A Great Trip to Australia

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Kangaroo Island

9 May 2019 Thursday

Today was rather a waste because we had to return the car a few hours before our flight to Kangaroo Island, so we just cooled in the Adelaide airport until the 20 minute flight. We were met at the Kingscote Airport and taken to our hotel, the Ozone, which surely is a strange name for a hotel. Our accommodations included both breakfast and dinner, the latter being a set menu of three courses and three selections in each course. The dinners both nights were surprisingly good, the breakfasts the same routine we've had often in Australia which have been the same as we had in New Zealand several years ago: scrambled eggs, triangular shaped hash browns, bacon, beans, tomatoes and mushrooms. Fortunately, there was fresh fruit as well. Generally we've found the coffee to be horrible.

10 May 2019 Friday

Today was a very full and rewarding day. We were picked up at our hotel by our guide, Luke, and he took us and another American couple and a British couple on a full day excursion. We went past farmland, fishing areas and saw many wallabies, koalas and kangaroo, as well as several bird species. The koalas were introduced to the island as their food source, specific types of eucalypt, are dying out on the mainland. They've been successful enough that now the wildlife managers have them sterilized.

    Koala with red ear tag - sterilized

They say that 300,000 wallabies can't be wrong, so Kangaroo Island must be right. They are everywhere in the countryside.

       Wallabies

We had parked under a eucalypt, with a couple of koalas sleeping above us. As Luke said, there couldn't be anything more Aussie than that. Added to that was an introduction to ANZAC biscuits. These were developed in World War I and sent to troops in the Gallipoli campaign, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the war. Women in Australia made the biscuits and sent them to the troops as a morale booster. They travel well and are quite tasty.

    A kangaroo with a joey

    The roos sometimes crawl under the fence and leave hair behind

Luke's company had arrangements for a picnic spot on a farm. He prepared a very nice lunch of potatoes, salad, roll and fresh whiting, which is a small white fleshed fish. He also had some Kangaroo Island wine, which was nice.

    A Crimson Rosella

Next stop was Sea Lion Beach. Luke had a lot of information about these guys, not least of which is that they feed for one day, then come ashore for two. They are very awkward on land. Their rear feet are actually separated, unlike seals', but movement on land looks positively painful.

    Sea Lion Beach

          And Sea Lions