March 6 - Kangaroo Island

 Ever since we booked this trip Marg wanted to get up close with a Koala. Today she had her wish come true. We went to Kangaroo Island for a nature tour.

Kangaroo Island is a large island south of Adelaide and is know for its abundant wildlife.  Unfortunately, the island and its wildlife were devastated by the wild fires in January.  About half of the island was engulfed in the flames and an untold number of animals, both domestic and wild, were killed.  Our tour guide was a volunteer fire fighter and he explained that they had the fires almost under control when the island was hit by historically strong winds.  The fire jumped the control lines and it spread uncontrollably.  This was followed shortly there after with another wind storm that enlarged the fires to catastrophic levels.  It took about a month to control the fires.

Like many plants native to fire-prone regions, eucalyptus trees or gum trees as they are called in Australia have adapted to survive in a wildfire. Fallen eucalyptus leaves and bark create dense carpets of flammable material that draws ground fires up into the leaves, creating massive, fast-spreading "crown fires" in the upper story of eucalyptus forests.Additionally, the eucalyptus oil that gives the trees their characteristic fragrance is a flammable oil.

And after a bushfire sweeps through an area, the eucalyptus trees have an advantage over other plants. Their seed capsules open up when burned, and the seedlings thrive in freshly burned, ash-rich soils.

After viewing another surf beach we went to Seal Bay Conservation Park.  Here we got to go on the beach and get relatively close to the seals but we not allowed to get so close to the seals that we would disturb them.  It was cute to see the pups play with each other.

Then we went to a eucalyptus distiller. They make eucalyptus oils that can clean anything or cure any disease, or at least that is what they claim.  The owner would have made Trump blush, with his outlandish statements about environmentalist and governments in general.  It was quite the show!

In the afternoon we went to the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park.  Here they had a wide variety of rescue animals that you can see and sometimes touch.  They had koalas, wallabies, wombats, reptiles, song birds, penguins and of course kangaroos. It was a wonderful experience to feed and pet these animals.  

Marg was even able to hold a koala named Blue. They both looked very comfortable.

On our way back to Adelaide, we saw several mobs of kangaroos in the fields.

For our dinner we went down to the fringe festival, which is underway in Adelaide this weekend.  Most of the restaurants were packed.