I should mention that also on the trip were 2 girls from the Netherlands who had just completed a 10-week English course in Byron Bay (who would become my friends for the trip), a Spanish girl who had been studying English in Sydney, and 2 guys from the UK (1 from Wales and 1 from England, both very nice).
For a little history about Kangaroo Island (provided by Gus “who drives the bus”), there are about 4,500 people who live on Kangaroo Island full-time, including his family - he now lives in Adelaide when he is not leading tours. There is no cell phone reception unless you have a special phone and plan, and even then local calls are around $1.00/minute. There is also no wireless internet and computers that are available for public use anywhere we were, so I was hard to get ahold of for the trip. Aboriginals do not go to Kangaroo Island, and it is one of the few places in Australia where they do not live. This is because they believe that when they die, their spirits go there to have a party. In fact, when European settlers first went to Kangaroo Island, the animals had never been hunted and approached people. That of course made it easier for them to be hunted and eaten, and now many animals that were only found on the island are extinct.
Most people take a ferry or plane to travel to Kangaroo Island, however we chartered a small boat in the hopes that we would see dolphins swimming and could stop for a closer look. The 40-minute boat ride is the 5th roughest boat crossing in the world (not sure according to whom), but we were lucky because the day that we crossed the water was actually calm. We met Sammy the seal, a New Zealand fur seal who hangs out near the harbor because fisherman feed him scraps, but unfortunately did not see any dolphins.
Once we made it across, we learned that the tour bus we were supposed to use had 2 flat tires. We had to change our plans for the night and drive to the town of Kingscote (largest township on Kangaroo Island with 2,000 people living there) to get some spare tires, however they were of course closed for the night. We then backtracked to our accommodation for the 2 nights which was actually on a family farm which they gave us use of one of their barns... It sounds much worse than it was, and I actually opted to sleep outside in a swag (basically a sleeping bag with a mattress inside - genius!) instead of inside where we were provided with warm beds.
Before bed though, we had a BBQ outside and roasted marshmallows on the campfire. Australian marshmallows are very different from the marshmallows that I was used to. They come in either a pink or white variety - I found the pink ones to taste like old lady perfume and the white ones were just disgusting. We learned how to play the Aboriginal instrument called the dijereedoo (sp?), which apparently is only supposed to be played by men. Aboriginals believe that if women play the instrument, they will become infertile. I still played it of course...
Sleeping in a swag in the middle of a field with my new friends was definitely an experience. I woke up multiple times and it was the coldest I have been since getting to Australia. There was almost a full moon which was not only bright but also seemed to make the animals more active. I did not see anything but definitely heard some weird noises throughout the night.
The next morning, I was awoken by Gus shining a flashlight in my face at 7AM (the sun was not even up yet!). We ate breakfast and left to go kayak down the Harriet River which brought back fond memories of the canals in Foster City... After kayaking, we walked down to the beach at Vivonne Bay, which was recently voted the best beach in Australia by a Sydney professor. He had traveled around Australia for 3 years, rating all of the beaches on criteria such as best surf, sand, fishing, etc. and chose this beach as the best overall.
For lunch, we had another BBQ - this one with kangaroo meat! - then went to Seal Bay which is a preserved beach for Australian sea lions. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat, and we just sat on the beach and watched them for about an hour. I did not know that much about sea lions but learned that females are almost always pregnant. They go out to sea for 3 days at a time to fish and then return for 3 days and lie on the beach before leaving to fish again. If a mother seal is killed while out at sea fishing, her pup usually dies too because none of the other mother seals will help the orphan. It is one of the saddest things about sea lions - we saw a baby seal searching for its mom which may have been gone for longer than 3 days...
After Seal Bay, we went to a place called Little Sahara which has amazing, naturally occurring sand dunes. We learned how to sand board, and I had a great time riding down. The hard part of course was climbing back to the top and after about 3 or 4 times, I was exhausted!
We headed back to our accommodation for dinner - again a BBQ - before going out to the Vivonne Bay Jetty to look for little penguins. Before dinner though, I saw my first echidna in the wild! For those of you that do not know, echidnas may be the most bizarre animal there is. It looks like a porcupine with spikes on its back but is part of the monotreme family (along with the platypus) which means that it also lays eggs! It walks on its knuckles because its claws are so long and meant for digging to find food. It is one of the hardest animals to spot in the wild so I was very excited! In fact, we saw it in the same exact field where I had slept in my swag the night before.
After dinner, we did see a few little penguins and they were very cute, but the most interesting thing about this trip was the drive to and from the jetty. I had noticed earlier in the day that there was a lot of roadkill on and near the road, but unlike roadkill in America, there were kangaroos, wallabies and possums. During our drive, we nearly hit many wallabies and possums, and at some points, I thought Gus would intentionally hit some thing. For people who live on Kangaroo Island, the animals are more of a bother than for tourists, and they do not even move the bodies after they are hit. Instead, they can remain on the road for up to 2 weeks before wedge-tailed eagles or cats clean up the mess.
That night I decided against sleeping in the swag and instead opted to sleep in a warm bed inside. I was very glad I made that decision when I again woke up at 7AM (thanks Gus!), this time feeling much more rested. This was our last day on Kangaroo Island, so we packed up our stuff and left our accommodation for the last time. We drove to Hanson Bay Sanctuary and did the Koala Walk to look for wild animals. It is easiest to spot kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, etc. during dawn and dusk because they are more active at those times. We saw many koalas in the trees and wallabies digging in the ground for food.
After the sanctuary, we went to a place called Admiral’s Arch which is home to many New Zealand fur seals (like Sammy!) and also a beautiful view. Although very pretty, we were not able to get as close to these seals as the Australian sea lions from the day before. Then we drove to a nearby place called the Remarkable Rocks and took a lot of funny pictures with the weird, naturally occurring rock formations. At one point, I actually thought I was stuck underneath a large rock!
Luckily, I made my way out and we left for a beach on the Northern coast of Kangaroo Island (before that, everything else was on the Southern coast) called Stokes Bay. I actually preferred this beach to the one at Vivonne Bay because of its unique entrance and beautiful views. My new friends and I were so tired from all of the earlier activities, that we decided to use this time for a nap on the beach. I later regretted this because for days I still had sand in my hair!
Sadly, it was time to leave Kangaroo Island, so we drove back to Penneshaw to catch the charter boat back to the mainland. As soon as we started leaving the harbor, we saw a ton of dolphins in the wild! It was so amazing to see, even our boat driver said he had never seen them behaving in the way they had. This boat crossing was a lot more rough than the way over, and I was actually glad to be back on land.
After about 2 hours, we were back in Adelaide. The next day I will be leaving for Sydney where I am meeting up with Jack to board the Indian Pacific Train. We are taking the train for 3 days across the entire country (and outback!) to Perth, which is the capital of the state of Western Australia.
