Kangaroo Island - 13th-15th December.

I took a 3day/2 night tour to kangaroo Island, a wildlife reserve hosting many of Australia's well known and some endangered animals. Kangaroo Island is huge, 3 times the size of sinapore with very few mainland roads. Most roads consist of dirt tracks and the land is covered in trees. Around 7 months ago the island was struck by 11 separate lightning bolts causing 2/3 of the island to be burt in the fires. It was remarkable how much of the island has begun to recover. Many of the trees that grow in Australia do not die in a fire. The tree itself may burn down but the seeds will usually servive. Most of the trees on the island were still standing and just charred from the fire, the core still being alive and recovering.

Day 1 of the tour took us from Adelaide over to the Adelaide Hills which are covered in grape vines and host the Borossa Valley, a rich wine producing area. We continued over to a the Fleurieu Peninsula where we took a short walk before heading towards the Victor Harbour area. A bumpy 40 minutes on the company's private charter boat and we arrived on Kangaroo Island. A very miserable day was even worse on the Island. Strong winds and heavy rain greeted us. We speedily headed inland to our accommodation for the night, a wood cabin, very simple but cosey enough. The food wasn't great on tour and very limited in portion size so i spent most of the trip rather hungry! Later that night we were taken out looking for penguins. We saw a couple but unfortunetly at this time of year the penguins begin to shed their feather and so take cover inside the hills in little burrows they make. Still those we saw were extreamly cute! We could only use red light to search for the peguins due to the sensitivity of their eyes. A simple flash on a camera would of most likely blinded them.

Day 2 - We began the day with a 9km hike through the bush at Kelly Hill Caves. We were meant to see Kangaroos, Koalas and Enchindas but i saw none! The walk did finish at a very pretty little beach however which made the walk seem worthwhile. Others saw maybe one or two wildlife so i guess i just scared them away. In the afternoon we drove to the Remarkable Rocks. A natural rock formation ontop of a cliff edge. The rocks vary in size and shape and off numurous nooks and crany's to explore. From the rocks we headed down to Admirals Arch, the home of the New Zealand Fur Seal Colony. The smelliest animals ever i think! I could smell them getting off the bus which was a good 5 minute walk from where they were resting. Despite the smell they are also very very fat! That evening we went searching for wildlife again and this time got to see a number of wild kangaroos and wallerbies.

Day 3 - The day began with a trip down to Seal Bay to see the colony of Sea Lions. Different to the New Zealand Fur Seals, smoother skin, cuter and not smelly! The colony is one of the only few left in the world and this is the only place that the public can get down onto the beach next to the sea lions. It's currently mating seasons so there were lots of little pups waddling around (although apparently they can run faster than we can) and the males doing their best to get some female attention. We got within a few hundred yards of them. Their sight is very poor on land, at its best under water to hunt for food so they aren't bothered by the human presence as we just look like a big bush or a sand dune. If you were to stand on your down, crouched down they may mistake you for a sea lion and charge at you. They are very vocal with each other due to their poor sight and it's common for them to bump into each other or play fight.

We headed over to a hidden landscape called Little Sahara. As the name suggests the land is covered in sand, with a large sand dune running across it. Hidden by the surrounding trees you wouldn't know it was there. After a mamouth climb up the dune we got the chance to sandboard, which is basically snowboarding on sand. Neadless to say i was hopeless at it and didn't manage to stand up for long! The afternoon took us to Stokes Bay, a small seculded beach hidden through a cave and to Vivonne Bay, apparenly voted the nicest beach in Australia....i didn't agree!