Kangaroo Island - Day 3

Friday, 29 December 2017

We always do a least one long day out when we are here, and today the day wasn't actually long enough to fit in everything we wanted to.

Firstly, we headed down to Flinders Chase National Park -about an hour's drive away.  It's been a while since we visited and the visitor centre and everything else around it has been upgraded.

We did a 5k walk to some platypus waterholes but we didn't see any (platypuses, we saw lots of waterholes), possibly due to the fact that Zali had a bad case of the sneeze-burp-hiccups which  were so loud, any platypus within a 10k radius would have packed up their things and taken the next ferry back to the mainland for some peace and quiet.

Along the way there were heaps of signboards with information about the regenration of the bush that has happened since the big bushfire in 2007.  Perhaps there was too much information as by the time Jon had read them all and we'd completed the hike, it was lunchtime.

After a picnic lunch we headed down to Admirals Arch - I hadn't been there since I was pregnant with Zali, and once again the facilities had been upgraded.  The arch was ok - but the big attraction was the hundreds of seals sitting just below the pathway We watched them for ages - big ones and little ones lazing around, arguing, playing in the surf - it was really cool.

 Then we headed off to Remarkable Rocks. I must admit that although I saw them back in 2003 I've been poo-pooing them as I didn't think they could really compare to anything the East Coaast of Tassie had to offer, but in fact I must have just forgotten as they were quite remarkable - and the kids were pretty impressed too.

 With the rocks done, we had planned to do the Hanson Bay hike together but we didn't have time so Jon dropped me off at the start  and I ran the 9k to the end. We walked it last time we were here and I'd been looking forward to doing it again since then.

The start of the Hanson Bay Hike at Kelly Hill Caves has actually become the official end of the new Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail - a 5 day hike that starts at the Flinders Chase visitor's centre.

I love all the xanthorrheas and the way the trail starts in scrubby bush and passes through a whole range of vegetation and terrain before ending up at the beach.

which is where I found these layabouts..

By the time I'd had a swim and we'd packed up it was 5.30 so we had to skip everything else on our to-do list and head home for well deserved fish and chips.