Adelaide and Kangeroo Island

Arrived in adelaide  afte the easy 2 and half hour flight from perth, arrived at around 1.30pm local time so a pretty good time. Got the shuttle bus into town to my hostel and was all checked in by about 3pm. Was staying in a hostel that 1st night as sian was away on business but would go and stay with her for the next few days afterwards. Went for a walk around the city and to the markets, again pretty easy to walk around, spotted all the main sights and then passed a park that was having a asian lantern parade that evening so decided to sit and watch that for a bit. Was fairly cool, lots of acts from asia palying music, performing arts and sports and then when dark the lantern parade. Wandered back to the hostel about 9.30pm and watched a bit of TV before going to sleep. The next day i checked out of the hostel and left my bags there and wentinto the city. I had a look around the Bradman Collection at the Library, a collection of bats, balls, clothing and other various items along with the story, from the life of Don Bradman. I then went for a walk around the casino in adelaide, a big place but still not as grand as some of the ones in vegas. I next went to the immigration museum which gave a great insight into the past imigration of people to australia and how this affected the local aboriginal communities and how their lives have changed since. I met sian that evening and we went back to her flat in the nice suburb of Glenelg, she has a really nice flat right on the waterfront and surrounded by all the necessary facilities. We went out for a mexican that night which was really, nice, the 1st time i'd eaten out in ages!! The next day she went off to work and i got up a bit late and caught the tram into the city for another look around. I went to the Museum of South Australia which was full of interesting exhibits, alot more aboriginal stuff and a good section on the sea and history of the earth relating to australia. Had a look around the central markets, lots of lovely looking food and some good cheese (austalian cheese is crap!!) but resisted the urge to buy anything!! I caught the tram back to glenelg around 6ish and we had a night in watching TV and had pizza. The next day was a lazy one, i stayed in glenelg all day, had a wander around the area, down to the windy windy beach and then went to the Rodney Fox shark experience. A museum if you like dedicated to sharks, set up by a guy called rodney fox who survived a shark attack in the 60's and then dedicated his life to them. Pretty interesting and helped you to understand sharks and their mentalities a bit more.

The next day, saturday, we were off to kangeroo Island (KI), the ferry wasnt until about 3pm so we set off around midday for the hour or so drive down to cape jervis to catch the ferry. I nice drive through the adelaide hills past some of the vineyards and through some little towns. The ferry crossing to KI took about 45mins and was pretty rough, luckily i'd taken a seasickness tablet so i was fine, if i hadnt it could have been messy!! We docked in the town of Penneshaw on KI and drove the 5okms to Kingscote where we were staying . The scenery along the way was very green, woody and pretty cool. The seasview motel where we were staying was pretty basic but nice and clean. About 7.30pm we went down to the kingscote marine centre for a nightime penguin tour. Our guide was very enthusiastic and we saw many penguins under the red light torch they used to protect the penguins eyes. The penguins were the smallest breed of penguin on earth and we saw some territorial battles between penguins, very noisy affairs!! The next morning we were up early and off around the island, after the breakfast we headed along the south coast of KI to our 1st stop, seal bay. This was as the name suggests, a bay where a number of seal colonies live and come ashore. We joined a tour down to the beach and our guide gave us an insight into the seals, how long they'd been here and why. We could get relatively close to them, pretty cool creatures and they also had some territorial issues going on and were even louder than the penguins!! It was facinating to see them in their natural environment and watch the play and fight!! The next stop was Kelly Caves, an old cave formation with some spectacular stalagtites and mites of different colours. We next drove onto the flinders chase national park, through some cool tree arches and onto the remarkable rocks. These rocks were, as they say, remarkable, a jagged formation of individual rocks on the cliff edge that were places almost perfectly on a big rock table!! All natural, really cool. After this we went down to the admirals arch which is a natural arch in the rocks formed by the sea over thousands of years and had another coloney of seals living in it. We made our way back to the motel along the northern edge of the island through some more cool scenery, a really good day topped off by a good meal and a few beers.

The next day we spent travelling around all the local industries on the island, all producing fresh produce right from the island. This included a beehive, the emu bay eycalyptus distillery which grew its own eycalypt trees and harvest them and distilled them all themselves and shipped their produce to the mainland. We then went to the island dairy, for some tasting of some really good cheese, which we ended up buy with some crackers for lunhc, easily the best cheese i'd had so far in Oz. On the way back to the ferry we stopped at and climbed prospect hill, which provided an amazing view out over the island and the we went for a small wine tasting at the sunset winery. We caught the ferry back to the mailand at 5.30pm on whcih was a much smoother crossing. It had been a cool trip, definately glad sian had suggested it, so much to see and do.