Up at 6:00 to pack, check our large bags, and get to the
ferry terminal at Cape Jervis for the ferry to Kangaroo Island. The island is very large and has an abundance
of things to see and do. We’ll stay
overnight tonight, have another full day on the island tomorrow and fly 20
minutes back to Adelaide tomorrow night on a small plane with a baggage
limitation of 15 pounds.
The island is very beautiful, with a substantial portion of
it dedicated to parkland and public beaches:
This facility sells pure eucalyptus oil which actually has
been distilled from the mixture of oil and water obtained from boiling the
leaves in giant vats. The oil is
promoted to have many uses; the scientist in me is skeptical of most of the
claims.
We next visited Seal Bay where, after lunch, we had a
ranger-led visit to the sea lions on the beach.
Why this is Seal Bay is confusing, as Kangaroo Island has seals in
another location which we will see tomorrow, but here at Seal Bay are sea
lions. The major difference is that sea
lions have real rear legs and can walk on them, while seals have rear flippers
and cannot raise their bodies off of the sand or rocks:
We then went to a sheep dairy and learned a considerable
amount about the dairy farming of sheep.
We got to tour the milking barn and taste a number of varieties of sheep
milk cheese:
Not done yet, we went to a honey farm! The beekeeper here
has an enormous number of bees and produces honey from a number of different
sources. We got to taste five different
honeys and indeed, they are quite different from one another:
Finally, after the honey farm, we went to a wharf where
every day, precisely at 5:00 PM, a man feeds the pelicans. This is a truly wonderful sight, as he has
some patter which he presents as he first teases and then feeds the patiently
waiting birds:
Victor - your photo of the pelican man is wonderful! Those beaks look threatening, but apparently they don't harm the hand that feeds them! Lovely sights. - Bob
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