Australia - Kangaroo Island 2/2024

Feb.5

Today we say good-by to Tasmania and head to Melbourne Australia. Our destination for this leg of our journey is Kangaroo Island, but instead of going there directly, we will make our way there with stops in Melbourne and Adelaide. We have had an amazing time in Tasmania and cherish all of our time here. Pip takes us to the airport first stopping at our favorite Hobart bakery, The Pigeon Hole. With sandwiches in hand we check in for our flight on Jet Star to Melbourne. It is only an hour flight and the weather which was 100 degrees in Melbourne yesterday has cooled considerably. We are glad for that. Upon arriving to the airport, we purchase tickets on the Sky bus and head to the Southern Cross Station. In a couple of days we will be boarding a train for a 9 hour ride to Adelaide. Our plan for the next period of time here is to explore the city and check out some of the recommendations that we have been told about. Our hotel is only a 5 minute walk from the station. We are staying on the 11th floor of the Atlantis Hotel, After a well deserved shower, we explore the town for a meal and ice cream. We are intrigued by the many different styles of the skyscrapers.

Different than the landscapes of Tasmania, but beautiful in their own way.

Feb. 6

We were glad so see that the temperatures for today are again predicted to be on the cool side. We could have been experiencing 100 plus temerpatures. We had some errands this morning. Don and I needed haircuts and we needed to find tennis balls and down soap to wash our down gear. All tasks were successful. Several people had told us about the street art so after finding a map that showed the streets we should visit we started out. The following photos show just a few examples.

Many tourists, some in tours were out checking out the art, In some places barb wire had been put on the buildings to discourage the artists from painting so high up. It had some success but there was still a lot of art quite high up

One of the streets was filled with plants and coffee shops. Don had to check out the coffee.

Even the busses were painted

By afternoon, we found ourselves at the Queens Market. Another place that we were told we shouldn’t miss. There was so much produce here. We wished that we could fill up totes with the great looking fruits and vegetables, but alas we could only buy what we could eat in a day.

This place would be a daily stop, if we lived here. There were also cheese, bread and meat aisles.

We ended our day going to a restaurant called Max that we had passed by yesterday. Like yesterday all the tables were filled and after getting our food, we could understand why. As we explored the town, we passed by so many streets that offered an array of eating choices.

Feb. 7

Today we are meeting up with a friend that we knew in the late 80’s at NOLS and his wife. Andy and Deb live in a town outside of Melbourne. Deb was an Olympian and Andy is now an athletic trainer for an Australian football type of game. Needless to say they had many interesting stories to share. We were waiting in the lobby when they walked in and headed to the reservationist desk, They walked right by our chairs, not recognizing us. To be fair we didn’t recognize them at first either. We have changed some in 40 years1

We shared stories and the afternoon went quickly. We did more walking around the town and headed with Andy to the train station where we will get the train to Adelaide day after tomorrow.

It was a fun afternoon of catching up since our time of working together. We said our goodbyes then Don and I headed off to figure out what type of food we wanted to try for our evening meal. We chose Mexican followed by another trip to the ice cream store.

Feb. 8

Mostly a relaxing day. Nothing on the agenda that we had to do. We did walk back to the Queen’s market to buy some more fresh fruit. We are still impressed with the architecture styles. It has been fun to be in the city for a couple of days, but we are looking forward to moving on tomorrow.

Feb.9

Today the big event is a 9 hour train ride taking us from Melbourne to Adelaide on the Overland Express. We had gotten the Premium tickets that included bigger seats and lunch. It was a short walk to the station where we could check our bags and then enter into the waiting area for the trains. We met an employee who told us where to go to wait for the train. It was interesting watching the loaded trains arrive to the station with all the people going to work. It was time for us to board but we hadn’t seen our train yet. Don as his habit decided he needed to go to the bathroom even though if the train was here we should be boarding. Off he goes and I nervously check the board for train updates. Don quickly returns saying that he couldn’t go to the bathroom because it was on the other side of the gate, but he discovered that our train was in a different spot and we needed to go there promptly. For once it was good that Don needed to go to the bathroom or we may have missed our train. Considering it only goes twice a week we were fortunate.

For the next 9 hours we chugged along at a relatively slow pace passing by some isolated towns and numerous sheep farms.

At one point we could see a brush fire burning in the distance. The train stopped and finally we got permission to continue on. Most of the landscape was wide open and flat with little trees. That changed when we approached Adelaide. The terrain become hilly with lots of vegetation. Even though it was quite slow, we had gotten a better understanding of the landscape and overall enjoyed the train ride.

We are planning on meeting up with another friend from our NOLS days. The original plan had been to take a commuter train to a station near their house. We were pleasantly surprised when we heard our names and then saw our friend Alan . He had decided to pick us up here. We piled into his car and met his two sons, Jack and Gordon. After a short drive to his house we met his wife Heidi and had pizza and great tasting tomatoes from their garden. It felt good to be on the move again!

Feb.10

During breakfast in their back yard surrounded by tomatoes and flowers, we talked both about our past and future plans. Today we are headed to the Cleland Wildland Park with the Neilson family.

It is a well done wildlife rescue park located in the hills above the city of Adelaide.

The animals had plenty of areas to roam freely and didn’t seem to mind that we were able to observe them at a close distance. The animals seemed quite content here. Some of the different species included:

The Emu

a species of wallaby that we hadn’t seen was the rock wallaby. They had a rocky environment for their habitat. They are mostly found in northern Australia.

The dingo a wild dog of Australia

Other birds that we saw included

We also got to observe kangaroos, wallabies and pademelons up close.

The last animal that we saw was the sleepy koala bear.

It was a great day to share the wildlife refuge with the Neilson Family

We headed to a local pub before Alan dropped us off at the Grosvenor Hotel. On the way to the hotel Alan pointed out the botanical gardens and said that we should go there at dusk and check out the fruit bats.

We took a short break at the the hotel, before heading to the botanical park. Beautiful landscape with lots of flowers were the theme of the park. The gates closed soon after arriving so we had to check out the park quickly. We kept looking up in the trees to see if we could see any of the bats. We figured that they would be small and most likely difficult to see. We didn’t have any luck seeing them, until we went thru the gates and took a different path back to the hotel. Hanging from the trees were thousands of large bats that are called Flying Foxes.

The trees were filled with the bats, As the sun started to set they became active stretching their wings and finally starting to fly.

They had an orange color breast that glowed in the sun. They are also known as fruit bats and can be destructive to fruit farms in the area. I imagine they need to eat a lot to support their large body size.

Needless to say we were fascinated and had to laugh at ourselves thinking that we were looking for bats smaller than our hands. We stayed there for some time being intrigued by their movements.

As the sun was setting, we headed back to our hotel to prepare for our trip to Kangaroo Island tomorrow.

Feb.11

Our bus to take us to the ferry which would then take us to Kangaroo Island was scheduled to pick us up around 6am. We sat on the stairs of the hotel looking in both directions hoping to see our bus. We didn’t see our bus but we did see some folks who had spent the night out so at least we were entertained by people who enjoyed the night life. We rechecked our emails and had faith that eventually we would see the bus. About 6:20am the bus pulled up and after loading our bags we were off to the ferry at Cape Jarvis. The bus driver gave us a bit of a tour as we headed south. The main vegetation out our windows was huge vineyards.

The timing was great as the ferry was getting ready to board just as we arrived. No waiting in the terminal .

We studied the map before boarding. Kangaroo Island is well known for its wildlife and scenic landscapes. A fire had severely burned the island several years ago and it is still recovering.

The seas were calm as we made our way to the island.

Once we arrived to the ferry terminal on Kangaroo Island we were greeted by Bill and his partner Jo. It has been over 40 years since we had Bill on a NOLS course in Baja. Bill and his daughter had visited us in Alaska many years ago and we had kept up an every couple of years contact. Once we had planned a trip to Australia, visiting him became a priority. He had spoken so fondly of his life on Kangaroo Island that if possible we wanted to visit. Here we are!!!

Their house was only a couple miles of way so after settling in and eating lunch we headed off to explore the area around their house. It was easy to see why they enjoy living here.

We visited several white sandy beaches before heading to

Here is located a historical light house and holiday cottages that one could rent,

The waves were pounding the coast as we admired the beautiful rocky shore.

Easy to see why the light house is located here.

Bill and Jo have done a lot of traveling so the afternoon included lots of stories of adventures.

On the way back to their house we stopped at..

An Honesty store that is available 7 days a week

The canned apricots were a favorite. We stopped here several times during our stay here.

Evening was filled with more adventure stories and watching the wallabies outside their house.

Feb. 12

Morning began with a hike from their home. We were headed up to the Baudin Conservation Park.

It is a nice walk that Bill and Jo do most mornings.

At the top of the hill is the remains of an old farm that includes a threshing floor.

We were glad that there was a description of why the rocks were in a circle.

The afternoon was spent paddling with a pod of bottle nose dolphins. The wind made it challenging to get close, but at one point the dolphins surrounded our kayaks. They are accustomed to paddlers checking them out.

Back to the house for an afternoon of watching football and reading. Jo shared information about her favorite kitchen appliance the Thermomix. If we ever have a house we will have to buy one for our home. After a dinner of Pizza we played the game of sequence. So many stories!

Feb.13

Todays travel will find us exploring more of the Island. Bill has mapped our a route for us.

Bill has also lent us his UTE.

We are once again reminded of driving rules.

Our first stop is Seal Bay

This is a protected beach where the Sea Lions haul out to breed and have their young.

We decided to just take the board walk instead of doing a guided tour,

Lots of sea lions were enjoying the day,

As we approached one of the viewpoints this sign was posted.

Sure enough one could look thru the board walk and see the Mom and newborn.

At the visitor center we solved one of the mysteries of a white looking shell ,almost shaped like a sole of a shoe. that we had seen while hiking on the South coast track. It was the buoyancy chamber of the cuddle fish.

More beautiful beaches filled our afternoon explorations. It was too cold to swim, but beach walking was excellent.

Our destination for the night is a Discovery caravan camp. It was completely destroyed by the fire and rebuilt. All the buildings are new and quite user friendly.

A Wallaby and her joey were our neighbors

We also saw our first Koloa in a nearby tree.

Unfortunately a lot of kolas were lost in the fire.

The evening brought lots of wind and a little rain. This will be our last campsite in Australia. We will be heading to Japan in a couple of days.

Feb. 14

We have a lot to see and do today so the day started early. We began by doing a walk around the caravan park and found a Koala nearby in a tree. First stop was Flinders Chase National Park. In 2020, the park had a major fire burn most of the area. The visitor center is currently temporary, but the new visitor center looks like it might be opening soon. There were a couple walks around the park. One would take us to a platypus pond. We chose that one. Several years ago the vegetation was burnt almost to the ground.

The regrowth of the vegetation amazed us. It was coming back quickly.

A lot of the plants had signs of being burnt, but numerous one showed signs of growth,

Our walk to the platypus pond didn’t produce any results so we settled for this sculpture.

Once again reminding us of how small they are.

Nest stop was the Remarkable Rocks. It didn’t take us long to discover how they got this name.

Photos are the best description. We had fun walking around and looking at all the different shapes.

The view from the rocks wasn’t bad either.

Keeping on the move we headed to Cape de Couerdic to check out the light house and the wave action.

We headed down to the water’s edge where large swells were hitting the shoreline.

We can see why the light house was located here.

There were fur seals that were also enjoying this area. Most were on the rocks but several were swimming in the foam of the waves. They impressed us with their ability to swim without getting bashed on to the rocks.

This seal was hit by spray, but seemed able to maintain his position.

At one time you could walk near this overhang. but a storm had washed out most of the boardwalk.

Leaving the Cape we headed to Snake Lagoon, not wanting to see why it was named this, but mainly hoping to see more koalas. The trail had recently been reopened and had a lot of vegetation growing on the sides. After seeing a snake, we decided to head out to more open terrain. No koalas came into view. Back to the car and off to the north side of the Island where we wanted to stop at Stolls Bay. We passed by large sheep farms and vineyards and then arrived at the town of Stolls Bay. The town consisted of a campground, a small bar and a very rocky beach. There was a protected swimming beach nearby that the townspeople had carved out a trail thru the rocks to access it. We had some ice cream, before completing the loop and arriving back to Bill and Jo’s.

It had been a long day and it was the first time that I fell asleep in Australia while Don was driving. We were back to Bills house by 6, took showers and headed out to a local pub where we were the last ones to leave. More good conservations were had. We probably pushed it a bit today. We could have spent more time at each of the places we visited. Returning to their house, we quickly fell asleep in a comfortable bed. Tomorrow we start our journey to Japan.

Feb. 15

We both woke up early and took a walk with Bill and Jo, followed by a mussel breakfast with fresh fruit and canned apricots from the Honesty Hut. We did our laundry before heading to the the Post office to send more items back to the states. We want to have our packs light as possible going to Japan. Bill was excited to share his veggie pies for lunch.

Our time with Bill and Jo went quickly. It would be fun to connect with them again.

Off to the airport which was about an hour away.It was a small airport that had one employee doing it all from checking us in to welcoming us to the plane. When everyone had checked in, we left from the terminal early. It was a 30 minute flight back to Adelaide.

After arriving to the airport we had a 40 minute walk to our guest house for the night called Not The Ritz. The host owner is John. He recommended an Indian Restaurant nearby that we could walk to.The food was great and we decided we will eat supper here tomorrow.

Feb. 16

This morning was devoted to making lists and checking them twice, We leave here at 3;00am so this is our last full day to get things done before we are in Japan. We walked to a cafe called the Love Express that is near the Indian Restaurant. It did not disappoint. We are beginning to wonder about the food selections in Japan. We have debated about getting a taxi to the airport in the morning. A trial walk to the airport results in a 30 minute time frame. That shouldn’t be a problem so back to John’s house for our last bit of organization. Our packs are heavier than what we would like and we are hoping when we get to Japan we can leave some of the items near where we will start our pilgrimage.

John. and his new friend Lynn invited us to have some wine with them before heading out to dinner. They had us laughing as they told how they met. (on a dating app). They are both in their 70’s and ready to live life to its fullest. We wish for them all the best. Headed out to the Indian Restaurant where we were greeted by the same waiter. We were the only ones eating, but several people came in for take out. We ordered the same meal and again thought it was delicious. We only ordered one dessert, but the waiter brought us two.

Back to our room for showers and hopefully a nap before getting up at 2am to walk to the airport. Don falls asleep easily and even though the alarm is set, I wake up every hour to check my watch. I am up doing sit ups when the alarm goes off and Don wakes up. Too much excitement for me to want to sleep. By 3;15am we are out the door and walking the dark streets to the airport. It was good that we had done a trial run earlier. We made it to the airport just as they were opening the door to the building. We were the first ones to check in. There was no contact with any agents, everything was done on a touch screen. No one even looked at our ID’s. We were waiting at our gate when we noticed several people got up and left. A gate change was made rather late. All is well though as we had plenty of time to walk to the new gate. It is a 3 hour flight to Cairns and then the flight to Osaka. We are headed to Japan!