Chapter 16 - Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island has been voted 2nd must-see destination in 2024 by Lonely Planet. It’s located just south of Adelaide but is not easy to get to. We’ve wanted to come here even on previously planned trips because we read that it had the most varied wildlife in Australia. Also, “Flinders Chase Park was established in 1919, as a bit of a sanctuary for those suffering from ‘brain fag’” We are not sure we qualify, but this did make it sound like a special place. We decided to forego the long ferry route and fly instead.

Kangaroo Island Day 1

We arrived at the Adelaide Airport and apparently were dropped off by mistake at the aviation museum. Oh wait! That’s actually our prop plane to Kangaroo Island only a hop, skip and a jump away!

After a windy, bumpy ride we had another adventure waiting- our first attempt at driving on the wrong—um— left side of the road. No signs warning us that Aussies drive left this time. But our rental agent did warn us to be very careful when driving early mornings and dusk. He told us that in the 11 years he’s worked on KI, he’s only dealt with one accident involving two drivers. He’s dealt with over 2000 driver-animal accidents.

On our way out of the airport, we saw our first kangaroo! Dead on the side of the road! :( It drove his words home!

We drove through the beautiful countryside past a gazzillion sheep and found our way to Emu Bay Holiday Homes, cute cottages facing the most awesome view of the Australian Bight, part of the Indian Ocean.

The property is filled with flower gardens and, in fact, right in front of our cottage is the largest geranium we’ve ever seen! There are birdbaths everywhere which attract dozens of gorgeous birds from the tiniest wrens to large parrots.

Our hosts left a book of directions which included instructions on how to find wild kangaroos. They often hang out most afternoons either in the paddock across from the entrance to the property or a ways down a gravel road called appropriately Wallaby Run. And that’s where we found them—our first live and hopping kangaroos.

Emu Bay is a very remote community on a pretty remote island and there are no restaurants serving dinner nearby. So we were advised to bring in food as the cottage was fully outfitted for cooking. Well, we hadn’t cooked yet and weren’t about to start so we followed the advice of our Gemtree hostess who had been to Emu Bay last summer. She told us to visit Adelaide Central market and stock up on cheeses, breads, and what not and that’s exactly what we did. Our first dinner in consisted of an excellent Brie-like soft cheese, an Australian cheddar, sourdough, some airline-supplied olives, apples, honey, and a white-chocolate Kitkat for dessert.
With sparkling mineral water on the rocks.
Exquisite!

Day 2

There is a working lavender farm that does serve breakfast and lunch and it’s only a few km away. Our host urged us to try their giant scone and so we did. It was amazing even to those of us that don’t like the scones in the US. We made it a staple throughout our visit.

Because our cottage is self-catering, a trip to the main city, Kingscote, was in order. We stocked up again on fruit and cheese and tossed in a hummus for our next dinner. Then we walked down to the ocean and looked out on a marvelous vista.

It was windy on the shore! So we made a quick retreat to our car for a ride to the Kangaroo Island Wild Animal park located quite a ways inland.

Kangaroo Island Wild Animal park is not your typical zoo, although it seemed like one. It was built as a rescue center to take in the animals injured and orphaned by the wildfires of 2019-20.

We got to feed kangaroos and wallabies and even hold a koala! The kangaroos were hungry and gave you a pleading look for more food if you were a little slow dispensing it.

522,000 acres burned in the wildfires in December 2019, killing over 25000 koalas. This Koala’s name is Pearl and she was found as a baby with burns over most of her fur. It took a year and a half before her coat was finally fully grown in. Isn’t she beautiful now!

Tomorrow we will look for wild koalas on our property as our host left instructions for finding them in the tall gum trees that surround us.

Day 3

After another yummy breakfast of granola and eggs at the Lavender Farm, we drove down to the beach where we were able to drive right on the hard pack sand for about 4 km. The seagulls look and act just like our gulls, and they’re of a type called noddies.

Then we went on an expedition to view each and every gum tree on the property until we found the elusive resident koalas. We were told at the wild animal park that koalas like to sit really high up and gum trees are tall. We looked all afternoon using binoculars with no luck.

Well, at least we got to see them up close at the park. We even heard their kind of pig-like grunting as these koalas were much more active in cooler weather than they were in the tropics.

We went back to wallaby run to hunt more kangaroos, but it was earlier in the day and we didn’t have much luck. We did see two running, or rather hopping fast ahead of us but they quickly hopped out of sight behind a ridge where we couldn’t drive. So we decided to try one last time later on after dinner in the paddock across from the entrance to our cottage.

On our way down, we heard a familiar grunting sound! Koalas!! And quite close. We ran over to the nearest tree, which was not a gum, but rather quite small, yet there he was. How cool to see a big koala looking down at us!

We continued walking down a dirt path in the paddock and there at the end were two kangaroos eating grasses across the field. One looked much smaller and either laid down or went into mommy’s pouch. The big one looked big so we didn’t want to get too close. We were really pushing our camera’s zoom here!

We saw another animal way in the distance so we took its picture. We later tentatively identified it as a wombat since they too are said to be common around Emu Bay.

All in all this turned out to be a great day for spotting Australian wildlife in the wild!

Day 4

We’re checking out of Emu Bay Holiday Homes after a wonderful, restful three days. Look who’s saying goodby at the gate!

Following is a gallery of birds seen on Kangaroo Island.