Our first adventure on our second (and last) day on Kangaroo Island was to go koala visiting. Despite the island being called after a different Australian animal, there is actually a huge koala population there. I saw more koalas here on one day than I have ever seen in my life!
We drove to the Hanson Bay Wildlife Sanctuary where we were free to wander among the eucalyptus trees at our own leisure, our heads craned backward, eyes glued upward at the tree branches. We didn’t have to go far to spot them – in fact we saw a mum and baby in a tree along the driveway!
There were plenty more, many were rolled up in balls nestled into the nooks and crannies of the tree branches, others were lazily looking around or blinking down at us. We didn’t see any on the move, they were pretty settled. We must have seen over 30, it was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours.
Next we drove to Flinders Chase National Park, to see the iconic Remarkables. Kate gave us lots of info on the way.
The national park is named after Captain Matthew Flinders who navigated and chartered all of Australia between 1791 and 1810. He was the first to identify our shape! He named this great southern land ‘Terra Nullus’, which essentially means great south land unknown.
Of course we know that this land was certainly not an empty land, the indigenous Australian clans had been settled all over Australia for centuries, but at that point in history, explorers from the modern world were not very respectful toward native populations. That’s part of Australia’s shame unfortunately, but that is a whole other matter than the focus of my blog post! Essentially, it is from ‘Terra Nullis’ that ‘Australia’ came from, and Flinders was the first to call us ‘Australian’.
Flinders never named anything after himself but there have been many things named in his honor – such as this beautiful part of Kangaroo Island – Flinders Chase National Park.
When we visited it was cloudy, windy, spitting rain and generally very moody looking. We had lots of time to explore the rocky cliff top, with its curves and angles and peepholes.
What a dramatic seascape!
Next we stopped at Admirals Arch on Cape Du Couedic to watch the fur seals hanging out on the rocks. Actually, they somewhat look like rocks themselves, with their big bellies camouflaged as boulders. But every now and then they flap about and when you look closer you can see them lounging all about.
We stopped at a secret beach that I don’t recall the name of (fitting – but I didn’t forget it on purpose!) To get to it we had to walk to the end of a strip of sand, then walk through the crevices of some large rocks where we came out the other side on to a lovely long stretch of sand.
The sun was out and lots of people were in the water, it was tempting to jump in but we didn’t have a lot of time, the only downfall of a whirlwind tour!
That was all the adventuring we had time for, so Kate drove us back to Penneshaw with an hour or so to spare before our ferry back to Adelaide.
Jo and I, along with Rebecca, a fellow traveler on the tour from Tassie, decided to pop into the pub for dinner as we didn’t expect to be back to our hotel until after 10pm. I had the most delicious watermelon salad with a crisp local white wine, while sitting on the verandah watching the ocean – highly recommended if you find yourself killing time in Penneshaw before a ferry.
The ferry ride and bus journey back to Adelaide was as smooth as could be. We hit the sack at 11pm, happily exhausted after our mini-break inside a mini-break to Kangaroo Island :-)
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