Kangaroo Island – Raw Beauty and Many Wild Marsupials

(Location: Kangaroo Island, South Australia)

In January of 2014 I had a work trip to Adelaide, so we decided to make a long weekend out of it and tick Kangaroo Island off the list.

Our flight from Melbourne landed late afternoon, so we arranged to spend the first night in McLaren Vale. After a light lunch at Star of Greece, we checked in to the Vintage B&B (which had a lovely view of the adjacent vineyards). Dinner was Italian at Vasarelli.

The next day we drove another hour south to Cape Jervis, where we boarded the Sealink Ferry. It was quite windy, and the seas were a little roll, but luckily I made it through the hour crossing without heaving.

Kangaroo Island is quite large – perhaps a two hour drive to cross from east to west. We stayed in the middle near Seddon at the Eleanor River Homestead. It was a good 20 minutes from the nearest anything (which was an ICA that was out of meat because the delivery truck broke down), but it was AMAZING. The cabin itself was cute, but the resident kangaroos were cuter. There was also a kestrel who visited daily. And the night sky was other-wordly.

We visited Parndana Wilflife Park (now called the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park). The highlight was holding Tinkerbell the baby wallaby, who was still in a makeshift-pouch – a.k.a. a canvas shopping bag.

We also visited Paul’s Place Wildlife Sanctuary. The highlight here was holding a brushtail possum, and getting pooped on by a bearded dragon.

And because we hadn’t seen enough animals, we also visited Raptor Domain. I got to hold a kookaburra, but it was really too hot that day to enjoy anything.

And lastly, we visited Flinders Chase National park, where the highlight was Remarkable Rocks and the seal colony near the Arch.