Kangaroo Island bliss

SA blogger Q got to explore a little piece of her own backyard (and reckons you should too).

Photo op at Admiral’s Arch

Want a taste of a quintessential Aussie experience? Don’t want to be one of those travellers who see the world but have never seen what is in their own backyard? Then, you definitely need to put a visit to Kangaroo Island on your list of places to see.

Pre-adventure luxury

Knowing our tour was going to be intense and crammed full of dawn to dusk activity, we decided a plush, relaxing start to the weekend was in order and stayed the night at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide.

Woah VIP alert! Executive Suite at the Hilton

Our junior executive suite was to die for, with a marble bathroom bigger than most other hotel rooms and a bath you could swim laps in. The pillow menu and Evelyn and Crabtree toiletries added to the many indulgences we enjoyed on the eve of our Kangaroo Island experience.

Day one: let’s go!

The ferry across to Kangaroo Island

Suitably refreshed from our luxe stay, Bob from Sun and Surf collected us from the Hilton at 6:25am, and we drove in air-conditioned comfort with 12 other tour goers down to Cape Jervis to get the 45 minute ferry ride to Kangaroo Island. Sun and Surf keep their tour groups small and we had an interesting and varied group of travellers to share our trip with including three Adelaide locals; an insurance broker from Switzerland; a doctor from Greece and a journalist from Germany.

After alighting from the ferry at Penneshaw, we started off with a walk up Pennant Hill to take in some amazing views and listen to Bob’s casual and amusing, yet historically accurate tales of the Island’s history. A swim for some and a bit of wading for others followed in the pristine waters of Pennington Bay.

KI’s beautiful coastline at Cape De Couedic

We happily arrived at our farm stay accommodation for the weekend, the Koala Sanctuary at Hanson Bay, and unloaded our bags and had lunch (all meals are included in the tour price so everything is taken care of).

The rest of day one was spent in the Flinders Chase National Park, visiting Cape De Couedic, the famous Admiral’s Arch (with playful New Zealand fur seals), and the most Remarkable Rocks.

Wandering around the accommodation and accessible areas of the sanctuary later in the evening meant getting to see koalas in the trees, roos and wallabies feeding together and my personal favourite, an echidna making a huge ruckus in the undergrowth foraging for food.

Evidently it rained a lot during the night, most of us slept so well after our big first day that we didn’t hear a thing!

Day two: exploring the island

Seal Bay

Day two meant getting up at 7am, ready to set off for Seal Bay, which presents a wonderful opportunity to get up close and personal with Australian sea lions. We also spent an hour at Raptor Domain with Dave Irwin (yes he is related to Steve), getting to know all about Australian birds of prey. A friendly barn owl named Casper was my favourite, he said hello by flying from lap to lap on guests in the front row.

The tour group (minus me who is a bit of a wuss when it comes to sand dunes) then had a ball sand-boarding and tobogganing down the dunes at Little Sahara, with some spectacular photos and a few grains of sand the best souvenirs of the experience.

One last stop on our way back to get the ferry from Penneshaw, featured a visit to the Island Beehive to sample Kangaroo Island Honey and grab some divine honey ice-cream (well-worth a visit!)

Something for everyone

Windswept, but very happy!

In addition to the wonderful experiences we had on our tour, Kangaroo Island also offers penguins on the beaches, tea tree oil distilleries, marron farms, award winning beaches, jetty and boat fishing plus numerous other sights and activities to keep you entertained.

So start making your plans to visit today, you won’t regret it.

Keen to experience your own Kangaroo Island adventure? You can with a lastminute.com.au experience! Click here for details

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