Kangaroo Island - Day 2

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

After a few days in Adelaide for the Christmas feast we're now down on Kangaroo Island relaxing and enjoying the sights. This afternoon I went out for a stroll around the local township - I always enjoy this - I have a regular route which takes in the tiny shopping area - each time we visit nearly all the shops have changed owners or products, there's also the beachfront area to explore,  and of course the penguin rookeries.

The weather looks very cold and overcast but it was actually about 29 degrees as I wandered around!  One of the beachfront shack owners has this super-fun looking inflatable floating trampoline which I'd never seen the likes of before but it turns out you can get your hands on one for a cool $1000 or so..

It reminds me of the time that someone put a regular backyard trampoline on one of the council pontoons at Sandy Bay Beach.  

When I first started coming to the island over15 years ago,  Penneshaw had a huge colony of Little penguins which tourists would come from everywhere to see.  You could do penguin tours but they could also be spotted almost everywhere and Jon's mum even had a pair setting up home in her front garden one year.  Now, largely due to the NZ fur seals, the colony has been decimated and is down to just 6 breeding pairs. I wandered through the old rookery area today and it was a bit like an abandonned country town - with lots of overgrown penguin houses and all the little trails up from the water had been covered in new foliage. The viewing platforms and signage was also in rusted and in a state of disrepair - rather like Jurassic Park would be now..

It was a bit sad but I'm sure there's still hope for the colony.

Earlier in the day (after some bush mechanics involving a damaged muffler and some empty tins of tomatos) we went to get some amazing honey icecream from the honey farm then visited D'Estrees Bay on a southern part of the island we've never been to before.   Once again it looks cold but it was really hot!  

Jon claims he trained for the swedish orienteering terrain in 1990 by running over seaweed piles like this - so the kids got a head start on their training

As always, it's nice to be back on K.I.