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Breakfast was brought to our room at 7:45am. After breakfast we
started to get ready, throwing away all the empty boxes and other
food packaging we wouldn't need. While we were getting ready,
we heard what sounded like a siren blasting away behind our building.
Sounded like an air raid signal. I'm still not quite sure what
it was, but we later noticed a television news helicopter on the
lawn across the street.
Sorrento (the renovated main building)
It was partly cloudy as we made the drive toward Seal Bay. The
road is paved the whole way, unlike many of the roads on the island.
After an hour or so, we reached our destination. We were just
in time to take a 45 minute tour (they have them every hour).
Hay bales
We raced down the walkway to catch up with the rest of the tour
group. We headed down the hill to a wooden lookout overlooking
the Southern Ocean. South of us, across the rough ocean, lay Antarctica (though of course we couldn't see it from here).
There were 8 of us in the tour. Our guide led us down the wooden
steps to the beach. We then walked just a few yards down the beach
before we came face to face with sea lions. There they were, sunning
themselves up and down the beach. Our guide told us they were
a rare breed of Australian sea lion -- only about 12,000 of them
in the world. Seal Bay is the third largest breeding ground for
them. He also told us that, over the sea lions' lifetime, about
half of them would end up being eaten by great white sharks. As
he put it, where there are seals, there are always great whites.
In fact, the live shark footage in the Jaws movie was filmed just
90 kilometers away. He was around at the time and gave us some
interesting stories from the filming.
Breast feeding
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
The Australian sea lions here were much smaller than the elephant
seals of Ano Nuevo in California. They're also much more photogenic.
We could also get much closer to them than in Ano Nuevo, though
we still had to stay about 20 feet away. The sea lions mostly
just sat there, motionless. We did see a mother feeding her pup.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the pup was helping
itself to a vacant nipple. Apparently the females have 4 or 6
nipples, since they do a lot of feeding.
Sea lions laying out on the beach
Bird walking past the sea lions
The ocean was much more rough than what we'd seen from the Pacific
near Cairns. The waves pounded against the beach and against a
rocky island up the coast, where hundreds of birds were perched.
Gull flying over the beach
After enjoying the sights and sounds, we headed back up to our
car, then drove to a nearby food farm. There we got some snacks
and also purchased jars of honey made from the Kangaroo Island
Ligurian bee. In 1881, August Fiebig brought 12 hives from the
Italian province of Liguria. Since then no other breeds have been
introduced to the island, so all of the bees on the island are
pure Ligurian bees -- the only ones in the world.
We went over to a covered picnic area which had displays on the
walls describing different parts of history of the island. In
one corner, we found a bee hive, encased in glass. The bees were
buzzing about, and went outside through a glass tube. Since we
know now that all bees on the island are Ligurian bees, those
bees we saw must be Ligurian bees.
We drove on for another 40 minutes before we reached Flinders
Chase National Park. It's very different compared to the National
Parks we're used to in the United States. There was a single ranger
stationed there, with a small gift shop. We'd reserved a campsite,
but there really wasn't much need, as only one of the other 16
campsites was taken. In fact, after looking around we decided
to take a different campsite than the one we'd originally signed
up for. Site 16 was surrounded on all sides by bushes, giving
it too much of a confined feeling. So we chose site 14, which
was a little more open, but still had bushes on two sides for
shelter.
The sun was finally out, breaking free of the clouds as we set
up our tent. Jean took a little nap while I drove back to the
ranger to tell them we'd moved. While I was there I saw a bunch
of tourists stopped by the roadside, taking pictures of kangaroos.
There were three kangaroos near a car, eating grasses. I took
a few pictures, as well. I also decided to whip out my GPS system
just for kicks to see if I could get a good signal, which I did.
One of the nice features of the GPS system is that it also gives
the times for sunrise and sunset, which is useful for when you're
doing a hike near sunset, as we would be doing.
Hey, those are my tires!
Kangaroos near the road
Cape Barren Goose
Cape Barren Geese
I drove back to our camp site. I noticed two kangaroos and about
a half dozen Cape Barren geese wandering around the grass near
our camp site. They were in a section of grass which didn't have
any camp sites. It was their home, apparently, or at least a common
feeding or napping ground.
Kangaroos near our campsite
Our campsite
We decided that we didn't have time to drive down to Remarkable
Rocks today. We'd save that for the following day. Today, we'd
do a short hike. We secured the campsite. But just as we were
about to leave, I spotted a large black bird -- a crow, perhaps.
It was eyeing our stove and other items left on the ground. It
made a leap and snatched at our mosquito coils, actually lifting
it into the air before I made a lunge at it to chase it away.
I quickly took everything from the ground and put it into the
car.
We parked near the ranger station and then started off on the
Black Swamp Trail.
After the hike we stopped by the bathrooms, where we saw the showers.
It was a lighted bathroom and the showers didn't look that bad.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any towels and were too tired to
take a shower that night. We cautiously drove back to our camp
site to make dinner. I say cautiously because we knew there were
kangaroos all around and wanted to make sure we didn't run into
any.
The sun set at 6:44pm, and we had to cook dinner after that. The
whole time we cooked and ate we were bothered by kangaroos. Or
at least one very persistent kangaroo. They're quite fearless.
Usually when you make a lunge toward a wild animal, they'll back
off. Not this one. Jean had to run within a foot of him before
he bounded off. And he'd return soon after. If we threw stuff
in his direction, he'd look to where it'd landed, thinking it
was food. He never actually came up and took any of our food,
but it made it a bit uncomfortable for us to cook and eat.
Eventually we gave up on scaring the kangaroo away. I figured
that perhaps he was just eating in his usual spot and wasn't really
trying to bother us. He seemed content eating his grass. We, on
the other hand, had a feast consisting of Thai flavored rice,
crab meat, tuna, baby corn, and carrots; Tom Yum Gum soup; and
hot chocolate to finish it off.
After washing up and getting in our sleeping bags, we were fast
asleep by 9:30, even with the kangaroos all around us.
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