Australia 2017

AUSTRALIA - DAY FOURTEEN - Kangaroo Island
Previous Blogs: Day 1 Portland & Honolulu \| Day 2 Oahu \| Day 3+4 Melbourne \| Day 5 Williamstown \| Day 6 Launceston \| Day 7 Cradle Mountain \| Day 8 Road to Hobart \| Day 9 Port Arthur \| Day 10 Apollo Beach \| Day 11 Port Fairy \| Day12+13 Southern Ports \| Day 14 Kangaroo Island \| Day 15 Kangaroo Island \| Day 16 Kangaroo Island \| Day 17 Adelaide \| Day 18 Adelaide \| Day 19 Adelaide Hills \| Day 20+21 Uluru \| Day 22+23 Alice Springs \| Day 24 Darwin \| Day 25 Darwin \| Day 26+27 Port Douglas \| Day 28 Daintree \| Day 29+30 Gold Coast \| Day 31+32 Brisbane \| Day 33 Brisbane \| Day 34-36 Hawaii Click photos for a larger image...

Victor Harbour has a horse drawn tram that takes you out on a causeway to the granite island. Unfortunately we were not there long enough to take the trip, but it looked pretty neat.	On our way to our next stop were saw our very first WILD kangaroos. They are difficult to spot during the day because they are nocturnal, and you only really see them dusk to dawn. This was still fairly early in the morning so we got lucky.
The next stop was at Cape Jervis where we had pre-booked and prepaid a ferry ride to Kangaroo Island
This is the ferry terminal.	You drive your car onto the ferry
	Kangaroo Island is a nature preserve not far from Adelaide. The only way to get there is by boat and a ferry runs every hour. It is a 45 minute ferry ride from the mainland. The island is about 100 miles long, so it is not small by any means. They have very strict rules n what can be taken to the island. No foxes or rabbits (we don't have a pet fox so we are OK) and no bees (why would you even say that? Who carries bees around with them) and definitely no POTATOES. Damn, there goes that bag of chips I had stashed away!
The have comfortable seats and a snack bar that sells... wait for it... MEAT PIES!	They park the cars pretty tight - yip that is where our little Toyota is jammed into a corner.

Big surprise, the first place we headed for on the island was the lighthouse - or should I say the FIRST light house! There will be more! The main roads on the island are tarmac but the majority are dirt. Stating to miss that RAV 4 we had in Tassie!!

We then drove around the island just taking in the sights. Lots of shoals offshore, since 1850 there have been more than 85 ship wrecks off the island.

And we saw birds - who knew black swans liked salt water?...
Beautiful vineyards	Fields of lavender (a BIG thing here, apparently)
And then purely by accident, we found this strange and weird swamp...

Then we went to a sheep dairy... yes, you might well ask, what the bloody hell is a sheep dairy? Who knew? You can milk a sheep and make cheese, and any other kinds of sheeply dairy products. We watched them mil the sheep and had a sheep cheese tasting. It was pretty damn tasty!

	We drove a lot of dirt roads in our little Corolla, some good, some awful (we might owe Thrifty for a new suspension) but I will say this little car is great. For a compact rental it is very well appointed with power everything, plus cruise control and even a backup camera so we can't complain. So far we have driven well over 1000 km with it, very light on gas. The one thing I forgot to mention about crossing the state line, the damn time zone changed, we gained another 30 minutes. WTF? 30 minutes? Who changes a time zone by only 30 minutes? That is, well, just plain freakin' weird. But yes, instead of being 16 hours ahead of Florida we are now 16 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Florida. Go Figure?

Here's our new home for 3 days - what a nice hotel. Separate cottage with fridge, microwave living room and even a BBQ next to the pool... speaking of which...
Kangaroo... it's what's for dinner!!!	Together with some chicken, the Roo was quite delightful. And healthy, 99.5% fat free. Does NOT taste like chicken. Not gamey at all, similar to beef and cooked rare it has a delicate flavor similar to Ostrich we ate back home in South Africa. Kinda like a cross between beef and chicken, if you will.
And finally...
	Every now and and again, some bastard has to remind you that Australia houses the 4 most dangerous critters in the world to humans... God Damn you....