We woke up a bit before the alarm, eventually dragged ourselves out of the warm bed, and got ready and packed. Jess took some time to write in this journal, leading to the quote of the morning: Jess: "What family are octopus in?" Jer: "Cephalopods. Wait, what!?"
After a continental breakfast of muesli, toast, juice and tea, we walked down to the Esplanade to see Nepean Bay in daylight. We had a few minutes to admire the view before returning to the Island Resort to grab our bags and meet Kalen with the Sealink coach.
Our first stop was Clifford's Honey Farm, one of five apiaries on Kangaroo Island. We learned that the island was the world's first bee sanctuary and has the last pure strain of Ligurian honeybees (introduced from Italy in the 1880s). In addition to an explanation of how bees make honey and humans extract it, we were treated to sips of (non-alcoholic) sparkling honey drink and tastes of 3 kinds of honey: sugar gum (just sweet), bottle brush (too strong and odd) and mallee (yum). Additionally, we treated ourselves to excellent homemade honey ice cream (just cream, eggs and honey - yum) and a taste of honey mead (also yum).
The next destination was Kelly Hill Caves, a limestone cave system with stalactites and stalagmites, but also and helictites and shawls. In addition to pointing out the more notable formations (one of which looked like the ballerina's slipper), our National Parks guide told us about the original exploration of the caves in the 19th c., done by candlelight by a party of two men and three women. At one point he turned out the lights and held up a candle to give us a sense of what they experienced, and it was quite eerie.
We headed to lunch at the Western KI Caravan Park after leaving the caves. Following a bowl of vegetable soup, we were given barbequed meats (chicken skewer, a beef sausage and a hamburger) and a selection of salads. After eating, we had time to wander through the koala walk, an area where wild koalas sleep in the trees. We spotted two koalas dozing high in the branches, and two feral turkeys in the underbrush; while there were also wallabies, we didn't spot them, as they normally sleep during the day.
We then drove to Flinders Chase National Park, which takes up the western 1/4 of Kangaroo Island and is home to two of the island's most popular attractions. Along the way, we spotted a biggish wild Kangaroo Island kangaroo, hopping into the underbrush along the side of the road. Eventually, we reached the Remarkable Rocks, huge granite boulders that once frmed the core of a volcanic mountain range. The mountains eroded away, leaving the rocks exposed, and the salt in the sea air "sandblasted" them into interesting shapes, then orange lichen attached itself to them forming neat patterns. They were very fun to explore, and the kids in our party particularly enjoyed wriggling through holes in the rocks. (Actually, so did we.)
We passed the Cape du Couedic lighthouse on our way to our next attraction, and Kalen told us about how isolated the area used to be, with no roads - supply ships came by only once every three months, stopping to winch supplies up the cliff to the lighthouse keeper if the weather held.
Our destination, though, was Admiral's Arch. In addition to the interesting limestone arch worn our of the limestone by the sea (and lined with petrified tree roots), we also got to see the area's large colony of New Zealand fur seals. While most of them were just snoozing on the rocks, we did see a pup porpoising in a rock pool, "hunting" a wad of seaweed, and another climbing the rock wall out of the sea! They were really adorable.
We then made the long drive back to Kingscote, where we saw the Pelican Man's nightly pelican feeding. The local Australian pelicans are the largest of the species, and they can eat a lot of fish (but they have terrible table manners). He fed them both on land (where they wandered among the crowd, swallowing huge mouthfuls of fish), and in the water (to demonstrate that, unlike American brown pelicans, these cannot dive - they are too buoyant).
We drove into Penneshaw for a dinner break. On the way, we spotted a few wild Kangaroo Island kangaroo in the roadside fields, then three bounded across the road in front of the coach! At Kalen's urging, we went to Isola Pizza. The capriciosa (a white pizza with ham, mushrooms, olives and fresh tomatoes) was very tasty and not too heavy. We even had extra to take with us for breakfast.
We then returned to the coach for the quick drive down to the wharf, where we caught the Sealink ferry back to Cape Jervis. It was a boring ride as it was dark out, but the seas were calm, so Jess wrote in this journal while Jer watched an Aussie variety show on TV. We got on another Sealink coach for the two-hour drive into Adelaide, and we both dozed on the way. The coach dropped us off at the Hilton, where our small but nicely appointed room was waiting (on high floor and with foam pillows, as requested). We got housekeeping to bring us a non-wool blanket, then crawled sleepily into bed.