September 28, 2005
Kangaroo Island
As always, I'm behind on my blog posting, so I'm going to post out of order. I'll come back to the southern part of the Stuart Highway, because you have to hear about Coober Pedy and Andamooka, but I've got Kangaroo Island on my mind at the moment, so that's what you get.
Kangaroo Island is an island about an hour south of Adelaide, the largest city and capital of South Australia. Australia's third largest island, it's home to several thousand people and several hundred thousand animals. For us, the people were incidental. We were there for the animals.
We took a three day tour with Campwild Adventures, a backpacker tour operator. The first day consisted of a hike in the Adelaide hills, up to the top of the creatively named "Mt. Lofty" past "First Creek" and "Second Creek". The Australians seem to be in need of some more creative naming. Apparently, First Creek was formerly called Fern Creek, but the ferns were all stolen by hikers. The hike to the top was pretty, but nothing breathtaking, especially after the sites we'd seen in Kakadu. From there, we stopped briefly in the Clare Valley at a town called Handorf, a town populated by German settlers which, according to the Germans on our trip, looked remarkably English and not very German. From Handorf, we drove down the coast to the cape, where we boarded our 'charter boat' -- a small cabin cruiser -- for a ride across to Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo Island itself is narrow and long, about 150 km from tip to tip. It's got a variety of ecosystems and, given that it's been largely unpopulated, has a plethora of animals. There are maybe 4,000 people -- and 1.1 million sheep. Unlike mainland South Australia, Aboriginals haven't lived on the island in thousands of years. It was unpopulated when 'discovered' by Matthew Flinders in the early 1800s. Since there, there have been some settlements, most of which run cattle and sheep, and a lot of the island has been reserved as national park.
We arrived late in the evening on Saturday night and, after a quick stop in a one-block town, headed to our evening resting place, an eco-hut across the island. The ecohut was a cabin made to be environmentally friendly. The toilets were composting, the water was heated by solar power, and there was minimal impact on the environment when it was built. The cabin was also bloody cold.
The next morning, we took off for our day of exploration. First stop was back to the bay to pick up a couple of additional tour passengers off the ferry, then over to a eucalyptus oil distillery called Emu Ridge. From there, we had a quick lunch, and made the first stop of the trip that really interested me: the Australian Sea Lion colony. The Australian Sea Lions live at Seal Bay and use it as a resting place when they aren't out hunting for food. There are relatively few left in the world, as they were heavily hunted for their fat and skins. They population numbers are still declining, largely due to a slow reproductive cycle and an 17.6 month gestation period.
Their resting beach is a protected area, but visitors are allowed to walk through the sea lions with a guide. We trekked down to the beach, pausing every few feet look over the railing and see the smaller sea lions, who had climbed up into the sand dunes to keep warm. On the beach, the sea lions where everywhere. They're beautiful hunkering creatures that, to our eye, look quite lazy. They roll along the beach a couple of feet, then plop down and rest. Apparently they can rest for days on end, saving up their energy before they go out fishing.
We holed up at Seal Bay for longer than we were supposed to and, from there, headed over to some sand dunes in the middle of the island to go "sand boarding", which is basically a form of snow boarding just on sand. In my case, I ended up quite sandy and slightly bruised, but it was worth the trip.
Our final stop before dinner was to go see the Koalas. Koalas aren't native to Kangaroo Island, but were introduced as a way of protecting them. Unfortunately, they also have no natural enemies on the island, and are eating themselves out of house and home. We visited the outskirts of a conversation park, which is lined with the Gum Eucalyptus trees the Koalas like to eat. They are, just like they look in pictures, some of the most adorable creatures you've ever seen. They plop up in the tree, eating the leaves, and looking exactly like a stuff teddy bear. (They're not, incidentally, related to bears at all). In fact, we even saw one with a baby in its pouch.
We headed to our next camp, a "rustic farmhouse", an old stone building turned into a dormitory, stopping along the way to collect firewood. The camp was at the back of an enormous farm and we drove through fields of kangaroos and wallabies to reach it. After a quick dinner, we headed out to search for penguins.
Driving through the farm after dark, what looked like hundred of wallabies and kangaroos came into view. They were everywhere; we had to move to avoid hitting them several times. We came across two kangaroos boxing, a ritual they perform for mating rights. They apparently fight until one backs down; the winner gets the girl, just like in a 1950s-style high school movie. And they're vicious. We watched as the kangaroos punched each other for a bit and, when they appeared to be getting no where, saw the bigger one lift his legs and kick, sending his competitor flying several feet away.
From there, we drove on to the penguins. South Australia has a breed of small penguin that resides in the cliffs. They're very small and very skiddish, but using a flashlight with a red filter, we managed to see about a dozen of them hiding in the cliffs. They're fascinating little creatures, and they really do waddle.
The next morning, we headed off to see the New Zealand Fur Seals, another breed of seal the lives on the island. They're smaller than the Australian Sea Lions and much feistier. They're continually jumping in and out of their swimming holes, climbing rocks, and play fighting. They're immensely entertaining. They survived extinction in the area because one of their sleeping grounds was across rocky waters that the sealers couldn't reach, although given how fast they move, it wouldn't surprise me if a few of them managed to outrun (or outsmart) the sealers, too.
From there, we visited the Remarkable Rocks, another original name from the Australians, a rock formation out on the edge of a cliff, and headed back to the tourist center. That afternoon, we had a lunch of burritos made from kangaroo meat (which, incidentally, tastes a lot like venison), then went for a brief nature hike before heading back to catch our boat across and returning to Adelaide.
Zoe and I spent a few more days in Adelaide, then rented a car and headed out on the Great Ocean Road, where we got to hang out in seaside towns, eat fresh fish, and watch whales. More to come on that soon, though.
On a blogging-related note, do you all prefer when I put pictures into the post or when I link to the whole set of them?
Posted by aglazer at September 28, 2005 09:05 PM | TrackBack
