Kangaroo Island - last day
Hi again,
Sorry for the delay in continuing this journal but time has been rather hectic and internet access rather scarce. But thanks for all your most welcome emails...
We didn't see as much as we'd hoped on our nocturnal tour but found out lots of fascinating facts about the various animals - which I will relate in a few days, no time right now. But the thing that did spoil it for me was that I was dreadfully cold the whole time. I was wearing pretty much everything I had in my suitcase and it wasn't enough. We were told it had dropped to 6C which is probably no worse in England. I was gutted. We were told that Spring had been inexistent on the island, they had had winter temperature and the drought of summers! Worst possible timing. We did see a mother koala cuddling her little joey and they both looked SO cute. He was the smallest one we'd seen. And didn't even seem very scared at all. They were quite low down too which was very rare as usually mothers go quite high up for safety.
Anyway, on our last day we went back to the Visitor's Centre and saw 'Dafty' again. We call him Dafty because he seems to be the only kangaroo on the island who stands by road side and who does the 'day shift' - and begs food to visitors when all others are asleep. Saying that, he did smell our roo food a mile off so maybe he wasn't so daft after all. We had grown very attached to Dafty and still miss him. He looked a bit unkempt but was so friendly - and quite soft to touch.
We went on the Snake Lagoon walk and... there was nothing to see either. The river had vanished too. Instead of gorgeous streams we were faced with rocks and stones... we turned back 3/4 of the way as it seemed pointless to carry on. Another disappointment.
We then went to the caravan park where they also have wild koalas and only managed to see a handful, but it still felt like a game. I managed to spot a mother & joey again, and she ended up so high up on the tree (they are good climber) and then went out on a limb to reach some young eucalyptus leaves... boy, Janet & I couldn't watch. They were both swinging in the wind like there's no tomorrow, we were willing the little on to hold tight onto mummy's back... phew. Torture to watch. But they were fine. Must be used to it... what do we humans know, hey?
We also went back to the koala sanctuary hoping to see the mother & joey again low down but she had moved up by then so we never got to take any more decent shots. In fact, we only found about 5 koalas out of 20 this time, so it shows that every day is a new day.
The rest of the day is a bit of blur because I ended up with a migraine so spent the whole day in the car just trying to relax and get better. We skipped the animal park (where you have your photo taken with them) since we had already done lots of that outside enclosures - i.e. much more special.
By 5pm we got to Kingscote and found out the pelican feeding was going to be on. So we made a point to see that. It was actually great fun. The guy was so used to them and vice versa, he could really wind them up big time. He entertained us for 15mns and there must have been about 45 pelicans watching his every move. Quite something. They are beautiful birds and glide quite gracefully when they land on water.
We ended up in Penneshaw for dinner, in the same place where we'd stayed before and made a point to go back to see the Little Pinguins as they are SO very very cute. It was like our 'best of' day when we went back to do all our favourite things. It was cold again, which did spoil some of the enjoyment, so after 30mns we felt we had had enough.
The next day was nothing special at all as we travelled 12 hours to go from Kangaroo Island to MacKay (in Queensland). We started on the 8:30am ferry, then had a 2 hour coach drive to Adelaide, went to town for lunch again, back on a plane to Brisbane, then to another, and then on a cab to get to our hotel 30mns late (our plane was late coming in). We were quite shattered on arrival, but at least the weather felt warmer (24C at night instead of 8-10C, thank God).
But it's always worth it in the end to get to more incredible places... and Australia has certainly no shortage of them at all....
Hi again,
Sorry for the delay in continuing this journal but time has been rather hectic and internet access rather scarce. But thanks for all your most welcome emails...
We didn't see as much as we'd hoped on our nocturnal tour but found out lots of fascinating facts about the various animals - which I will relate in a few days, no time right now. But the thing that did spoil it for me was that I was dreadfully cold the whole time. I was wearing pretty much everything I had in my suitcase and it wasn't enough. We were told it had dropped to 6C which is probably no worse in England. I was gutted. We were told that Spring had been inexistent on the island, they had had winter temperature and the drought of summers! Worst possible timing. We did see a mother koala cuddling her little joey and they both looked SO cute. He was the smallest one we'd seen. And didn't even seem very scared at all. They were quite low down too which was very rare as usually mothers go quite high up for safety.
Anyway, on our last day we went back to the Visitor's Centre and saw 'Dafty' again. We call him Dafty because he seems to be the only kangaroo on the island who stands by road side and who does the 'day shift' - and begs food to visitors when all others are asleep. Saying that, he did smell our roo food a mile off so maybe he wasn't so daft after all. We had grown very attached to Dafty and still miss him. He looked a bit unkempt but was so friendly - and quite soft to touch.
We went on the Snake Lagoon walk and... there was nothing to see either. The river had vanished too. Instead of gorgeous streams we were faced with rocks and stones... we turned back 3/4 of the way as it seemed pointless to carry on. Another disappointment.
We then went to the caravan park where they also have wild koalas and only managed to see a handful, but it still felt like a game. I managed to spot a mother & joey again, and she ended up so high up on the tree (they are good climber) and then went out on a limb to reach some young eucalyptus leaves... boy, Janet & I couldn't watch. They were both swinging in the wind like there's no tomorrow, we were willing the little on to hold tight onto mummy's back... phew. Torture to watch. But they were fine. Must be used to it... what do we humans know, hey?
We also went back to the koala sanctuary hoping to see the mother & joey again low down but she had moved up by then so we never got to take any more decent shots. In fact, we only found about 5 koalas out of 20 this time, so it shows that every day is a new day.
The rest of the day is a bit of blur because I ended up with a migraine so spent the whole day in the car just trying to relax and get better. We skipped the animal park (where you have your photo taken with them) since we had already done lots of that outside enclosures - i.e. much more special.
By 5pm we got to Kingscote and found out the pelican feeding was going to be on. So we made a point to see that. It was actually great fun. The guy was so used to them and vice versa, he could really wind them up big time. He entertained us for 15mns and there must have been about 45 pelicans watching his every move. Quite something. They are beautiful birds and glide quite gracefully when they land on water.
We ended up in Penneshaw for dinner, in the same place where we'd stayed before and made a point to go back to see the Little Pinguins as they are SO very very cute. It was like our 'best of' day when we went back to do all our favourite things. It was cold again, which did spoil some of the enjoyment, so after 30mns we felt we had had enough.
The next day was nothing special at all as we travelled 12 hours to go from Kangaroo Island to MacKay (in Queensland). We started on the 8:30am ferry, then had a 2 hour coach drive to Adelaide, went to town for lunch again, back on a plane to Brisbane, then to another, and then on a cab to get to our hotel 30mns late (our plane was late coming in). We were quite shattered on arrival, but at least the weather felt warmer (24C at night instead of 8-10C, thank God).
But it's always worth it in the end to get to more incredible places... and Australia has certainly no shortage of them at all....
posted by Sylvie at 11:41 AM
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