One of our journeys from Adelaide included a visit to Kangaroo Island, a 20k, 45 minute car ferry ride from Cape Jervis.  We traded rental car companies at the Adelaide Airport.  Our first rental car company did not allow their cars on the island…apparently too many kangaroos that result in road kill and unsealed roads that can be rough on the vehicles.

We caught the 3 pm SeaLink Kangaroo Island ferry which had us unloaded by 4 pm.  This allowed us to make the 45 minute ride to our new home in Kingscote for the next three nights with some daylight…avoiding the large marsupials hanging by the road and feeding at dusk.  We did however see a couple of kangaroos feeding in fields along the way!

In our zest to eat in a bit more, we made eggplant pizzas for dinner, which we topped with tomato pesto, tomatoes, mushrooms and feta cheese!  Not bad…I think we can perfect this one.  Tracey has been avoiding the gluten and this just may be the allergen that has been giving her fits!

After dinner, we took a short stroll to the waterfront and along the few main streets of the small town of Kingscote, population around 2,000 (btw –  the largest town on the island).  However, the summer season has ended and this town and island are very, very quiet, so not too many people around!  There were three or four places open total, two old hotels with restaurants and bars and one Italian restaurant, Bella.  We ended up at the Queenscliffe Family Hotel .  The “Queenie” has been open since 1884, the town’s first hotel.

We found the local hangout for sure, the Queenie bar!  The bar’s owner Simon served us up some Coopers sparkling ale and a vodka and soda.  We had a great evening chatting with locals.  The bar also has the “Tab” or betting service.  Several monitors with horse and dog racing were on from many sites across Australia. There were a few locals gambling away.  Anyway it was fun helping them pick some horses or dogs (or horses that turned out to be dogs) to bet on based on names (often times we selected ones with some USA association…this turned out not to be a winning strategy).  One guy bet on the dog in the number two post position most of the time and he won more times than not!  We ended up staying longer than we should (that’s never happened before :), but ended up back at our cabin around 11 pm to get a decent nights sleep before our KI explorations the next day (KI, as the locals call Kangaroo Island).

It was a little slow rising in the morning after our frolicking with the locals the night before, but we managed to be on our way around 9 am.  We started out exploring the south side of the island with a 30 to 45 minute drive down unsealed roads to D’Estrees Bay and Cape Gantheaume Conservation park.  We discovered a beautiful white sandy beach at this bay, no people and passing just a few cars along the route.  We nearly made it to the end of the unsealed road along this bay, but turned around as the sledding was a little rough for our little Toyota Corolla.
We ended up at Vivonne Bay around lunch, several kilometers before you reach the bay, there is the Vivonne Bay General Store and Bottle Shop, home of the famous “Whiting Burger”.  This ended up being a great little place to stop for lunch!  It is known for its whiting burger….and it lived up to it.  It was excellent!  A small place with a few tables inside and out and a couple of provisions for sale inside!  The server was an interesting mate with a dry humor.  We told him he looked just like a friend of ours and he said “I feel sorry for the bugger”.

We journeyed on to Vivonne Bay itself.  A beautiful white beach, a few fishing boats, small pier, cabins and beautiful coastal landscape.
From Vivonne Bay, we drove to the islands southwest coast and Flinders Chase National Park.  It was getting toward the end of the afternoon and we didn’t want to make the 100k trek across the island back in the dark to Kingscote because, yes, you guessed it, the kangaroos.  This gave us a couple of hours to explore…and wow we are glad we did.  The “Remarkable Rocks” were just that..remarkable, which is an understatement. It is almost as if someone placed these gigantic formations atop a granite outcrop as if it were on display at an art gallery!  Antoni Gaudi-like!

Next onto the Admirals Arch, nearly as incredible a formation, formed from the millions of years of pounding ocean.  This is also the site of dozens and dozens of New Zealand Fur Seals!  Some blame the end of commercial sealing and thus rise in the population of fur seals on the decline of the island’s Little Penguins.  The Little Penguin are the smallest penguins in the world (hence the name :).  We did not see any penguins, but we did see the porcupine like echidna, also known as the spiny anteater!

We made it back to our cabin just at dark and made it to dinner at the Queenscliffe Family Hotel.  This was the spot where the locals dined, at least in this shoulder season…and the food and wine was very good.  I had my first Kangaroo steak which was excellent… a very lean flavorful meat, like a well seasoned beef steak.  After dinner we ventured back to local pub to imbibe with some old friends from the night before and some new ones as well!  The night covered many topics from our accents (which they loved) to “what do you think of Donald Trump” (the third most asked question we have been asked in both New Zealand and Australia) to basketball.  I was invited back to play basketball with one of the local teams in October after describing to one taller young man in the bar Kentucky basketball and how I “bleed blue”.

The next day we made it to a couple of the islands coves and beaches on the northern side.  First stop after some unsealed roads was Stokes Bay.  When you first arrive you might think it is “just another beach”.  However, when you look to the right end of the beach there is a group of large boulders.  A small sign with “beach” written on it is posted near a small opening between two large boulders.  After working through the narrow openings and tunnel between these towering boulders for a couple of minutes, they open up to a beautiful enormous beach with varied wonderful rock formations.  No developments, just us and this beautiful paradise.

After a walk on this beach we were ready for lunch at Rockpool Café, a small seaside seafood shack with great local food.  The Rockpool Café is known for the seafood cone.  What a concept!  A cone filled with fish, scallops, prawn, squid and of course chips.  Outstanding!

The next stop was Emu Bay.  This was another very large beach bordered by beautiful large sand dunes and Emu Bay Shale, the dunes reminding us a bit of Warren Dunes in Southwest Michigan. It is one of the few beaches on the island that allows vehicles.

On the way back to our place in Kingscote we stopped along the cliffs at Kingscote that looked across the bay and over to the Australia mainland some 20k away.  A magnificent view that I shared with Joan who was sitting on a park bench, nearly 90 years young.  As she shared her view with me, she described what it was like living on Kangaroo Island for the last 50 years and its “central” location to her children that live around the world.  She and her husband John (their friends call them J and J) will be taking the legendary Ghan (Great Southern Railway) from Adelaide to Darwin in July that will likely be one of their final vacations.

We made it an early evening with a home made salad and stir fry. Then packing for the early morning ferry back to mainland South Australia. 

And a few more pics from Kangaroo Island! …