Kangaroo Island

I was really excited to get back to Kangaroo Island – one of my favourite places in Australia!

Victor Harbour

After we left the Barossa Valley and before we headed to Kangaroo Island, we spent a week in Victor Harbour. We stayed in a great caravan park here with tons of stuff for the kids (heated water slides, mini-golf, pump track, etc.

We did manage to get out one day and walk around the town and out to the island. One of the things the town is famous for is horse trains. In the old days, the horses used to pull trains around town, now they just pull a bus-train along the causeway to the island. The bus-trains weren’t operating on the day we walked around, but we were able to walk along the tracks on the causeway out to the island. Here are some photos:

Kangaroo Island

Penneshaw

We took a fairly smooth 45-minute ferry ride out to Kangaroo Island. We drove to Antechamber Bay where we had booked a campground space. But, about 1/2 an hour after we arrived, we realised that there was something wrong with the fridge in the van and it wouldn’t accept the gas. Well, we didn’t want to ruin 10 days’ worth of food that we’d bought, so we drove to a powered site at a caravan park where we could plug in the fridge in Penneshaw and stayed there for 2 nights. One of the things we wanted to do in Antechamber Bay was to see the penguin colony there. So, we decided to do the paid penguin tour in Penneshaw instead. We were lucky and saw about 10 penguins.

Eucalyptus Distillery

We braved the rain one day and went out to Seal Bay. On the way, we stopped at Emu Creek Eucalyptus Distillery where we learned about how they turn Eucalyptus leaves into oil and various products. They had an interesting video and several sample products.

Honey Farm

We also stopped at a honey farm and learned about the Ligurian bee which was originally imported from Italy and makes delicious honey.

Seal Bay

The next stop was my favourite place on Kangaroo Island – Seal Bay. This is a colony of Sea Lions that live on the beach and sand dunes and is managed by a state conservation service. What’s great about this place is that the sea lions come so close so you can really get a good look at them.

Kingscote & the north

We next drove up to Kingscote, the largest town on the island. We stayed there for 4 nights while I worked. From here, R and the kids did several day trips to Little Sahara (see below) and we also did a day trip along the north side of the island. Here are some photos of Stokes Bay – one of the beaches in the north. This beach was cool because you had to walk through rock tunnels to get out to the beach.

Little Sahara

There are a couple of big sand dunes on the island’s southern side. You can rent toboggans and sandboards to slide down the dunes (they also do bike and buggy tours). We got an annual pass (only $10 more than the day price) for a toboggan. The kids came 3 different times during our stay on KI. R went twice and I went once. It was really a lot of fun – except climbing back up the dune was hard work (especially in the wind)!

Vivonne Bay

Right next to Little Sahara is the beautiful Vivonne Bay.

Western KI Caravan Park

We then drove further west and spent 3 nights at the Western KI Caravan Park near the Flinders Chase National Park. This was a great park, not because the facilities were anything special, but because of all the wildlife in the park. We counted 9 koalas, several kangaroos and wallabies and there were geese with their chicks. Here are some photos of the wildlife in the park:

Flinders Chase National Park

Cape Couedic and Admirals Arch

We spent a day exploring this cape and watching the seals at Admirals Arch. This area has 2 types of seals and a couple of sea lions thrown in for good measure. We spent a couple of hours just watching them sleeping and playing.

The lighthouse and the old storage buildings, cove and jetty:

Remarkable Rocks

We visited the nearby Remarkable Rocks. These rocks were created a few hundred million years ago when magma came up from the earth’s core to the surface and cooled. Over time the rocks were eroded by wind and water. The kids really enjoyed climbing them.

Cape Borda

We drove out on a very slippery, muddy road to the very (north) western tip of Kangaroo Island – Cape Borda. This area is very remote and I can’t imagine what it would have been like for the lightkeepers and their families living out here in the 1800s when supply boats only came once or twice a year. It was really windy and cold. It would have been an awful place to raise a family!

Fires

Between December 2019 and January 2020, 75% of Kangaroo Island (and 96% of the Flinders Chase National Park) burned down in a huge fire. I was really curious to see how this would affect the landscape and how different (and stark) it would be compared to my previous visits. However, we were really encouraged and surprised to see how much had grown back in the 2 years since the fires! You could see evidence of the fires and the tops of the trees are still bare, but the foliage was really growing back well!

We really loved our 9 days on Kangaroo Island. It was sad to leave. 😢