Friday afternoon, Justine and I took the bus down to Cape Jervis and then the ferry across to Kangaroo Island. Nice trip - about 2hrs on the bus and 45min on the ferry. We stayed in the Penneshaw YHA, about a 2min walk from the ferry terminal. Penneshaw’s one of the towns on Kangaroo Island and has a population of about 400. The main town, Kinscote, is nearby, and has about 1000 people. The total island population is about 4000, with a population density of about 1 person per square kilometre. We got into the hostel at 7ish, I think, and that left us with just enough time to grab some food for breakfast at the grocery store and dinner from the hotel nearby. We thought about going to see penguins that night, but it was raining a bit (finally!) so we played a little rummy instead.
Saturday morning, the tour bus came at 8:30 to get us and three others. It was a nice little bus with a friendly and very knowledgeable driver. Since we didn’t have anyone to pick up until 10am at the airport, we made an unscheduled stop at a hill somewhere. There were 511 stairs to climb, but the view from the top was quite amazing! The bus left from there to the airport. We had just enough time to grab a cup of coffee before the plane landed. We picked up three more people (all retired North Americans down to KI for the day) then headed off on an hour long drive to Flinder’s Chase National Park off at the west end of the island.
On the drive, the tour guide/driver had lots of fascinating things to say about the natural history of the region and what we were driving past. He had strong opinions about the need for proscribed burns to control the bush fires on the island. He also had lots to say about the reasons why KI has so many endemic (found only on the island and no where else) species of plants and animals. Basically, the island, like much of Australia, has soil that is quite deficient in many trace minerals like selenium. This meant that farming of sheep and cows continuously failed throughout the 19th century. By the time agriculture scientists figured out why, much of the island had already been designated as national parkland. One third of the island is national park, and 47% of it is covered in native bush plants. Amazing! Controlled burning of all this precious bushland is, while controversial, necessary to protect all the endemic species on the island.
We’d learned a lot by the time we made it to the Flinder’s Chase NP Visitors’ Centre. There were a few educational displays here, but not much else. We moved on to the Remarkable Rocks nearby. Justine and I weren’t expecting much, just some dull rock formations. Turns out, though, they really are remarkable. These ancient granite boulders are slowly being eroded and making theses very impressive formations perched on the headlands.
Next to the rocks, there’s also an amazing beach, with lovely sands and blue blue water. As far as we could see, though, the only way to access this beach is by boat. Which of course just made us want to get there even more.
A short drive and we were at the Admiral’s Arch. There’s an interesting rock formation here, but it really takes a back seat to the huge colony of New Zealand Fur Seals.
These aren’t ‘true seals’ like the harbour seals in Vancouver as fur seals have little tiny ears. They’re more closely related to walruses and sea lions, actually. They were quite smelly and noisy, but there were lots of them to see! In another NZ connection, there was a lot of tussock grasses around. In NZ, these grasses are everywhere, all over the hills and seasides. And they’re actually supposed to be that brownish colour.
From the arch, we went to the farm for lunch. The lunch shelter was full of another big tour so, instead, we went to see koalas first.
Aww, so cute!
Around the farm, we also found wallabees and echidnas.
A lovely lunch was followed by a bit of a drive and then, my favourite part, the Australian Sea Lions! This is the rarest pinniped (seals and such) species in the world. They’re only found around the south coast of Australia and for many reasons, are having a steady population decline. We were at the third largest colony, with about 700-800 sea lions. It’s the most accessible colony, however, and we really got close to the sea lions. A parks guide met us and took us right onto the beach with the sea lions. We kept about 5m back, but definitely got to see them all interacting and surfing the waves.
The guide at the seal bay was really knowledgeable and I had a chance to chat with him a bit about why the sea lions are in decline and some of the research that’s going on nearby. I’d write about it but I want to do a bit more reading so maybe at the end of the week.
After a dinner of canned chilli, we headed across the street to the penguin centre for a penguin walk. The little blue penguins, at this time of year, are starting to come onto land for the breeding season. The males are choosing and sprucing up their burrows and the females will then come and find their mate. We didn’t see many penguins walking around but there were many males staking out their burrows, and a few penguins already paired up. Penguins generally go with the same mate each season, but if one of them dies over the year, they have no problems choosing a new mate. No flash photos or torches were allowed on the tour, so we didn’t bring our cameras. At the end, though, quite a few penguins were around the visitors’ centre (and the lights!), so Justine dashed back to take a photo! I don’t have it just yet, but I’ll get a copy from Justine asap.
The ferry back on Sunday morning was much more rough than on Friday, even though the weather was nicer than Friday. There were major swells across and, well, I’m very glad I took some gravol. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except that we saw a bunch of kangaroos from the bus!
Overall it was a fantastic trip. I really learned a lot about the island and its animals and plants. And it was so great to have Justine along, too!
