Where Are All the Kangaroos?

Before leaving Los Angeles, Jade of Vagabond 3 told me that the one thing I had to do in Australia was Kangaroo Island. The local bartender in Adelaide had the same response: “You’ll just LOVE it.” I was pretty much sold.

The third-biggest island in the country (after Tasmania and Melville Island in the Northern Territory) is off the coast of Adelaide and home to about 4,500 people. It’s deceptively big and takes about 5 hours to go from one side to the other, mostly on unsealed roads.

We grabbed some brochures for Sea Link, the company that monopolizes the KI market, and were hit with a $240 price tag. We weighed our options. It would be $80 per person round trip just for the ferry and that doesn’t include the $150 to get the car across.

A car that barely escaped sudden death in Melbourne just a few days prior. Then there’s the added cost of fuel and meals, so in the end, we decided to go with Sea Link’s Kangaroo Island Highlights tour, which hit most of the southern coast and included the price of ferries, bus transportation, lunch, and park fees.

I still think it was very expensive, which showed when we were the youngest people on our tour, but your guide Alex, a KI native, says the locals want the ferries to be government-run. The island is often left behind in the politics of Australia, getting its main roads sealed less than a decade ago. If the government provided transportation, it would be cheaper, but Sea Link is good at what they do.

I wasn’t so happy about the fact that we had to be at the Adelaide Bus Station at 6:15. Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person? I grabbed a Coke right before boarding the 1 hour 45 minute bus to Cape Jervis.

By the time we boarded the ferry and the sea breeze hit my face, I was excited about the trip. After another 45 minutes, we finally arrived in Kangaroo Island, where I expected to be greeted by the aforementioned creatures, but was instead greeted by tour buses.

The first stop of the day was Seal Bay, where the lazy seals lay in the sun all day. An obnoxious park ranger approached every foreign-looking person, asking, “Do you speak English?” before continuing her condescending lecture on the history of the bay.

I wasn’t impressed with the seals, especially since we had to stay so far away from them. Alex told us stories of tourists trying to poke seals with sticks or pick up the pups, who subsequently had to get 86 stitches.

We stopped for our free lunch at Vivonne Bay Bistro, an obvious tourist stop. They had chicken, sausage, salad, and an apple pastry for dessert, but all I really wanted was a beer. Afterward, the same tour buses stopped a few kilometers away for a birds of prey show. I wasn’t terribly impressed, since I had seen this type of show dozens of times before, but it was fun to see the famous kookaburras close up.

The Remarkable Rocks, appropriately named, were easily my favorite part of the day. The hunks of granite, formed after years of erosion, reminded me of Stone Mountain. They formed such crazy shapes and then the stone mount sloped straight into the ocean.

The sealstravaganza wasn’t over yet, as we saw the male New Zealand fur seals laying on the rocks, as men do, and getting into slap-flights at Admiral’s Arch. Aside from a few kangaroos off in the distance, I didn’t see a single kangaroo close up on Kangaroo Island.

Maybe I would have seen more on the North Coast or if we had stayed overnight. I left feeling like it should be called Seal Island, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it.

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