Kangaroo Island

Our last big adventure in Australia was to go to a huge island off the coast of the Fleurieu peninsula. I pictured it being almost uninhabited by people, but it looks just like most of the places I’ve been in South Australia with sheep farms and little towns. It is sparsely populated, however, and it is home to a huge amount of wildlife. The biggest obstacle to getting here is the cost associated. The ferry is probably the most expensive in the world and flying is even more so. Expect to pay through the nose if you bring a car. The other thing I was not fully expecting was how much driving would be involved to get from one end of the island to the other. It is a huge island and can take two hours to go from east to west. Despite all of this, I think we saw some of the most spectacular sights we have seen and the most Australian animals since getting here (alive and dead).

Oyster shop

We stayed in American River, which is named after Americans sealers who came to Kangaroo Island in the 1800s. We got a free stay at Kay Mathie's shack which was just around the corner from the Oyster Farm Shop. It had the best oysters we've had since being in Australia. Even the kids gobbled them up with some kilpatrick sauce.

American River

American River is also where there is a huge pelican conservation area. The kids loved walking right up to some gigantic pelicans and seeing them flying overhead.
One thing we noticed right away was how quiet it was here. There was very little traffic and not a lot of tourists. The silence was almost alarming as you hear every step you take.

On our first day we took the kids and visited seal bay. We sort of saw some seals with binoculars on seal rock off of Phillip island in Melbourne, but this was a whole other level of closeness with wildlife.

Seal bay is not a zoo, but a conservation area and these were wild animals that we were walking between. Our guide took us right down to the beach and warned us not to get between the bull seals and the water as she has been charged a few times. We saw mothers suckling their young and seals playing in the water. It was like being in an episode of National Geographic. Needless to say we stayed here most of the morning before heading back for some oysters for lunch.

We then took a drive out to Vivonne bay, which was spectacular. The colour of the water here is just so blue that it is amazing. We were the only people here and walked around just in awe of the beauty of it all.

Henry and Miles are probably thinking beaches are normal now, so I'm curious to see how they react when we go back to Alberta.

Our next day we went on an epic adventure around the entire island. We started off driving to Stokes Bay which was recommended to us by our other Canadian friends here as well as the locals. (Thanks John, Sheryl, Libby and Brad). Stokes Bay is like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. It starts off looking like a rocky beach, but you can make your way between some giant rocks and a cave-like area to emerge onto an almost untouched beach with some very interesting creatures in the rock pools.

Drive to Stokes Bay

Some other tourists finally showed up

Really big orange crab!

Our next stop, and believe me when I say my car deserves an award, was Flinders Chase National Park where we had lunch and saw even more spectacular sights. We stopped first at the platypus swimming holes and were really hoping to catch a glimpse of one as we had been lucky earlier finding several echidnas and goannas on the side of the road. We stayed for a while, but apparently platypuses are the most elusive of Australian fauna.

We continued on and saw the real sights to behold -- The Admiral's arch and the Remarkable rocks. (These are famous icons in South Australia. I realized afterwards that Cathy has pictures in her kitchen of these two places.

The Admiral's arch was more amazing than any of the stops on the Great Ocean Road. It is a huge limestone cavern carved out by sea and wind, but it also had (at least when we were there) heaps of seals frolicking about in the water and on the rocks. We stayed and watched them swim around and fight with each other.

The Admiral's arch

This was probably the highlight of Kangaroo island for me!

Our next stop was on to the Remarkable Rocks which are large granite rocks that have been slowly weathered over 500 million years of erosion. We had a fantastic day of weather so these were a nice end of the day photo and climbing opportunity. They boys loved hiding in the little caves and holes in the rocks.

Our next day was our last and we promised the boys we would take them back to Vivonne Bay so we could do something we definitely can't do in Canada -- sand tobogganing! We went to Little Sahara, which is a large sand dune area where you can take sleds and slide them down! We needed to put wax on the bottom to make them slippery, but it was very similar to sliding down snow without the cold. Lots of sand in your shoes at the end though and Henry took a header and face-planted at one point.

I have one week of school left and then my exchange is over! I'm currently packing up for New Zealand... lots of thoughts and emotions. Not sure whether I'm dealing with them overly well, but we'll see how things go next week.