Remarkable Rocks, Kangaroo Island, SA. Photo credit: Brett Sheriden/South Australian Tourism Commission
One of the best trips that my brother and I took was when we travelled to Kangaroo Island with 3 friends. Kangaroo Island is just off Adelaide, and you can take tours to it from out of Adelaide. However, we were lucky enough to be spending time with a friend who had his own car, so we decided to take that across and just share the price of the ferry ticket.
The first day of our trip, we set off early from our hostel, as we had to drive to the ferry terminal on the coast. As we were only going for 3 days, we just took the essentials with us, and left the majority of our belongings behind at the hostel. Once arriving at the ferry terminal, it was an easy job to buy tickets for us all, plus the car, and then get ourselves on board.
After a fairly brisk ferry ride, our first port of call once we had disembarked was the tourist information, where we got ourselves a map of the island, and booked ourselves a bed for the night! We really should have done this in advance as there are very few hostels on the island, but luckily we managed to find beds at a place on the opposite end of the island where we wanted to spend our first night.
The island’s not huge, so we decided to drive to where we were spending the night first, dump our belongings, and then take in as many of the sights in the vicinity as we could before it got dark.
When we arrived at our accommodation, it turned out to be pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It was lovely and peaceful, but the lack of people was slightly unnerving! We had a quick look around what appeared to be the main building, but everything except the toilets was locked, so we moved on to what seemed to be the office building, in search of somewhere to check in!
As I approached the front door, I noticed that there were some envelopes taped to it, so selecting the one that had my name on the front, I opened it to find a map of the hostel grounds, and the keys to our room. There was also a note asking us just to put our payment for the room in the honesty box with the keys, in the morning before we left! I was touched by how quaint the idea of an honesty box was, and by how trusting the owners of the hostel were to expect people to use it. We of course did pay for our evening’s lodgings; I can only hope that other people were as honest!
Following the map to our room, we found a fairly spacious bedroom with the usual bunk beds and a double bed, as well as an en-suite bathroom. After unpacking the car and claiming beds, we took a quick wander around the large shared kitchen and dining area, before jumping back in the car to take in some of the island’s sights.
First stop was Seal Bay, where for a small fee you could talk a walk down to the beach and a stroll along the boardwalk to look at the seal colony. If you wanted to pay a bit extra, you could actually go onto the beach with a ranger, but to be honest, you can get pretty close to the seals from the boardwalk. And there are plenty of them to see! After having a wander around there for a while (and watching my mates’ hilarious attempts at seal noises in an effort to get the seals to come closer!), we headed off to our next port of call.
Next up was the fantastically named Little Sahara. Guess what that was then?! Yep, a big pile of sand! Little Sahara is a bit further along the south coast from Seal Bay, and it’s this load of sand dunes that seems to just appear out of nowhere! It’s not the best signposted place, so you have to keep your eyes peeled for the sign as you drive along. But that just made it seem more exciting to me. Like you’d just stumbled across it, rather than it being some big tourist trap!
From where you can park your car, there’s a flat area of sand, followed by an incline. Once you reach the top you can see that there are trees all around you, and then just this patch of sand that you’re standing on. Madness! My friends obviously tried to find handy bits of cardboard to slide down the dunes on, but they didn’t have much luck! However, it’s always fun to throw yourselves around in a big pile of sand! Just be careful of your camera, or you might get sand in it like I rather foolishly did!
After much larking about in the sand, we decided to head back to our accommodation for the night, before it got too dark. Once back we set about making some food without getting in the way of the tour group who had turned up, and were staying the night in some of the adjacent rooms. After dinner, we moved outside to a little paved area that had a pit in the centre where the tour group’s leader had started a fire. There were benches around the fire, so we sat and chatted with some of the other people spending the night.
When it got truly dark, the leader of the tour group picked up a torch and led the group off on a nocturnal creature hunt, which he very kindly invited me to join in with! I had much fun spotting possums and kangaroos, and I was also included in the cake and custard eating when we returned! Good times!
The next morning, we got up bright and early, and after showering, packing up the car, and not forgetting putting our night’s rent in the honesty box, we set off to a nearby koala sanctuary. There was a notice asking for a nominal fee when we arrived, next to yet another honesty box. Then we wandered among the trees, gazing skyward in an attempt to spot the koalas! There were quite a few lazing around, but we got distracted by some kangaroos, so we wandered over and took some pictures of those too. Funnily enough, there are a lot of kangaroos on Kangaroo Island! And the ones you get there are actually called Kangaroo Island kangaroos and are different to the ones you find on the mainland.
As we were snapping some photos, we heard a terrible and rather frightening noise coming from where the koalas were. We ran over and arrived just in time to see 2 koalas having a scrap! I thought one of them was going to fall out of the tree! I’ve never seen them move so fast. But really, the noise they make when fighting is quite scary!
After the excitement of the koala sanctuary we headed into Flinders Chase National Park, where we first stopped at the tourist information place to buy a permit to allow us to drive in the park. Then after stroking a couple of tame wallabies that were wandering around the car park, we headed off to see the Remarkable Rocks! Unfortunately it was raining when we got there, but we braved the weather to have a wander around the many strange, and yes, quite remarkable rocks! Many weird and twisty shapes to pose next to in your photos!
Next we carried on towards Admirals Arch at the far end of the island. There we parked up in the car park, before following the path along the stunning coastline and down to this huge natural stone arch at the bottom of the cliff. It’s really beautiful and there are seals everywhere! There we watched the waves crash against the shore, and the frolicking seals for a while, before climbing back up to the car park and continuing on our way.
As we’d decided to spend our second night in the north of the island, after leaving Admirals Arch we headed north to the main highway that runs along the centre of the island. Once there we headed east towards the island’s main town of Kingscote. Before we got there however, we took a side road towards the coast and a place called Stokes Bay. I’d found it on one of the maps that I’d procured from the tourist information and it said that there was a hidden beach there. I thought this sounded cool, and as we had some time left before evening, suggested we go seek it out.
What I didn’t realise though, is that when the map says dirt road, it means dirt road! So although the first part of the drive there was on a sealed road, the second part was incredibly bumpy. I thought my friend was actually going to kill me when we got out of the car at the other end! Every time a stone flew up and hit the car I winced! So yeah, if you have a rental car, then definitely give it a miss!
When we got out of the car, initially all we could see was a small rocky beach. However by following a path around the rocks, and then through a tunnel in the rocks, we emerged onto a much larger hidden beach on the other side. It was lovely and my brother and I spent a long time clambering around on the rocks, whilst our friends took a stroll along the sand. However, it’s not worth wrecking your car over!
Leaving the beach and heading back along the bumpy dirt road, we drove to Kingscote and found ourselves a hostel for the night. Just a typical house in the middle of town kind of hostel, but it was very quiet, and we had our pick of the beds!
We started our final day on the island by driving to a place called Emu Bay. Sadly, there are no emus on the island (a fact which greatly disappointed my friends!), but there are a lot of pelicans there. Unfortunately there’s not much else there though, so after taking a few photos we headed off again.
As we drove from the main part of the island, to the section where we would get the ferry back to the mainland, we stopped at the side of the road to climb the steps up Prospect Hill. It didn’t take too long and there was a fantastic view over the island once we reached the top.
After taking a few more photos, we headed onwards, and just played around on one of the beaches near Penneshaw until it was time to go get the ferry back to the mainland. We had a wonderful time on Kangaroo Island, but although it’s one of the larger islands off the coast of Australia, I wouldn’t say you needed much more than 3 days to look around it. It’s definitely a place I would recommend to visit though!
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