Kangaroo Island Wonders, day 2
We decided to sleep till 9am (they stop serving breakfast at 9am, can you believe it ? No sense of decent timing for tourists, esp. for those coming from Perth - i.e. 6:30am in our heads, no thanks) and then went out to explore the nearest beaches. We even climbed the top of Prospect Hill (don't bother, if you ever got there, it's 20mns up and down and the views aren't great). The beaches have got more seedweed here and are more rocky... the water colour is also not quite as amazing as off the mainland as it can be quite overcast. The temperature is not amazingly warm for Australia and we tend to wear our fleeces every day - NOT quite what we had in mind when we set off... If anyone tells me that November is the warmest month in the UK for years (as October was), I shall become very annoyed ! :)
The other thing to bear in mind when you travel around Kangaroo Island is that very few places serve food at all. So, unless you are prepared with a sandwich (and we were not), chances are you will eat lunch at around 2pm or later. Sandwiches are also massively over-priced so this holiday is ending up costing us an arm and a leg (+ national park entrance fees everywhere you go... some work with an 'honesty box' but since we are honest girls, we bother... this is when I know the French in me has died down a bit, 25 years ago, I would have probably thought 'what the heck!'... but being older and wiser.. and 'Britter', I know now that our funds will be used to improve the parks and protect wildlife and so will not be wasted).
Anyway... we even tried to go to Murray's Lagoon, recommended by everybody for having up to 1,000 different species of birds... and what did we see ? Next to nothing... the little blue wren and that's about it. The lagoon was... no more. It had disappeared in the drought. Unfortunately for us, we had picked one of the worst years... and this is not even summer. They are all desperate for the rain. We feel sorry for all the animals too... God knows where they can get their fresh water supplies (penguins, I forgot to say, are ok because they have an internal system whereby they can squeeze the salt out, but no other creature is as fortunate).
The highlight of our day was therefore to spot 2 echidnas on the side of the road (alive!), they are so cute. They are the equivalent of our hedgehogs but have a longer nose and beige and black spikes (to match the colour of the bush, obviously). We were told they were quite rare but we've seen quite a few - again, Janet has become our 'Edchina Spotter Extraordinaire' as she has a knack for spotting them. She says that when you drive you constantly scan and look for different textures. She even avoided running over a kangaroo that decided to cross the road just in front of us. She is super careful. We saw about 25 carcasses for 1 live roo which was a bleak reminder that not everybody cares as much as we do...
We then went to Seal Bay where they have the Australian seals, golden and white colour (when dry). We were allowed to walk on the beach with a guide and get as close as about 5 meters away, which wasn't bad with my zoom. They looked really gorgeous, especially the little pups (about 6 months old). They constantly wanted to suckle. Females get pregnant every 17 months and do all the work - the guys just plant the seed ! Disgraceful really.... when they come out of the water they tend to roll in the sand endlessly to warm up and to try to get rid of sea lices.
Before settlers arrived there were 1.5 million seals off the Australian coast, but their numbers have now dropped to 10,000. Back in 1802 a French captain, Nicolas Baudin was already writing to the governor of NSW to beg him to issue an order to protect the seals as he had noticed the numbers were declining rapidly already. As one quote read near the Seal Centre 'We repay our debt to the ocean by replacing 1 ton of fish with 10 gallons of crude oil and 900 tons of rubbish'.
There was also a sad write up about how the first settlers kidnapped Aboriginal women to survive, since they knew where to find water, food, how to cook the food, how to fish, etc. and they used them as sexual partners to raise their children and 'thanked them with cruelty'. This really upset me all day. I just cannot imagine what these poor women must have endured.. and I guess their husbands got slaughtered if they stood in the way.
After that, we drove over to the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Retreat (which, thankfully, was not damaged by the fires of 2 days ago) and just enjoyed watching the many wallabies that come over to interact with children and anyone who cares to feed them. They have up to 25 of them.. and you can have your dinner (gorgeous food) on a wooden terrace outside. The wallabies sometimes come right to your table to beg for food. We even saw 2 possums before going to bed.
For a first day, we've done really well... the next day was going to get even better still ! :)
We decided to sleep till 9am (they stop serving breakfast at 9am, can you believe it ? No sense of decent timing for tourists, esp. for those coming from Perth - i.e. 6:30am in our heads, no thanks) and then went out to explore the nearest beaches. We even climbed the top of Prospect Hill (don't bother, if you ever got there, it's 20mns up and down and the views aren't great). The beaches have got more seedweed here and are more rocky... the water colour is also not quite as amazing as off the mainland as it can be quite overcast. The temperature is not amazingly warm for Australia and we tend to wear our fleeces every day - NOT quite what we had in mind when we set off... If anyone tells me that November is the warmest month in the UK for years (as October was), I shall become very annoyed ! :)
The other thing to bear in mind when you travel around Kangaroo Island is that very few places serve food at all. So, unless you are prepared with a sandwich (and we were not), chances are you will eat lunch at around 2pm or later. Sandwiches are also massively over-priced so this holiday is ending up costing us an arm and a leg (+ national park entrance fees everywhere you go... some work with an 'honesty box' but since we are honest girls, we bother... this is when I know the French in me has died down a bit, 25 years ago, I would have probably thought 'what the heck!'... but being older and wiser.. and 'Britter', I know now that our funds will be used to improve the parks and protect wildlife and so will not be wasted).
Anyway... we even tried to go to Murray's Lagoon, recommended by everybody for having up to 1,000 different species of birds... and what did we see ? Next to nothing... the little blue wren and that's about it. The lagoon was... no more. It had disappeared in the drought. Unfortunately for us, we had picked one of the worst years... and this is not even summer. They are all desperate for the rain. We feel sorry for all the animals too... God knows where they can get their fresh water supplies (penguins, I forgot to say, are ok because they have an internal system whereby they can squeeze the salt out, but no other creature is as fortunate).
The highlight of our day was therefore to spot 2 echidnas on the side of the road (alive!), they are so cute. They are the equivalent of our hedgehogs but have a longer nose and beige and black spikes (to match the colour of the bush, obviously). We were told they were quite rare but we've seen quite a few - again, Janet has become our 'Edchina Spotter Extraordinaire' as she has a knack for spotting them. She says that when you drive you constantly scan and look for different textures. She even avoided running over a kangaroo that decided to cross the road just in front of us. She is super careful. We saw about 25 carcasses for 1 live roo which was a bleak reminder that not everybody cares as much as we do...
We then went to Seal Bay where they have the Australian seals, golden and white colour (when dry). We were allowed to walk on the beach with a guide and get as close as about 5 meters away, which wasn't bad with my zoom. They looked really gorgeous, especially the little pups (about 6 months old). They constantly wanted to suckle. Females get pregnant every 17 months and do all the work - the guys just plant the seed ! Disgraceful really.... when they come out of the water they tend to roll in the sand endlessly to warm up and to try to get rid of sea lices.
Before settlers arrived there were 1.5 million seals off the Australian coast, but their numbers have now dropped to 10,000. Back in 1802 a French captain, Nicolas Baudin was already writing to the governor of NSW to beg him to issue an order to protect the seals as he had noticed the numbers were declining rapidly already. As one quote read near the Seal Centre 'We repay our debt to the ocean by replacing 1 ton of fish with 10 gallons of crude oil and 900 tons of rubbish'.
There was also a sad write up about how the first settlers kidnapped Aboriginal women to survive, since they knew where to find water, food, how to cook the food, how to fish, etc. and they used them as sexual partners to raise their children and 'thanked them with cruelty'. This really upset me all day. I just cannot imagine what these poor women must have endured.. and I guess their husbands got slaughtered if they stood in the way.
After that, we drove over to the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Retreat (which, thankfully, was not damaged by the fires of 2 days ago) and just enjoyed watching the many wallabies that come over to interact with children and anyone who cares to feed them. They have up to 25 of them.. and you can have your dinner (gorgeous food) on a wooden terrace outside. The wallabies sometimes come right to your table to beg for food. We even saw 2 possums before going to bed.
For a first day, we've done really well... the next day was going to get even better still ! :)
posted by Sylvie at 7:44 AM
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