AusTour 17: Kangaroo Island

aka the most unplanned and inefficient part of the entire trip. I had decided to go to kangaroo island on a whim—it was in the vicinity of Adelaide and was relatively easy to get to. What I didn’t decide on was how exactly I would get around such a large island. Most people rent cars or take tours to see the entire island. Me, I didn’t. Regardless of this deficiency I decided to treat Kangaroo Island as a day to relax, to take it slow for once on the trip.
The day began with a 6:45am bus from Adelaide bus terminal to make a ferry at 9. The bus and ferry were run by the same company, sea link. The bus driver was friendly even for such an hour and gave some pretty good commentary coming out of Adelaide and down through the valleys and wine (and olive) valleys. I’m sure it was interesting but I don’t remember much about it, partially and mostly because it was SO GAWD DAMN EARLY IN THE MORNING. Anyway when the bus got to the 45 min ferry line I saw the high and rough seas, groaned and took a travel sick pill before hiding in the centre of the ship away from anything that proved just how much we were rocking. Arriving in one piece and without any spillages, I disembarked to find a place to drop my stuff. Id seen the YHA from the ship so knew it wasn’t far and when I got there I found my key on the counter and let myself into my room. The owner of the hostel sprang up from nowhere after about five minutes and she was really nice and helpful. With my bags stowed in my room of six for one (!) I went ‘into town,’ what I mean by that is I went into the two roads that run parallel to form Penneshaw. The lady at the info desk was entirely unhelpful and arrogant so I left with little more than a map. With it only being about 11am I went into the only café in town, ordered a cup of tea and sat down with the days paper (how Bill Byrson!).
The owner of Kangaroo Island YHA had told me about a track along the coast and out to the ruins of a house. I decided I would walk that, having nothing else to do and no way to get anywhere else. The walk was pleseant and quiet, the sun was warm and the sky clear. I stumbled upon a group of wallabies and spent a while with them (probably most to their distress). It was a very casual wonder up and along the cliffs, in no hurry and stopping often to sit and look out to sea or across the hills. There was no hurry that had existed in the past 10 days, so it was entirely relaxing just to be able to go as fast or slow as I wanted. On the way back I saw some dolphins just off shore and watched them before they disappeared.
Back in Penneshaw I sat on the beach just taking in the atmosphere and basking in the sun for the remaining part of the afternoon. Again, incredibly relaxing atmosphere. After dinner there was a walk around the little penguin’s habitat for incredibly cheap. Unfortunately their colony has been decimated by seals eating the returning penguins so they weren’t nearly as loud or numerous as their Phillip Island cousins. After that I went across the road back to the YHA where I talked with 2 of the 4 other people staying there for a good while in the sitting room before heading to bed to depart the next morning at 11 back to Adelaide.
Kangaroo Island: the Complete Review
Yeah, I didn’t do anything really, but that was good. In the end that’s what I really wanted—not another action packed adventure. It’s definitively worth a visit if you do it right, there are lots of attractions on this quarantined island, they’re just spread out. With that in mind ill have to plan something better and come back to really explore the island.

Phillip Island

A 45 minute ferry ride (or if one of you engines, say, breaks down an hour ferry ride) is the small (or, say, what you thought was small but really 26 km) island of Phillip Island; Home to some awesome sand beaches, the Phillip Island grand prix, fur seals (on rocks), a wild life park, a koala reserve and the penguin parade. With a weekend we looked to do some of the most well known parts of the island, including the koala reserve and a must see, the penguin parade. On the first day we experienced Cowes (apparently related in some way to the Cowes on the Isle of Wight) and headed to the penguin parade in the evening. The parade is essentially the fairy (or little) penguins heading in from the sea at sunset. They wait off shore for the sun to set behind the island before heading onshore to their nests on the cliffs and dunes. They’re nervous, and timidly run part way up the beach before running back to the waves and trying again. Unfortunately picture taking and camera recording is prohibited, but i managed to get some film so that will be around soon.
On the way back up to the car park you walk up through the dunes where there nests up, a chorus of penguin calls (barking, squawking, singing…I don’t know what you would call it) greats you. Oh, and the stars were so clear it was absolutely unbelievable.
We spent the night in a camper caravan before getting up to go to the koala reserve. We rented bikes in Cowes and rode there as it was a pretty good distance out of Cowes. At the koala reserve the koalas live (almost free), they have large sections of land full of eucalyptus trees. In between two sections there are wooden skywalks that bring you to the level of the koalas. Koalas sleep most of the day, but we did get to see some actually moving about through the trees and along the walkways and even eating. We were also informed that koala poo smells of eucalyptus, which is incredibly true (and it’s incredibly potent).
On the way back to Cowes to meet the ferry we rode through a forest like reserve. Actually we rode through it twice after reading the map wrong and doing a complete circle. Apparently there were really wild koalas out here, but we only managed to spot some wild wallabies and what I think was a kookaburra. It was good to be out of the city again, and into a place that could easily be mistaken as any English country side if one didn’t look too hard. The weekend went quickly and gave us the chance to be tourists again, and see something that is fairly unique in the penguin parade and koalas up close.

Sunday at St Kilda

(What I’m going to attempt to do this week is to go through some of the major events that have happened since being here so I can work on being a little more current, interspersed with some anecdotal/random posts)The Sunday before classes started a friend from AustraLearn, Victoria, and I took a tram ride down to St Kilda—the closest beachside resort for Melbourne. Of course, in typical Melbourne style (or at least the Melbourne I know) it rained for most of the morning before trying desperately to break through to sun in the afternoon. The actual purpose of the trip was to go to the Sunday artist festival but because of the rain not many of the artists showed up, so we did the town, beach and pier.
As you get into St Kilda you’re greeted by a giant face, creepy amusing scary it covers them all and it also fronts Luna Park which looks eerily like Coney Island in New York (in fact its modeled after it)—a mini amusement park. There was also one of those human statue people, interesting enough, took a picture. Getting past that you hit the sand, and your first good shot at the sea. And while it is technically still inside the Melbourne harbor due to two giant peninsulas that leave a singular 5 km straight, the feel is still the seaside. The sand was crisp and the water was…ABSOLULTY FREEZING. Turns out the Melbourne Sea, like everything else in Melbourne in winter, is cold and wet. We made our way along the pier (apparently pretty famous) up to the end where there are supposedly little fairy penguins (we didn’t see any—only a load of dead starfish and a couple of fishermen). There’s a reserve up the end for these little critters, and they’re apparently joined with some sort of, and what can only be described as a, sea otter (rakali). We walked into the café on the end of the pier, partially to warm our hands and partially to see the prices—to expensive.
We went back into town to find something a little more pocket friendly and stumbled upon several very good looking cake shops (identified by crowds of people drooling on store fronts). There were lots of other small shops along the street, all small personal business each with their own little culture. I had no idea what the one pictured to the right is selling but it had an awesome shop front. Taking a hot pie and a cup of tea from one of the delicious-looking cake shops, it was just right for the cold weather and rain, and with that the sun began to come out. Yay! With the sun came more people including a couple of people rollerblading—one of whom wiped out spectacularly. St Kilda’s is literally filled with scenic beauty and hinted with grunge attitude. It would probably be a lovely place to live, though we went in the middle of winter and I can only imagine how crazy this place must get in the middle of summer.