Kangaroo Island

We had an overnight tour to Kangaroo Island, with a 6:30 AM pick-up from Adelaide.

With our normal habit of always being early, we were out there at 6, and so got to see the kids heading home from the clubs. Apparently, there is quite the night life. It isn't even like there is only one club, because people were coming from both directions on both sides of the street. I think the latest I ever stayed out when I was that age was 4 AM, and that was just the one time, but I was never into clubbing.

There was a two hour bus ride to the ferry, then 45 minutes on the water. When we finally got into our group, it was really international. There were sixteen of us, with an older couple from Germany, a middle-aged couple from Shanghai, two couples who were probably in their late twenties from Germany and France, a brother and sister from Belgium, a girl from Switzerland, and the two we talked to the most were a student teacher from France and a student researcher from Scotland. The only Australian was our guide, Peter.

The island is the third biggest in Australia, with a population of about 4400. There is a lot to see, and we were just going places non-stop. The bad thing about this company, Adventure Tours, is that it is really designed for the young backpacker. This means that you stop every few hours and go on a hike. No one forces you to go, or even to complete the hikes, so you can go partway, but yeah, it gets grueling. Still, we saw good things.

Along with various geological formations like the Remarkable Rocks (strangely sculpted granite formations on the coast that were part of Thomas Molson's demonstration of contintal drift), we saw Australian Sea Lions, New Zealand Fur Seals, a pod of dolphins, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, possum, emu, and we got really lucky and spotted an echidna. You have about a fifty/fifty chance of seeing them--they are fairly shy, and with their size and spikes they blend into the grassland well. We felt pretty lucky. Oh, and our last stop was a pelican feeding. They are enormous, and I got winged in the head a few times, so I can attest to their size on good authority.

We also learned about the processing of eucalyptus oil, visiting a place that sells it. Peter knew a lot about everything we asked about.

It was funny, because it was really only one overnight trip, but we all got a bit bonded where we sat together on the ferry back, and felt wrenched a bit as we needed to get onto different buses. We were keeping eyes out for each other at the bus station and the next morning.

We did bond more with the women, and Julie felt like the women were friendlier, but I think it is that we are generally less held back by the language barrier. We will talk regardless.

Only about two weeks left. It will be a relief in some ways, as I am not sure I would plan such a long trip again. Our justification was that we would never make it back, so we needed to see everything possible, but now we are trying to figure out ways to come back anyway.

Oh well, happy October everyone.