Kangaroo Island, Western Australia
What a fun place to visit and a potential place to return. Someday.
This island is not far off the coast from Adelaide. Its welcoming beaches and more shallow water kept
our cruise ship offshore, so we tendered to shore again. If you find a website for this island, it is
described with adjectives like unfiltered, unpretentious, and untamed. I’d agree. It’s not all dressed up
for tourists. There are handicraft artists on the island, and they set up in open spaces individually or as a
sort of farmer’s market, but it seems like the island tries to maintain a remoteness that is a magnet for
off-the-beaten-track adventurers. There are plenty of choices for land or water excitement including
wildlife in both terrains. What brought early settlers here was the abundance of springs and potable
water.
our cruise ship offshore, so we tendered to shore again. If you find a website for this island, it is
described with adjectives like unfiltered, unpretentious, and untamed. I’d agree. It’s not all dressed up
for tourists. There are handicraft artists on the island, and they set up in open spaces individually or as a
sort of farmer’s market, but it seems like the island tries to maintain a remoteness that is a magnet for
off-the-beaten-track adventurers. There are plenty of choices for land or water excitement including
wildlife in both terrains. What brought early settlers here was the abundance of springs and potable
water.
We left the ship an hour or so before we were to meet our tour on the shore to enjoy a walkabout. This
small port is a working port with lines of vehicles waiting to board the ferry to the mainland, including
some quite odiferous trucks with about four levels, filled with newly shorn sheep. We also found some
handicrafts and talented artists. Lucky for us, we also found a jeweler who mined and set her own
opals. “We’re not mining now. It’s too hot there,” she said.
No, we didn’t see kangaroos or koalas today, choosing not to take the hour-long ride to a wildlife park.
(We’ve seen both in a previous trip.) Our tour for today covered only a portion of the island, with a jovial bus driver serving as our tour guide of sorts, driving us through the small downtown district and then to another dock to board an open, high-speed sightseeing boat hoping to find seals, dolphins, and maybe a whale.
The western side of the island is blessed with about 40 inches of rain each year while the eastern side
gets half that due to winds and mountains. We were on the drier side, so not quite so green but lots of
local seaside wildlife as our photos will show. Nested on a large pile of rocks at our boarding site was a
colony of Pied Cormorants who simply swiveled their heads as boats loaded and left and returned and
reloaded. They can hold their breath underwater for a full minute and dive more than 36 feet.
an earlier trip that morning. Luckily, they were still there, three swimming in tandem, surfacing, then
going back under. This threesome was actually SLEEPING! Half of their brains sleep while the other half is aware. They sleep together for protection. Gestation for dolphins is a full year with a baby every two years or so. Each pup is given a name by its parent at birth and its squeak is registered for life.
Can you see the fur seal? It perfectly blends into the rock. The whole island continues to move away
from the mainland at the rate of about 7 cm per year. (according to our bus driver—can’t find
confirmation on the internet) It was quite breezy and cool to cold on the boat. When we got back
ashore we were driven to a nice viewpoint with a unique road sign before going back to the dock to go
back to the boat.
Only two stops are left on our cruise itinerary before Sydney. An overnight in Melbourne and a stop in
Tasmania. My how the end suddenly rushes towards you.
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