Kangaroo Island, off Adelaide S Australia really does have wildlife abounding – I saw the echidna for the first time ever!  Roos up to 6 foot tall within feet of me, mum and baby in the bush and rare birds above us on a trek out with Paul!

Rook that talked to me on the way to the coach when I kept everyone waiting! oops

Koalas just sitting pretty in the shaded eucalyptus trees of KI..

A rook talked to me, distracting me from the bus I held up watching him, and koalas just sitting above the roads and creeks we visited or drove by every day on KI …

Seals on the beach, wind hewn rock sculptures, wild seas and a fun ferry ride were just some highlights!   I went into the bush alone – really alone, no one around, at times with the two dogs of my host who found something in it’s burrow but sent them away and still don’t know what it might have been!   I still haven’t, though, in all my travels in Aus or elsewhere seen a wild, live snake although I have come close twice I didn’t ‘see’ it!

I walked within three feet of the seals basking on the sand, watch penguins wander in after surfing onto the beach in front of me!   Watched them swim, play and surf huge waves into a rocky cove under a rock arch below me on one trip!

Seals within feet of me on the sandy beaches, penguins dropping home too, and the never before seen echidna I followed as he snuffled the ground for grubs for dinner!  I was fascinated, above us koalas, lizards rustling by, birds calling and flying overhead…

I saw koalas just sitting in trees as we drove the roads as well as the many on the trek through the trees (at least, I think that was in KI!).  Not to mention the birds, the possums, the lizards and wild cats that abound all of Aus and especially close to on Kangaroo Island!   Yes, it is an amazing, beautiful if hot and dusty paradise!

It was a treat and for me, ‘real Australia’ – sunbaked red mud, white bleached sand and grey dying trees; lush green grasses watered by bilabongs for farm sheep; sea water fish and shellfish farmed outside my window where I stayed, and swam, running the beaches with the dogs and hiking the trails up and down the hills from coach to coast!

Wind and salt hewn incredible rocks on KI

I loved KI.  I met a farmer of 1000 acres, so big you can’t see the ends of it, and watched him tractor with Paul to get his wandering cows back into the ‘field’ – they wandered out of an open gate, regardless of the fence having fallen down or been walked over by the first few!  We talked of money and investments, cows and building new facilities by hand for guests to come and stay in real Aussie farm bushland, changing an old cow shed/barn/shearing shed into exciting if basic ‘rooms’ and cots!   

I walked rivers to seas, bridges over creeks and went out at dusk to find hundreds of kanagroos basking, eating, bouncing and family life in the cooler evening bushland …

The rough tough truckers, farmers and workers – shorts and boots, tanned muscled legs and arms, ‘sunnies’ on and occasionally the requisite bush hat!  No corks but having experienced flies on my face, trying to get into my nose, mouth and eyes at the pier and the bush trek on mainland Aus, I can really understand the need!   Or the netting I eventually bought having seen other tourists wearing them …if only I’d known before those two days!

The tiny airport on KI and the bridge over creeks where local campers go for peace (it’s all fairly slow paced and peaceful here!)

Further information:

http://tinyurl.com/k8sdaww – Guardian article on travel – Kangaroo Island that reminded me of my trip and promoted this post!