July 2006
Kangaroo Island was my favorite place when we explored Australia as a family in 2006. We didn't do a cruise this time, but put together a patchwork of places we wanted to see. Quantas had a fantastic deal at the time where if you purchased an international flight from the U.S., you also got 3 domestic flights in Australia. Some of the places we visited were the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, Darwin, Uluru (Ayer's Rock), and Adelaide. Kangaroo Island was our last stop before doing the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne from where we flew home. We had a private guide and explored the item in depth. It was winter in Australia then, so you may notice we are dressed more than during our current visit.
We were able to walk among fur seals on the beach. Although we kept a respectable distance, they were not bothered by our presence at all. There were many young seals during our visit.
Next we climbed the giant sand dunes. Jordan enjoyed sliding down the most!
The next stop was a wildlife park where were allowed to pet koala bears and feed wallabies (Jordan got to hold a joey!).
The highlight was getting to see animals in the wild. I forget where we went, although it may have been Baudin Conservation Park (that's where we were going to go on our current trip if we hadn't been able to rent a car). We saw black cockatoos and other amazing birds (although I didn't get any clear pictures of the cockatoos), Tammar wallabies and kangaroo.
At Penneshaw, we visited the colony of little penguins. It was during the day, so they were all ashore in there home at the Penneshaw Penguin Center. We couldn't use flash photography because it would disturb them. However, you can see that these little penguins were definitely not the same as the cormorants we saw on the rocks when tendering in.
We visited American River next where we saw pelicans and black swans.
We then visited Flinders Chase. We wandered around near the visitor's center a bit and saw a pink and gray galah.
We then saw Admiral Arch and Remarkable Rocks. Jordan was 6 at the time and had a great time on the rocks!
What a great flight deal you got!