Hi all
Just back from a weekend to Kangaroo Island. Slightly out of season so there was no diving on, which is supposed to be pretty spectacular. Must sees - the seal colony at Seal Bay, the beach at Vivonne Bay (apparently the best in the whole of Australia and certainly stunning). We stayed at Emu Bay which was lovely and quiet, great views, and people we were with saw dolphins right close to the shore and a couple of rays when they went on a walk round there. There are also loads of Pelicans there - think they stop off for the day before being fed at Kingscote!
Also the west end of the island is great - Flinders Chase Conservations Park. Lots of unmade up roads for those who want to put their 4wds to the test! Also lots of roadkill which was sad (in fact I think the islanders go out and plant a load of animal corpses around at night as we saw more dead animals than live ones!).
Totally different "look" to Adelaide, and the land on the mainland side of the ferry - more what we imagined Australia would be like before coming out here.
Oh, and you mustn't miss the honey ice cream at Cliffords Honey Farm (think that was what it was called!)
Diane

Quite fancied this one when we get out there permenent but looks like you've made our minds up.
With the road kill thing we're hiring a camper this December in Queensland & they advise not to drive during the dusk hours as thats when the roo's etc get killed.

Dean

KI is a real conservation area when I was there christmas 94 they were in the process of baning all plastic bags.
Watch out for the snakes on the tarmac especiall early morning. & the roos late at night. Emu bay has a fantastic beach but there are plenty of other beaches all round the island hidden away down tracks etc.
Pelican feeding is carried out nightly at either 5.30 or 7 if my memory serves me right at kingscote. One block gets free fish from the fishermen & feeds them every night. fantasic sight to watch dozens of pelicons flying in from everywhere.
Was lucky to have stayed with an uncle who lives just outside kingscote & enjoyed fantastic diving & snorkling around the area.
Flindlers chase & the amazing rocks (think thats what they were called but its late & i'm tired so bear with me) are well worth a visit.
The ferry from the main land is about 1/2 hr & according to the locals can get quite rougth although we were lucky & crossed what seemed like a mill pond.
Theres also penquin watches along the front at kingscote but be sure to use a filtered lens i.e red or orange when looking at night so as not to scare them.
Was lucky enougth to have dolphins & rays come in real close when we were snorkling made the kids holiday.
If you get there be sure to visit the little gift shops as one is owened by julies aunt & hey might mean a bigger chrisi present for me.lol

....those amazing rocks are pretty Remarkable arn't they!!! its okay I get the same way when I am tired!!!!

Cheers

Jet

Hi On the negative side dont eat at the ozone hotel kingscote.Locals know they depend on everyone eating there only once.Its good glenelg rest prices or more for whats no better than uk motorway garbage.Try small place round the corner from it BELLA its much better. also to the to see list Pennington bay fantastic location graeme

Hello,

This is my first post, but since we found everyone else's thoughts on KI so useful when we were planning our trip, I thought it might be vaguely helpful if I added what we did. On the other hand it might not be !! but you never know !

We went over to KI last weekend, catching the 9am ferry. We took our own car over and got a reasonable discount for booking online - via the sea link website. Once we got into Penneshaw we drove straight towards Kingscote, but stopped to climb Prospect Hill which is definitely worth it for the views over the Island.

We'd booked in the Ozone hotel in Kingscote, but we'd got a pretty good rate for the room (in the new block, over the road from the main hotel) from the "ratestogo" website - which I think saved us about $30 off the rack rate.

We then went straight onto Pauls Place - which is completely mad ! We actually drove over there on the North Coast Road, which is pretty much unmade all the way, but once you get going, its not too bone shaking. We got to Pauls Place at about 1230, as at this time of year he's only really open between 12 noon and 1pm on certain days. We had a great couple of hours, feeding the animals, cuddling the koala, being sat on by parrots and generally getting really close to the animals. There was only one little girl in our group - but she loved it.

By the time we'd finished there and stopped briefly at Vivonne Bay (gorgeous beach,) we headed back to Kingscote in time for the Pelican feeding at 5pm. The island is really quite long and as lots of people have already said it does take a while to get from one side to the other, think really we could have done with staying a few nights, perhaps at different ends of the island.

The pelican feeding is great, its just a guy who does it on the wharf in Kingscote, he only asks for a $2 donantion per person at the end, but its a really entertaining half an hour. We'd booked into Bella in Kingscote for dinner, which was a good job (thanks everyone !) as it was fully booked all evening and they were turning people away. Although you can order pizza from the takeaway area and eat it on the tables outside at this time of year.

After that we joined the 8.30pm penguin tour from the marine centre, which was OK, not quite as informative as I thought, but think that depends on the guide a bit and I guess relies on us asking lots of questions. But we saw loads of penguins - which was perfect.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the Ozone (wasn't great, should have taken everyone's advice ! - there is a deli/cafe place round the corner that looked good, so if you can hold out until 9am that might be another option) then headed straight towards Flinders Chase National Park.

We paid our park fee's at the visitors centre, had a quick coffee (the cafe there looks as though it would be a good lunch spot) and went down to Admirals Arch, to see and smell (!) the seals (or are they sealions, I can't remember which way round it is - sorry) There were loads of them, playing in the water, sleeping & doing a bit of fighting - really great to see.

Then onto Remarkable Rocks - remarkable and good photo opportunities up there. Then we went over to the Platypus pools, just the other side of the visitors centre. Unfortunately we didn't see any Platypus action, probably cos it was the middle of the day so it was a bit of a disappointment. I think if you braved the pools either early in the morning or at dusk you'd probably get to see plenty.

Next stop was Seal Bay, where we managed to get there just in time for the 3.30pm tour (think they go every 45 mins at this time of year, not too sure though. The last tour was definitely at 4.15pm as the park shuts at 5pm) wonderful to see them up so close, and they just weren't bothered by us atall. You could probably see quite a bit by just doing the boardwalk, but it is quite special to get that bit closer to them.

Really then we were running out of time, as we were booked on 730pm ferry back. So we headed pack towards Penneshaw, watching out for the very large Kangaroos, that seemed to be appearing on the roadside !! and considering how much roadkill there is, we did drive back quite carefully.

We had fish & chips in Penneshaw (from Fish - very nice, although the Pizza looked good from the place next door too and there were also a couple of cafe's open - I guess to serve the people going back on the ferry), picked up some KI wines from the supermarket (stays open to 8pm even on a Sunday) and did try to see the Penguin Centre, but it wasn't open.

So that was it - back on the ferry and home to Glenelg. Really lovely weekend, could have spent a week there really easily.

Hope that's Useful.