Well, a big day today (yesterday actually, I'm a bit slack!). Kangaroo Island is a lot bigger than you might imagine an island off an island to be. It's some 150 km long and 50 km wide. The odd part is that the towns are at one end and the attractions are at the other. Which might actually be a good thing given the fragile and sensitive nature of these natural wonders.
So today I'm taking you on tour with us: A few words and a few snaps from each of the places we stopped at.
First, we took a detour down a dirt road to Vivonne Beach, which had some really bad reports on the 'net. They were right, the place looks like a cross between Deliverence Country and the Hill Billies. Shame, the beach was spectacular.
Seal Bay, some 50km down the road, is a long-time breeding ground for the endangered Australian Fur Seal. At first you get a bit of a surprise that you have top go in via a visitors centre, where you have to decide between the ranger guided beach walk or the self guided boardwalk. We opted for the boardwalk and purchased our tickets at what seemed a bit-of-an-ask of a price, but when you're on tour and not likely to be back in a hurray, sometimes you just have to pay up and take a chance.
The chance was worth it. They have a fantastic boardwalk down to the a great viewing spot right over the beach. You are safe and comfortable and getting a good eyeful, and the animals and the environment is completely safe as well. Oddly, almost the first thing we saw was a huge skeleton, we guessed correctly at a whale (juvenile humpback as it turns out) that was beached here and later washed up onto the dunes. Then you start looking for the seals. You can see the obvious one or two on the beach, but as you get more accustomed to the landscape, you start to see them all over the place. They apparently go fishing for 3 days at a time, come back to this same beach and crash-out for 3 days to recover. What is completely amazing is just how far they will travel from the beach, up the very steep dunes to find their perfect spot.
From Seal Bay we travelled further along, now looking for a feed, which we found at the Koala Walk Sanctuary. We opted not to annoy the Koalas, but ate a very good turkey roll and drank good coffee instead. On or way out we were surprised to see a couple of adult and baby Cape Barren Geese. Some snaps :
Suitable fed, we powered on down the rest of the 100km to get to the Flinders Chase, a national park covering most of the end of the island. We bought our day pas and received our touring instructions:
1. The Lighthouse, 2, The Admirals Arch, 3, Weirs cove and finally 4, The Remarkable Rocks. We were left in no doubt by the officious ranger sales lady that this is what we would do, or else!
OK, so it seemed the best way after all, so here are some snaps of the area called Cape Couedic. Now keep in mind that these places are spectacular so just a hundred snaps is not enough, so you just get a taste, starting with the Lighthouse built in 1901
Then you go down to the end of the earth, park and walk down another fantastic boardwalk to view the Admirals arch. The area is also home to a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals.
The lighthouse was totally isolated until the 1940s, everything, including the humans, was delivered by ship to a place called Weirs Cove, about a mile away from the lighthouse itself. Keep in mind that this was considered the best and easiest place to gain access to the land! They originally had to clamber up the 300 metre sheer cliff face carrying everything up by hand, before they cut out a groove in the cliff face and built a flying fox. This building was the store house, there were three lighthouse-keeper families, and each had their own store room.
Ok, so we are just about finished, the last stop was the Remarkable Rocks. The pictures, as always, really can't do the spectacle justice. Here's just a few...
Here's my favourite snap, taken on the walk down to the rocks. It just shows that you have to keep your eyes open at all times; you are walking toward the big rocks, completely focussed, but if you look away across to the north, this was what you would have seen, but then only as long as the wind was blowing and the sea pounding the shore and the sun shining from just the right place...
