Kangaroo Island

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Date visited: 27-29th March

Another last minute add-on to our 2 week lightening tour of South/South East Australia - why not when this wildlife island is only a 30 minute hop on the ferry, about 2 hours from Adelaide.

We weren't to know but the main national park to the west of the island, home to some of the most spectacular walking tracks, was all closed off due to a natural fire caused by 14 lightening strikes from a storm in December.

Bummer.

Still, Kingscote the main centre had a relaxed sleepy island feel to it which did our blood pressures good after the stress of Adelaide. We took advantage of a cheap meal deal at the local hotel (as we did every night) and just researched what there was to do elsewhere for the next day.

Our only full day on the Island started early with a drive along the central road to the far west of the Island. The shrublike countryside wasn't anything different to what we saw previously, and wasn't too impressive...but what we really came here for was the wildlife.

We called at Kowala Wildlife sanctary which was so quiet with hardly any tourists. We paid our $2 donation and strolled through the avenue of eucalyptus trees where we spotted about 15 of the cuddly bears either sleeping eating or relaxing high up in the branches. I was thrilled to film one darting from one branch to another like a monkey before climbing strongly up the tree all paws in pefect synchrony (who said these things were slow?!)

In the same walk we spotted a wallaby and 3 kangaroos relaxing in the trees. It was a true privelidge seeing these so close - barely 4 metres away instead of the usual spawl of road kill of these poor animals.

In the afternoon we completed a 3 hour bush walk through dense shrub - it was pleasant to be outside but it lacked the open views and variety we were expecting. I was chuffed we managed 4 decent walks in Oz - all so remote with no people whatsoever. We returned along the south coast back to our hostel to enjoy another cheap roast dinner (we won't be getting any in Asia!).

On the last morning we walked near our ferry terminal along a coastal path which happenned to take us to more rather tame wallabies, more Roos, some parrots and some fine viewpoints of the coastline. We even saw a dolphin pod in the sea and a lone dolphin (or what I suspect a shark as they never swim in isolation).

Kangaroo Island is certainly a good place to spot wildlife hard to see when on the road. Although the ferry wasn't cheap (70 quid) it provided us a few days of peace and tranquility before getting our flight. 😊

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