Invariably when you ask someone what they thought about visiting Kangaroo Island their first comment is "it's so expensive to get there" but in the next breath they will way "buy it was absolutely worth it!". After today I would absolutely agree. We had quite the agenda today and travelled over 200kms. Our drive today was to the southern half of KI that has the majority of the "tourist attractions" that are located within the Flinders Chase National Park. We mapped out a circular drive that would take us through the middle of the island before reaching the south West Point.
The first thing we noticed as we headed westwards was the devastating affects of the 2020 bushfires. We probably all saw it on the news. Thousands of animals burnt to death, hundreds of thousands of acres burnt to ashes, infrastructure destroyed, homes lost and lives lost. But, the good news is that Mother Nature, once again, reacts to this devastation in incredible ways. It is reported that some species of wildflowers that have not been seen for decades have re-emerged, the native forests regrow in spectacularly fast time and people re-build. It is very pleasing to see this. We stop and take photographs of the pine plantations that have been completely destroyed and the timber has been removed and lays in giant stacks ready to be either burnt or removed.
The first place that we visit today is Admirals Arch. I have seen so many photos of this over the years, but until you see it in person you cannot fathom the size of it. It is a huge gap that has been forged through the sheer force of the elements. I hope that it will still be here for many more decades. We walk along a boardwalk to reach Admirals Arch and I am pleased that it is wheelchair accessible because everyone should be able to view this. There are many seals lying on the rocks below the arch and they are very well camouflaged on the rocks. I also take a photograph of Cape du Couedic Lighthouse that stands magnificently on the headland behind us.
Next place on the list is Remarkable Rocks and they really do live up to their name. It took 500 years of wind, rain and pounding waves to form these granite statues and they are magnificent. There is, again, a wheelchair accessible ramp leading all the way to the bottom of the rocks. We climb up to the rocks and they are even more awesome up close.
It is almost lunch by the time we finish Remarkable Rocks, so we see on the map that there is a cafe at Vivonne Bay that makes the "best Whiting Burger". Sounds good, and thirty minutes later we are sitting down to this. It was pretty darn good.
We need to walk after scoffing down this burger with a can of coca-cola, to give us an energy boost :-) so our next stop is Seal Bay where there is an 800m boardwalk for us to walk and then watch the sea lions at play. It is another fantastic stop and it if wasn't so windy and cold we would have stayed there for ages watching the sea lions. The young frolic in the water and the males are marking their ground. The females are just lazing around in the sun. It is wonderful to watch.
Oh, I forget to mention that we stopped at Little Sahara. This the place for tobogganing down the giant sand dunes but we are not dressed (or rather, over-dressed) for sand tobogganing so we declare it something we will do another time.
Our last stop for today is at Raptor Domain. Oh my goodness, I totally underestimated how much I would enjoy this place. We arrived just in time for the "Birds of Prey" display and quickly took our seats. Our dedicated bird handler brought out one by one a bird from the raptor species. These included owls, falcons and eagles. Our handler even brought out an emu that, although not a raptor, was very quiet and well trained, even to sit! The favourite was the wedge-tailed eagle that had unfortunately lost the sight in one eye. As the handler was talking to us she was stroking it and it nuzzled into her shoulder very comfortably. What a beautiful moment between bird and handler.
It has been another long day of sightseeing and tomorrow we will visit the north east corner. This is the gourmet corner of KI so I am hoping to pick up some famous Kangaroo Island Honey, Lavender Products and maybe have a lunch of local produce, perhaps including local oysters. Our return ferry ticket is for 2.30pm so it should give us a good amount of time.
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