Kangaroo Island 17th December 2014
Day trip
Today we planned to see the southern part of the island that
faces the Antarctica and is reputed to be the coldest and the windiest of the
shores. Fortunately today the temperature had risen, the sky was less cloudy
and the wind had abated. To get there we drove down through the central road
for the best part of 100km, mostly along straight roads going on for miles, and
headed south to Flinders Chase National Park. Sheila spotted a heath goanna on
the road and managed to avoid driving over it!
However, there were many other road kills along the way and on the way
back, particularly wallabies.
On reaching the south coast we headed east of Weirs Cove to
Kirkpatrick Point, where there is what is labelled the “Remarkable Rocks”. The
rocks were created when a granite dome was exposed to fracturing and weathering
over 200 million years ago.
"Remarkable Rock"
From the rocks we went down to Cape du Couedic to see the
New Zealand fur seals bathing in the sun and playing in the strong surf that
was pounding the rocks. There are about
30,000 NZ fur seals living on KI. These
can travel for miles and one was recorded to have swum to the coast off
Tasmania, rested for three days and swum back.
They can also dive to depths of 500m.
NZ Fur Seals
Just around the corner is an impressive arch, called
Admirals Arch, that one day will separate another section of the rocks from the
mainland.
Admirals Arch
After a further drive down the coast we arrived at Seal Bay
and saw the Australian seals jostling for supremacy as they were in the mating
season. This is a very limited period of two weeks and since the female seals go
through an 18 month gestation period it will not happen again until 2016. The
odour from the dominate bulls is unbelievably overpowering. Unlike their NZ cousins their fur is quite
thin. They use their front fins to walk across the beach and dunes. The deepest
recorded dive is 275m and they frequently undertake many dives in a day but
they don’t travel as far as their cousins. At Seal Bay there is a community of
around 700 seals.
Australian male set to
On arrival back in Kingscote we just missed the pelican
feeding session done on the harbour but there were still a few around as well
as black swans.
Pelican
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