a climb up and down the hill beside the river, often walking from rock to rock and crossing all sorts of dirt and crags. Kel and I both like a decent climb because it can be more enjoyable and challenging than just walking down an easy path. Thankfully the path never became too difficult.
After about an hour of walking/climbing we came to a decent sized cove with a white sand beach. The hike was definitely worth it. We stood on the beach
for about a half an hour watching the surf. The waves at this particular cove were wild which would make swimming impossible but their roiling wildness made for a mesmerizing scene.
When we returned to the car we were pretty tired and glad to have the A/C because we had worked up a pretty good sweat. The next two hours were spent returning to Penneshaw.
That night we ate leftovers of the spaghetti Kel made the night before and enjoyed more Australian TV. We had to go to bed early because we had a busy day planned for the next day.
A Day of Driving We had originally rented the car with the idea of returning it to Sydney on the 15th so that we could head to New Zealand by the 17th. Since we were leaving Kangaroo Island on the 4th we only had 11 days to make it all the way to Sydney from just south of Adelaide. This meant that we had a ton of distance to cover in a very short period of time, especially if we wanted to spend some time in places like Melbourne or Canberra.
I had
decided that we needed to cover more than 500km on Wednesday in order to keep on track and try to manage the trip efficiently. Our day, therefore, was spent almost completely in the car.
We stopped once in a small town named Keith to get gas. We then stopped and had a pretty nice lunch in small town about 350km into the trip. At 6:30pm we ended our journey in Mount Gambier which is located on the south east border between South Australia and Victoria. We found a great hotel in town that was fairly cheap but really, really nice.
Tomorrow we will be heading to the Great Ocean Road which is west of Melbourne. This stretch of coastal road is one of the best known sites in all of Australia. We may even be lucky enough to get into Melbourne by late afternoon. Wish us luck!
Hope you’re doing great at home!
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