Our first day on Kangaroo Island and as the weather was forecast to be fine today but raining tomorrow, we drove right across the island the the south western side to Flinders Chase National Park. This park has everything, coastal features, fur seal populations, geological feature, eucalyptus forests, kangaroos, koalas, platypus and echidnas... allegedly!
We drove directly to Admirals Arch and had a great view of a young New Zealand fur seal which climbed high on the rocks to a point just below us purely to roll around on the sun warmed rocks to warm up. We walked from the car park past the light house in the hope of seeing snakes but all we managed to see was a very fast caterpillar and two lizards.
From here we drove a little further to the Remarkable Rocks. I thought it was a pretty ridiculous name but when we saw them they really are remarkable. They comprise of a volcanic outcrop of rocks which glow orange in the sun with a particular type of lichen. They are literally balance don each other all on their own and get bigger and bigger the closer we got to them. The blue sky and a polariser made them look really impressive... quite remarkable! They were todays designated photo until a bit later in the day.
We headed back to the Visitor Centre and decided to take one of the self guided trails through the eucalyptus forest. We spotted a bright blue bird which we IDed as a ‘Superb Fairy Wren’ (yes - really). It was an excellent walk and although we followed a trail, we were virtually the only people on it for a while. We walked through a flock of Cape Barron geese and then Colin spotted a kangaroo and very young joey amongst the trees. Still no koalas though and this was rather rubbed in when we met a nice couple (from the Netherlands I think) who had seen two and had some nice photos as well.
All of a sudden Colin spotted one in a tree (he really has earned his wildlife spotter badge today!). As the four of us moved quietly to get photos it turned, had a good old scratch and then climbed down the tree, lolloped across the ground in front of us and then climbed up the other tree. What luck, to see one up close and actually doing something rather than sleeping but then it got even better. I spotted another on the ground next to another tree. It obviously wanted to go up the same tree but as they are rather anti-social it didn’t know what to do. A brilliant 10 minutes or so went by as we stood literally a few metres away watching her/him deciding what to do before it finally walked... slowly... to the bottom of the same tree... spent another 5 minutes thinking before slowly climbing up, pausing for candid photos along the way. This is todays photo which just pipped the Remarkable Rocks to first place and because I love koalas - here are a few more pics of the two stars of the day - https://www.facebook.com/pg/EmmaDurnfordPhotography/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1621084501277558
After that high we could only head back, stopping at the Caltex garage in Kingscote for fish and chips (renown across the island) and then returning back to our accommodation for a session of clothes washing as a storm blew in and it chucked it down with rain. Apart from the washing what an excellent day.
