Kangaroo Island

February 17, 2023

I had been looking forward to Kangaroo Island as it was my favorite place when we visited Australia with our son, Jordan, in 2006. I knew we couldn't do everything we had done then in the short 9 hours our ship was docked, but hoped to cover as much as possible. If you want to see more of Kangaroo Island, check out my next post - Looking Back at Kangaroo Island.

When we tendered in to Penneshaw, we hoped to see penguins but they had already gone to sleep for the day. There were a lot of black and white cormorants on the rocks so many cruisers thought they were seeing penguins. Unfortunately, they were thinking of the penguins you see in Antarctica, not the little penguins of Penneshaw which are the world's smallest penguins and are more of a blueish-black. As I was searching in vain to see if I could catch a glimpse of a late-arriving penguin, I did spot a sea urchin and some red-beaked gulls.

Our wildlife tour had been cancelled, so we teamed up with our friends, Cathy and Gary, and rented a car to explore on our own. Gary drove and did a great job driving on the "wrong" side of the road. (Like in England, Australian drivers sit on the right side of the car and they drive on the left side of the road.) We decided to head out to Flinder's Chase which is on the opposite side of the island from where we tendered in at Penneshaw.

While Brent and Gary were renting a car, I saw a flock of the rare black cockatoos flying overhead. Cathy and I wandered over to see if we could find black cockatoos in the nearby trees with the seeds they like to eat. We didn't have any luck though.

Although we glimpsed kangaroos along the highway as we drove to Flinders Chase National Park, we sadly didn't get any pictures.On the drive to Flinders Chase, we saw evidence of the fires that devastated Kangaroo Island in December 2019. Sadly the fires cut the koala population of the island in half. We also saw a black swan walking along the side of the road which was surprising as there was no water visible nearby.

After paying for our tickets at Flinder's Chase National Park, we saw a wild koala in a eucalyptus tree! It even woke up briefly to look down at us. This was a special site as koalas are now more rare on Kangaroo Island.

Once we pulled ourselves away from the koala, we drove out to the Weirs Cove Ruins Look­out. We walked along the path and admired the amazing views. We also saw the remains of the storehouse where supplies for the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse was kept. Back in the day, all supplies were winched up to Weirs Cove from ships in the waters below.

Our next stop was the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse.

As we walked along the path behind the lighthouse, we were lucky enough to see Kangaroo Island's endemic Rosenberg's goanna foraging for food in the bush.

From the lighthouse, we drove to Admiral's Walk. They had installed a long boardwalk over the sands and we walked along it and down the stairs to the arch.

Along the way, we gazed down on the fur seals and possibly sea lions on the rocks below.

One seal was resting on a rock near the shore and the waves kept rushing over it. Eventually, it swam off into the water.

The next stop was the Remarkable Rocks.

On the way back, we were lucky enough to see another goanna.

Finally, we were ready to leave Flinders Chase. There wasn't time to stop at Cygnet River and do the scenic walk to look for wallabies and koalas, but we did stop briefly at American River to see the birds and have some fish and chips. Other than a pelican flying by, there were only black swans in the river by the restaurant (the greyish brown one is a black swan cygnet).

We rushed back to return the rental car and boarded the tender to the ship. We then quickly got dressed up for the Australian dinner. The napkins were folded to resemble the Sydney Opera House. The food was delicious. My favorite was the barramundi (fresh fish from Australia) with an amazing caramelized-orange sauce. Dessert was pavlova with spun caramelized sugar.