Not just for seeing Kangaroos! (Kangaroo Island)

Member Name: jenniferjain

Product:	Kangaroo Island
Date:	12/01/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing wildlife viewing opportunities, beautiful scenery, uncrowded

Disadvantages: Expensive

Kangaroo Island is located southwest of Adelaide in South Australia. Although it's Australia's third largest island (after Tasmania and Melville Island) it's not that big. Often quoted as being seven times the size of Singapore, it's about 4.4 km square. It is accessible by ferry (for cars and passengers) or by air. We chose to travel by air using Regional Express, and then rented a car on the island for the duration of our stay.

Some information which others might find useful - at first glance it seems a lot more expensive to fly to the island than go by ferry. But we found that hire car companies on the mainland will not allow you to take their hire cars to the island, either because of the high chance of being involved in a collision with wildlife, or because of the fact that many of the roads are not fully paved. So in order to get to the ferry terminal you have to arrange a bus transfer from Adelaide anyway. The ferry journey is also quite long, and we had heard that many people get seasick. The flight is very short (about 20 minutes) and car hire is available at the terminal in Kingscote.

The main reason to visit Kangaroo Island is for its wildlife, and we were astounded at the abundance. It was our first real stop on our trip to Australia, and it wasn't really until we had travelled elsewhere that we realised just how spoilt we had been! Native creatures are quite literally everywhere, I think that it would be impossible to visit and not see anything. Despite its name, kangaroos are not the main creature that you can see. We saw seals, goannas (huge lizards), echidnas (huge hedgehogs), wallabies, koalas, even a black tiger snake, as well as kangaroos.

Accommodation

What really made our trip was where we stayed. We had a lovely self-contained cabin at the Western Kangaroo Island Caravan Park. It was very comfortable and had all the facilities that we needed. The best thing about it was its location. There was a short walking track leading from the campsite to a wooded area which was labelled a koala walk. We did the walk at different times during the day and saw not just koalas but all sorts of wildlife, really close up! There was a friendly koala in the tree that you could stand right next to (the staff at the campsite were even feeding and touching it, although we didn't really like to).

Dining

Because we didn't stay in one of the towns, our dining options were very limited, to the extent of being non-existent. We were self-catered, so bought supplies from the campsite
shop and cooked up some pasta and sauce. If we were to stay in the same place again, we would know to buy food at the supermarket in Kingscote before we left, as the selection in the shop was limited and very expensive. There was a restaurant available at a hotel which wasn't too far away, but our car hire didn't cover us for driving in the dark so we would have had to have eaten very early! Kingscote though has a range of cafes and restaurants.

Travelling around the island

We used our hire car to travel around. The roads around the island fall into two categories- paved and unpaved - although the paved roads are not what we would describe as paved! They are covered in loose grit (I think it's so that they don't freeze over in winter). We were allowed to drive our hire car on these types of roads which surprised us, as it didn't really feel safe! But the unpaved roads were only allowed with a four wheel drive, which did mean that we couldn't visit every corner of the island, in fact it ruled out a whole section. But we still found plenty to see! As I mentioned above, we weren't insured to drive in the dark. This is probably a rule worth keeping to, as the wildlife really is so abundant that it would be impossible not to hit something, which would have been extremely distressing.

Activities

There is so much to see on the island that I can't possibly mention it all, so I will just mention our highlights. There is a link to download the Visitor Guide at the website below, and we basically printed this out and tried to see as much as we could in a sensible route around the island.

At Seal Bay we took part in a guided tour of the beach (the only way to see it) where you can see Australian sea-lions sleeping on the beach, and cubs playing in the surf and chasing the seagulls. This was an amazing experience, the guides made sure that we kept to an appropriate distance, which was still extremely close.

Flinders Chase National Park covers a large percentage of the island, although there isn't really a clear distinction between it and the rest of the island because the whole place is
like one big national park. A highlight here was the Remarkable Rocks - a spectacular rock formation from volcanic rocks. There are a number of walks to choose from in the park, and we chose the Snake Lagoon Hike which turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire holiday. It was deserted, we saw only one other couple. The walk began through forest, then across a river and down a rocky path to a beautiful sandy beach which was really peaceful. Then on the way back we passed five or six goannas by the path, digging little holes. They were huge, and rather intimidating until we realised that they didn't care about us!

We spent our last evening in Kingscote, one of the main towns. Here we joined the evening penguin tour. The Little Penguins spend the day out at sea, then in the evening they come in to their burrows on the coast. With the guide, you stand in wait on the beach and watch as they form a procession past you. The guides carry lights with red filters that the penguins can't see but allow you to watch them, and if you keep still and quiet they walk right past you! It was fascinating. The guide also shone the light into the burrows, and you could see the little chicks.

Another part to this tour was a short stargazing talk. It was truly incredible how many stars were visible in the sky. You are so familiar with the few stars that we see here in the Northern Hemisphere that it feels disorientating when the constellations are all different. I don't know if more stars really are visible from the Southern Hemisphere, or whether it is just the lack of light pollution. I even saw a shooting star.

Summary

Kangaroo Island really is an amazing place to visit, and in my opinion is an essential part of a trip to this part of the world. Perhaps the cost and effort involved might put people off, but it is truly worth it hundreds of times over.

http://www.tourkangarooisland.com.au/ - official site of the South Australia Tourism
Commission and essential for planning a visit.

Summary: I really couldn't recommend this place more